Tiger B. Smith

 Artist: Tiger B. Smith

LP: We're the Tiger Bunch

Song: "Inside My Head"

[ listen ]

The second place I went digging for vinyl on my Minnesota road trip last week was Roadrunner Records in Minneapolis. It's a cute little shop packed with lots of vinyl goodies at good prices. This 1974 Tiger B. Smith LP, however, was a little on the spendy side. But after taking into account their hair, makeup, wardrobe and abundance of glitter (they're also German, which helped!) I decided to take a chance...and I'm glad I did! Tiger B. Smith doesn't have a huge discography, so I've already got just about everything they released, with the exception of a few singles and a million dollar EP. I also left Roadrunner Records with a handful of old French singles, but those I haven't listened to yet.

[ Roadrunner Records — Minneapolis, Minnesota ]

Betty Wright [1953-2020]

Artist: Betty Wright

LP: Danger High Voltage
Song: "Where Is the Love"

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I was bummed to hear today that Betty Wright passed away yesterday from cancer. (I'm also sad that Little Richard has died, but I don't have any of his records). Betty's biggest hit, "Clean Up Woman," broke into the top ten on both the R&B (#2) and the pop (#6) charts in 1971, when she was just 17 years old.  

This 1974 LP includes "Where Is the Love," linked to above, for which Betty won the Grammy for Best R&B Song! It peaked at #2 on the Disco charts, and #15 on the R&B charts, but only went to #96 on the Billboard Hot 100 pop charts. Where Is the Love, indeed. You can read all about Betty Wright on Wikipedia here, and go here to find her obituary in the New York Times.

 Betty Wright

[ December 21, 1953 — May 10, 2020 ]

We will miss you, Betty.

Lionel Richie

Artist: Lionel Richie

LP: 7" single

Song: "My Love" 
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"You've been my friend and you've been my lover, oh lawd. Honey, you're everything I need. You've made my love so strong, now I know where I belong. Oh girl, you'll never have to worry. Oh baby, any more, any more." Oh, lawd—I should have been an early '80s pop ballad lyricist! This shit is easy, as long as your public isn't too discerning. And as we can see here, they were not. I could have been famous. Just thinking about it blows my mind. All the time. Did you know that Lionel Richie scored 13 consecutive top ten hits between 1981 and 1987? "My Love" was the 4th one, peaking at #5 in 1983. I found this single at River Street Beat Shop in downtown Troy, NY.

Downtown Troy is a wonderful, exciting place. It's basically a large grid of mid-sized 19th century structures on lovely tree-lined streets. It doesn't seem to have had its charm slit open and gutted to make way for huge crappy cement things the way so many other downtowns in upstate New York did in the 1960s, '70s and '80s—before people finally stepped back to take at look at what they were destroying and said, "Hey, this is actually kinda' neat. Let's make it a landmark." I even had a French dip dinner with au jus in a bar that used to be frequented by gangster Legs Diamond—or, as I like to call him, ole' Diamond Legs. The man was notoriously hard to kill.

[ River Street Beat Shop — Troy, NY ]

Calypso Rose

Artist: Calypso Rose

LP: Splish Splash

Song: "Me Ein't Going"
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Record Archive is humongous. When I first laid eyes on its Tweety Bird yellow exterior walls, I figured there was simply no way that the entire building could be filled with record store. But it is. I felt like Charles Foster Kane in Xanadu when I stepped inside. It's got to be one of the vastest record stores I've ever seen. Anyway, after recovering from my awestruck state, I had only about 45 minutes to browse before they closed for the day. So of course I was back the next morning when they opened the doors to pick up where I'd left off. Even then I was only able to dig through a small fraction of the records they have for sale. 

It was at Record Archive that I finally found the ever-elusive 7" of Missing Persons' "Walking In L.A.," which I'd been hunting for since the 1980s; I found a Bohannon record I hadn't seen before, a couple of Billy Williams LPs, and a few other goodies too—including this 1970s album by Calypso Rose (she was called Linda McCartha Monica Sandy-Lewis, when she was born, so you can hardly blame her for the name change). Rose has been living in New York City since before I started looking for that Missing Persons single, and even earlier than that she was the first woman to win the Trinidad Road March competition. That was in 1977, and she won again in 1978 too! There's more to know about this dynamite diva on Wikipedia here.

[ Record Archive — Rochester, NY ]

Wilkins

Artist: Wilkins

LP: Wilkins

Song: "Bella Sin Alma"

[ listen ]

Song: "No, No Le Digas Siempre No"

[ listen ]

This self-titled 1975 LP by Puerto Rican superstar Wilkins (aka. Wilkins Vélez, aka. German Wilkins Vélez) is the other of the two records I found at the Sunday outdoor flea market in Columbus, Ohio during my road trip last summer. I just recently discovered that Wilkins' "Bella Sin Alma" is actually a Spanish-language version of "I Was Waiting For You," one of my favorite songs on this Richard Cocciante album. You can listen to Richard's version on this mix tape I put together a few years ago. Anyway, back to Wilkins: Click here to read more about the handsome Latin cantador con un afro mágico de la luz, and visit the official Wilkins website here, where you can read his extended biography, find his full discography, and buy some of his wine.