R&B RECORDS

AND ME

VAL SHIVELY

I was born in West Philadelphia on

January 8, 1944 (Elvis turned 9) and

lived in the Stonehurst section of

Upper Darby, PA. Before we had TV, I

listened to the radio every night. I

especially liked Gene Autry and the

Lone Ranger radio shows---and as a

result---my very first records were

by them. I next got into "novelty"

records---like Stan Freeberg's "St.

George and the Dragonet" and Buchanan

and Goodman's "Flying Saucer". I'm

not sure if "Green Door" by Jim Lowe

or Elvis' "Don't Be Cruel" was my first "pop" record

purchase---but it was "Don't Be Cruel" that really got

to me. I played that record for hours at a time and

drove my parents crazy! For Christmas in 1956, all I

wanted was records. I got "Singing the Blues" by Guy

Mitchell and "Just Walking in the Rain" by Johnny Ray,

"Blueberry Hill" by Fats and "I Feel Good" by Shirley

and Lee. I heard these songs on WIBG----the "pop"

station I listened to. For my birthday two weeks after

Christmas, I got a transistor radio---and was I in

heaven! I took it everywhere.....put it under my pillow

at night and even took it to school by hollowing out a

big book. Once I got that radio, that was it for my

other hobbies...no more collecting comic books, stamps,

coins, and (bubblegum) cards.

To support record buying, I got a daily paper route

delivering the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin from 1957

to 1961. I loved it---and hated to give it up!

I quickly became a regular at all the record shops (and

appliance stores) that sold records in my area. One

such place was Majestic Records in Clifton

Heights. Besides selling records retail, they were in

the vending business. I probably bought more records

there than anywhere else since they were located so

close to my house... by now we had moved to Drexel

Hill. I remember riding my bike in the pouring rain to

buy "Silhouettes" by The Rays after hearing it for the

first time on the radio. I shared that story with Hal

Miller (lead singer of the Rays) a few years ago when I

met him at a party.

Whenever I bought a record by an artist that I liked, I

looked for anything else they made. Majestic was a good

place to search because they had thousands of used

records that came off juke boxes at 5 for a

dollar. Fortunately, juke Boxes don't kill (destroy)

records the way people do.

By the end of 1959, I had over a thousand records. In

late 1959 or early 1960, I bought a Webcor tape

recorder figuring I would tape records off the radio

and save money. It took me a little over a year to

realize it was cheaper to buy the records. But, during

that time I discovered R&B radio stations and heard

records that in most cases never made it to the "pop"

stations...artists like Herb Johnson, The Cruisers,

Bobby Marchan, Etta James, Baby Washington, Jackie and

The Starlites, and Maxine Brown.

Finally, high school was about to end

(thank you, Lord), and my mother

insisted I attend college or a least

a business school. Since bookkeeping

was the only subject in which I did

well, I enrolled at Pierce Business

School in Center City Philadelphia

and majored in accounting. Unlike

high school, I loved Pierce.

At the same time, I was listening to black radio

stations and started buying Alan Freed and other

standard oldies LPs. Some of the students at Pierce

also liked records---especially Bob Bintliff---who was

in a Philadelphia area vocal group called The

Lytations. He told me about Jerry Blavat's

radio show on WCAM in Camden, NJ. It was

only a 1000 watt station---and it didn't

come in especially clear where I lived. BUT

WHAT I HEARD-----CHANGED EVERYTHING! I

became obsessed with the old group records--

-which he played heavily. Most of them were from New