Is there a photo of Mike with the Modifiers or as Mike Varo as I want to put together a CD for my collection. I`d be very grateful if somebody could help.

In the late 60s and early 70s Motown signed several well established acts but then sort of took their eye off the ball resulting in frustration. True that a lot was happening at once with the move to LA and entering the film industry with "Lady Sings The Blues". Nevertheless there were some fantastic tracks from artists such as Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, Bobby Darin and to a lesser extent Sammy Davis Jr and Lesley Gore.

Thankfully, in the case of Bobby Darin, material that had long been vaulted has been made available over the years - mainly thanks to Joe Marchesse & co [[e.g. Andy Skurrow) who've made it possible for these tracks to see release on CD. The Real Gone CDs have wonderful liner notes as well and are well worth looking up. In particular, "Another Song On My Mind" includes a great resume of Darin's Motown career - much of this can still be seen on the Real Gone website -

https://theseconddisc.com/2011/02/16...-motown-years/

You can see the full CD artwork here -

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cookep...57668721459480

And here are the covers for Darin's Motown albums / CDs

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cookep...in/dateposted/

Please advise of any errors

BOBBY DARIN MOTOWN DISCOGRAPHY

Recorded - 6 February 1971 Live at The Desert Inn [[Renamed “Finally” but still unreleased at the time)

M1183 – 17 April 1971
A Melodie
B Someday We'll Be Together

M1193 – November 1971
A Simple Song Of Freedom
B I'll Be Your Baby Tonight

M1203 – 2 June 1972
A Sail Away
B Hard Headed Woman

M753 ALBUM AUGUST 1972 – Bobby Darin

M1212 – Promo 3 November 1972 [[withdrawn)
A Average People [[mono)
B Average People [[stereo)

M1212 – 3 November 1972 [[probably a bootleg)
A Average People
B Something In Her Love

M1217 – 20 November 1972
A Happy [[Love Theme From "Lady Sings The Blues")
B Something In Her Love

Bobby Darin died 20 December 1973

M813 ALBUM February 1974 – Darin 1936-1973

PR4 [[PROMO EP) - 1974
A1 If I Were A Carpenter
A2 Moritat [[Mack The Knife)
B1 Blue Monday
B2 Happy [[Love Theme From "Lady Sings The Blues")

MW3014 – 1974 [[UK & EU)
A Blue Monday
B Moritat [[Mack The Knife)

M5185 ALBUM July 1981 – Darin 1936–1973 re-issued with 5 tracks having different mixes.

MCD09070MD CD 1987 – Live At The Desert Inn [[first ever issue)

MOTD -5185 CD 1989 – Darin 1936–1973 first issue on CD.

3746351852 CD 1991 – Darin 1936-1973 CD re-issue

NTD-6509-2 CD 2005 – Live At The Desert Inn [[re-issue / remaster / 2 extra tracks “Work Song” and “Beyond The Sea”.

RGM-0440 2xCD 6 May 2016 – Another Song On My Mind [[Real Gone Music)

RGM-0714 CD 13 July 2018 – Go Ahead And Back Up [[Real one Music)

I posted this before thought it was removed from YouTube

I saw this on Facebook today and thought I'd share here. Not Motown specific so please move to another forum if need be.

https://www.facebook.com/agreatolder...nD6qstnSHwUenl


Thanks to Evita Ellis for this:

By Kevin Powell

Ed Sullivan Matters to Black History
Because he was such an icon, he was able to have Black artists on TV when they were often not welcomed nor wanted elsewhere.
I cannot recall when I first heard the name Ed Sullivan, but it certainly had to have been when I was a ghetto youth coming of age in the 1970s and 1980s. I initially connected his name with music superstars Elvis Presley and The Beatles, and their now legendary appearances on his variety show. I was intrigued by how he introduced musical guests, his mightily distinctive diction, his genuinely low-key demeanor. But I had no clue, truly, who the man was, why he was such a major force in entertainment, and why for so long, until after I reached adulthood.

