I've always loved the Elgins' cover of "It's Been A Long Long Time," but the 1961 original by the Cleveland-based The Five Quails [[Billy Strawbridge, Billy Fulgham, Art Kirkpatrick, Donald Brown, and James Williams) is outstanding. Since it was recorded on the Harvey label, that means that Motown now owns the rights to the Five Quails' catalog [[and
the Five Quails continued to record and gig at Motown). Junior Walker provided the sax backing on the
Harvey sessions, so these tracks are also of interest to Junior Walker collectors.
As far as I know, there are only two Five Quails cuts that have been released on CD: "Got to Get to School on Time" and the flipside "Been A Long Time" were featured on Motor City Memories Vol. 1 and 2 in 1991.
Is there any chance that other Five Quails tracks might resurface on future Cellarful of Motown or other vault releases? I would love to hear more of their work [[they also recorded some cuts on Mercury in 1957).
Been A Long Time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nirjt_2n0vs
Got To Get To School On Time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P05KncE_kJc
Five Quails bio at AllMusic:
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:j9fexq9kld0e~T1
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