The Charters on Mel-O-Dy

[nsoule]

I've been researching this record the last year or so, and wanted to share what I've found so far as there doesn't seem to be much information available other than the notes in TCMS and a few brief mentions of 2 knowns copies on various forums. If anyone has anything to add, I'd greatly appreciate it.

The lead singer of the Charters had a prior solo career as Count Ferrell. He released a lone 45 on the LeRegal label out of Cincinnati in 1961. The label was presumably owned by Ray Reynolds and Ron Moore, who are credited on both the Count Ferrell 45 and the Charters 45. The A-side of the Count Ferrel record was "Show Me Some Sign", which was re-recorded a year later and released as the B-side of the Charters 45. The B-side of the Count Ferrell record "Wizard Of Ah's" became a big Mad Mike spin in Pittsburgh and the record was "reissued" on the Astra label with various colored vinyl pressings.

Count Ferrell "Show Me Some Sign":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuDpNgAvz5s

The Charters "Show Me Some Sign":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7bhv7xBdVc

A lot of the information online states that the two known copies were acquired through the producer or a family member of the group in Toledo, but the Detroit collector/dealer that found both copies told me that he found them at a junk shop somewhere along 14 Mile, north of Detroit in either the late 70s or early 80s. He found them with copies of the Satintones "Zing...", the Contours "Funny", Marvin Gay's "Witchcraft", and other early 45s, so I would think it's likely they came from someone who worked at Motown or a radio station.

I still haven't found solid information on the rest of the group line up or where it was recorded, so again, I'd appreciate any information anyone has to share.

[mysterysinger]

Motown junkies

https://motownjunkies.co.uk/artists/c/charters/

[mysterysinger]

According to Discogs the members were John Williams, Ray Reynolds and Ron Moore

https://www.discogs.com/artist/687913-The-Charters

[nsoule]

I appreciate your contributions, but I have already come across both of these.

The Motown Junkies website essentially repeats the information from TCMS, which makes a guess that the group is from Toledo because the records were found there. I'm still not sure where the story about the records being found in Toledo comes from. As I said, I've spoken with the person who found the two copies, and he didn't find them in Toledo. It's possible that he could be misremembering, but his story of finding them and what he found with it was pretty detailed.

Discogs is very open-source, and it appears the person that made those associations didn't cite where he was getting the information from and possibly just made an assumption based on the writing credits. It is possible that the writers/producers were in the group, but I would love to see factual evidence of that. From what I've been able to dig up on Reynolds and Moore, they were primarily a writing and production team from Cincinnati and didn't actually record anything themselves. I don't know anything about John Williams, unfortunately.