That recognition likely began when I studied Black history and Black culture while in college, and in the years that followed when I became a journalist, particularly as a documentarian of music and other art forms. And by the time I was hired to be a senior writer at Quincy Jones’ Vibe magazine in the 1990s, I found myself perpetually scanning “The Ed Sullivan Show” for footage after footage of Black performers like The Jackson 5, like Mahalia Jackson, like the legit who’s who of Black genius in song, dance, film, theater, and comedy. It was almost as if Ed Sullivan had been intentionally curating Black history on television, knowing that Black lives not only mattered then, but would matter to those to come, like me.

Indeed, it was somewhere between my Vibe years and the past decade or so that I learned how invested Mr. Sullivan was in equality. Perhaps it was because, as a young man, he was a serious and great athlete, and had encountered Black folks on the sporting field as gifted as he, and it left an impression – one that taught him not to view any people as inferior, as was commonly believed in Jim Crow America, just because of the color of their skin. Perhaps it was because he was Irish and knew there was a time in this nation where there were loud proclamations that the Irish were considered the absolute bottom of the immigrant barrel. Perhaps it was because the love of his life, his wife Sylvia, was Jewish, and he saw first-hand the anti-Semitism those like her endured.

These and other factors are likely why The Ed Sullivan Show was converted into the performance arm of the Civil Rights Movement. Because he was such an icon and such an influencer, he was able to have Black artists in that theater when they were often not welcomed nor wanted elsewhere.

How else would you explain The Temptations and The Supremes doing their massive pop hits in that hallowed circle, accorded the same treatment as White musical innovators? And, yes, how else could Motown have become “the sound of young America” without allies and accomplices like Ed Sullivan?

How else do you explain Mr. Sullivan, a close friend of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, the tap dancer who was once the biggest Black star in Hollywood, arranging the funeral service for a Black man who had the sad misfortune of dying broke, and doing so in a manner that suggested, strongly, this Black man was worthy of a grand send-off?

How else would you explain Mr. Sullivan, a White man, walking matter-of-factly into the yellowed and hateful teeth of racism by kissing Pearl Bailey on the cheek, or shaking the hand of Nat “King” Cole, on his TV show, knowing such gestures would savagely anger many White viewers, especially those in the American South who believed, without apology, in “For Whites Only” and “For Coloreds Only” in every way conceivable?

For sure, we know that The Ed Sullivan Show was the longest-running variety program in American TV history. We know that Mr. Sullivan became a star as big as the biggest stars he had on that program. But we also know that the Civil Rights era, roughly 1955 to 1968 – from the murder of Emmett Till and the Montgomery Bus Boycott to the assassination of Dr. King – means that Ed Sullivan had a front-row seat to the most dramatic upheavals sweeping America.

Here he was, someone who had spent considerable time digesting the Black talent in Harlem and via the “chitlin’ circuit,” with this gargantuan platform before there was social media, before there was cable or streaming, before there were all-music outlets like MTV, quite literally broadcasting Black history into the living rooms of everyday Americans year after year, from the World War II generation to the Baby Boomers, from nonviolent sit-ins and freedom rides to city after city burning in rebellion.

This is why I believe Mr. Sullivan did two things of great significance near the end of his remarkable television run. When he learned that Rahsaan Roland Kirk, the jazz multi-instrumentalist, was challenging the power structure to have more jazz on the airwaves, Mr. Sullivan did not do what others were doing: shucking and jiving and avoiding. He gave Mr. Kirk a slot with his makeshift band that included jazz giant Charles Mingus, and it remains one of the most searing and surreal mini concerts ever seen on TV.

But history is not history if it does not also acknowledge the traumatic that happened in real-time. Two years after the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. was tragically gunned down in Memphis, America remained a divided and burning house. Yet there was a regal and soft-spoken Coretta Scott King, MLK’s widow, in that Sullivan moment, introducing clips from two of her late husband’s most famous speeches, and declaring the kind of America it needed to be. An emotionally raw Ed Sullivan greets Mrs. King at the end, kisses her on the cheek and grabs her hand, a fearless middle finger to anyone who believed, and still believes, that White people and Black people should not even touch each other, that our histories are not intertwined, when they are.

