Barrett Strong Vee Jay Recordings?

[woodward]

I was just looking at the product line up for the upcoming Northern Soul of Vee Jay CD and saw an odd song: Gonna Take a Journey by Barrett Strong. I am totally unaware that Barrett Strong ever recorded for the legendary Vee Jay label. Can anyone furnish further information? No printed historical background on Barrett has ever revealed any signing to Vee Jay. Thank you.

[robb_k]

Barrett Strong moved to Chicago to work as a songwrriter/assistant producer and singing artist for VJ Records in 1963, after having worked as an artist for ATCO Records in 1962. He worked closely with Richard Parker and Calvin Carter, while writing songs for The Dells, Jerry Butler, Wade Flemons, Barbara Green, Joe Murphy and other VJ artists. He stayed with them into early 1965, when he started working with Carl Davis, staying in Chicago.

While with VJ, his own recordings were released on its Tollie subsidiary label:



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[woodward]

Robb --- thanks for providing the above information. I was curious about the ATCO recordings and I have a copy of The Directory of American 45RPM Records put out years ago by Stak-O-Wax, Ken Clee, of Philadelphia. I went through the ATCO 45 listing and was really shocked that this label which was in my opinion a minor league label actually released 1,095 sequentially numbered 45's. I went through the entire listing and came up with one issuance on their label

#6225 Seven Sins b/w What Went Wrong

Every documentary about him in all the Motown-related books never mentioned his Tollie or his ATCO releases or his being an artist on these labels.

Furthermore, a review of all the Vee Jay 45's in the above book does not include anything by him. Gonna Take a Journey apparently was an unissued-release.

Thanks for all your help. I really appreciate it. Now everyone should know about his non-Anna/Tamla releases.

[keith_hughes]

I think Barrett recorded just one single for the Vee Jay subsidiary, Tollie, and it's pictured above. I warmly recommend the other side of the disc, "Make Up Your Mind". It appeared on a Sue [[UK) LP back in the sixties [[thank you, Guy Stevens!), and was digitized for the Collectables CD "Vee Jay Rhythm & Blues" Part Three, issued by Rhino in 2000.

I think "Gonna Take A Journey" may well be previously unreleased. Let's hope Outta Sight Records tell us ...

[robb_k]

I have never seen another Tollie record by Barrett, nor have I seen a VJ release, nor one on Abner, Vivid or Exodus. And I cannot remember any listing for any other single. So, I, too, suspect that "Gonna Take A Journey" was left in the can. It seems clear that he was needed much more for his songwriting and production work than his singing career could do for the company. He didn't have any time to go on the road to promote his own records, so they would have died in any case. During 1963 and 1964 Strong was one of VJ's best songwriters and helped Cal Carter and Richard Parker in their Chicago recording sessions.

[roger]

Hello all ..

"Take A Journey" by BARRETT STRONG was on a C.D. called "A Taste Of Soul Volume One" that was released in 1993. The cover describes it as previously unissued.

This is the C.D.

http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/...oul+Vol.+1.htm

Roger

[robb_k]

You can listen to it HERE:

http://new.music.yahoo.com/barrett-s...ney--179074433

It's nice enough, with a male vocal background group [[probably The Dells). But, I think Barrett made the right decision to concentrate on songwriting and production [[which is what brought him to the attention of Carl davis, and, eventually back to greater success at Motown).