Lattimore Brown - Darlin' Dear (Excello 2196)

Darlin' Dear Our pal Ben The Balladeer asked about the flip of Excello 2196 in the comments last week (this is, after all, The B Side!), so I figured we'd check it out. Despite about a three year standing search on both eBay and Gemm, I've never seen one of these 45s offered at any price. Special thanks go, once again, to our benefactor Peter over in The Netherlands, who may just own the only copy of this record! Recorded upstairs from Ernie's, it's got that underwater feel we all love. I'm not sure if they were trying to make the organ sound like a pedal-steel, or if that's just a tape speed issue... but, once again that's Jimmy Beck and the band backing him up. Latimore's really singing on this one, which may just be his most commercial rock & roll record, clearly aimed at the teenaged radio audience. In 1954, The Counts had a top ten R&B hit with a tight doo-wop number called Darling Dear, which was subsequently redone a few years later by Sanford Clark. Both of those 45s appeared on Dot, which was the label run by Randy Wood, whose 'Randy's Record Mart' was Ernie's chief competitor in those days. Although they certainly sound alike (which may or may not have been on purpose), after several listens, I can tell you that today's selection is a different song entirely, and was written by someone named Leslie Finney (it is also a different song entirely from the Motown number covered by both Smokey Robinson and the Jackson 5 ten years later)... In other news, I just got the photo album and slide show of Sir Lattimore's New Orleans adventure up over on soul detective. Check it out! Also, don't forget that Nobody Has To Tell Me, which features the very first appearance of those killer Renegade cuts on CD (not to mention those primo liner notes), is now shipping from our friends at Soulscape. Order yours today! ...and now, with the fine weather actually upon us, we're gearing up for a big fat Memorial Day blow-out over here. Happy Summer Y'all!