Without question, Ed Sullivan could have lived a life awash in White male privilege and power and ignored what was happening around him. Instead, he chose a path of purpose, of substance, not knowing that there would be, say, an African American like me, in a completely different century, who would religiously watch his show on YouTube and elsewhere, and see not just my people and our whole selves, with great pride and dignity, but also see what is possible if history is inextricably linked to a sense of humanity, to a great love for all.

Does anyone ever hear any mention of Willie Tyler and Lester? At the Martha Reeves Walk of Fame celebration it was announced that Willie Tyler was in attendance but no mention was made of Lester.

Willie had an album released on Motown which I have a copy of.

I hope Lester is still with us.

Any comments?

Info from Real Gone Music:

Two Tons O' Fun "Get The Feeling—The Complete Fantasy/Honey Recordings"

Before they achieved stardom the world over with “It’s Raining Men,” Weather Girls Martha Wash and Izora Rhodes Armstead made waves in the thriving San Francisco music scene as Two Tons o’ Fun [and, later, The Two Tons]. The powerhouse duo began working with gender- and genre-defying artist Sylvester at Fantasy Records, singing background and lead vocals on many of his most memorable recordings. In 1980, they struck out on their own and teamed with legendary Motown veteran Harvey Fuqua [[who had also helmed Sylvester’s beloved albums) for two remarkable LPs on his Honey Records imprint. Fusing disco, dance, soul, funk, and R&B with roof-raising, gospel-tinged vocals, both Two Tons o’ Fun and Backatcha put the extraordinary voices of “Queen of Clubland” Wash and Armstead out front. Now, Real Gone Music and Second Disc Records are thrilled to celebrate the Two Tons with a complete 2-CD anthology that serves as a companion to last year’s acclaimed Sylvester release, Disco Heat: The Fantasy Years 1977-1981. Two Tons o’ Fun’s Get the Feeling: The Complete Fantasy/Honey Recordings brings together, on 2 CDs, both of the Two Tons’ albums – the first of which features Sylvester himself in the band – plus a host of rare single versions, remixes, and extended versions. Among the highlights are the top five Dance smashes “Earth Can Be Just Like Heaven” and “I Got the Feeling” as well as such R&B and Dance hits as “I Depend on You” and “Never Like This.” Both albums have long been overlooked; their last CD reissue was more than thirty years ago in the U.K.; this collection marks both albums’ U.S. CD debut, while most of the bonus tracks are also new to worldwide CD. For the occasion, all audio has been newly remastered by Mike Milchner, and we are remastering the two albums straight from the original tapes, so this collection will offer a big sonic upgrade. The collection also contains a deluxe booklet featuring liner notes by The Second Disc’s Joe Marchese and unseen photos. With the return of Two Tons o’ Fun, only one exclamation is appropriate: Hallelujah!
1. Do You Wanna Boogie, Hunh?
2. Just Us
3. I Got The Feeling
4. Gone Away
5. Earth Can Be Just Like Heaven
6. Make Someone Feel Happy Today
7. Taking Away Your Space
8. One-Sided Love Affair
9. Just Us [Single Version]
10. I Got The Feeling [Single Version]
11. Taking Away Your Space [Single Version]
12. Just Us [Disco Mix]
13. Earth Can Be Just Like Heaven [12" Version]
14. Do You Wanna Boogie, Hunh? [12" Version]
15. I Got The Feeling [The Patrick Cowley MegaMix]
16. Never Like This
17. I Depend On You
18. Your Love Is Gonna See Me Through
19. It's True I Do
20. Can't Do It By Myself
21. Cloudy With A Chance of Rain
22. I've Got To Make It On My Own
23. I Been Down
24. Never Like This [Single Version]
25. I Been Down [Single Version]
26. I Depend on You [Single Version]

Pre-order from Real Gone Music:
Two Tons O' Fun Get The Feeling—The Complete Fantasy/Honey Recordings – Real Gone Music