Long Tall Texan* — Adam White

MOTOWN’S COUNTRY EXCURSION BY WAY OF DALLAS

Al Klein was an unusual, intriguing Motown man.

To some, his name brings to mind the worst single ever released by the company. To others, he was a peerless salesman, who helped to deliver hits in America’s south and west. “Berry liked him very much, because he had a great personality,” said the late Barney Ales, who was Motown’s sales supremo in the ’60s and Klein’s boss.

“For the most part, all those white guys who worked at Motown, they were pretty square,” Stewart Levine, co-owner of Motown-distributed Chisa Records, told me earlier this month. “Al was anything but square. He was a little too hip for the room – all the time.”

***Al Klein with Chisa’s Hugh Masekela (photo: Neil Zachary)***

What distinguished Klein was that he could create and sell. He produced records by almost all the artists signed to Motown’s Mel-O-Dy label in 1963-64, and later became the parent firm’s national singles sales manager. Later still, he was given responsibility for Chisa during its association with Gordy’s company, working to promote the likes of Hugh Masekela, Arthur Adams, Monk Montgomery and the Jazz Crusaders.

And that notorious single? It was “Randy, The Newspaper Boy,” recorded by Ray Oddis, produced by Klein, and issued by Motown more than 55 years ago.

What adds to all this intrigue is the relative shortage of personal facts about Klein: for instance, where and when he was born (although there’s an update on that; see below), or how he got into the music business. Even his premature death in 1972 barely registered in the trade press.

It was at newly-formed Warner Bros. Records that Klein first appeared in industry chatter. The company opened in 1958, and he was responsible for its southern sales division, based in Dallas. It’s thought that he joined from Columbia Records, whose former chief, Jim Conkling, had been appointed to run Warner. When the start-up held its first sales convention in Los Angeles in July ‘59, Klein met another new recruit: Barney Ales.

The two became firm friends. “We bunked together at the convention, and had a great time,” recalled Ales. “Al was a sensational guy. He was probably a little older than me” – Ales was in his mid-twenties at that point – “and he was tall: maybe six-foot-five. He used to play football, and was close with Dallas players, especially the black guys.” But in late 1959, Warner Bros. downscaled its operations and closed the local offices. Ales joined a record distributor in Detroit, while Klein started up his own promotion firm in Dallas, plugging records for labels such as Ace, Cadence and Warwick.

Then, at some point in 1961, Klein launched his own Duchess Records, with R&B footsoldiers Lattimore Brown and Arthur Adams among the first to have singles released. The following year, the label shipped out a couple of 45s by British pianist Ralph Sharon, better known for being Tony Bennett’s regular accompanist. What’s more, those were produced by Klein in Dallas, begging the question of how a Cockney musician from London hooked up with a lanky entrepreneur from the Lone Star state.

THAT OTHER DALLAS MOMENT

Both Brown and Adams had engaging stories, too. “Originally, Arthur came from a small town in Mississippi,” says Stewart Levine, who recorded the musician at Chisa eight years later. “He didn’t wear shoes until he was sixteen. He was a great R&B player, an instinctive musician and a good songwriter. When he was living in Texas, Al Klein somehow became attached to him. He knew Arthur Adams before I knew Arthur Adams.”

Bandleader Brown earned his stripes in the ’50s on package tours with the likes of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. At the end of the decade, he settled in Dallas, and opened a popular club, the Atmosphere Lounge. His silent partner in the business was none other than Jack Ruby, before Ruby became known the world over for shooting JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.

Duchess went through independent distributors during its brief lifespan, including those affiliated with New Orleans’ Instant Records; Klein also reconnected with Barney Ales, looking to place his label with Aurora, his ex-Warner buddy’s distribution outfit in Detroit. By 1962, however, Ales was a fulltime Motown employee, running its sales operation and looking to beef up his crew. “I had to get somebody to start seriously promoting our records,” he recalled, “down south and in California at the very beginning. I talked Al into that, and I let him live in Texas. We only had singles in those days, albums I could handle myself.”

In addition, Klein brought his Duchess assets to Detroit. When Universal Music’s Harry Weinger and consultant Keith (Don’t Forget The Motor City) Hughes were working on The Complete Motown Singles series, they discovered tapes in the vault for all those recordings, most of them produced in Dallas or Nashville. “I asked Harry what were the chances of getting them out,” says Hughes. “He said, ‘Not a chance in hell,’ because there was no paperwork to support Motown’s ownership.”

On June 28, 1963, Motown did release an album of Klein’s Duchess sessions with Ralph Sharon, entitled Modern Innovations on Country and Western Themes, on Gordy. It contained the four tracks issued on Duchess singles, together with other favourites of the genre, including Hank Williams’ “You Win Again.” The liner notes were authored by Tony Bennett. “I think this album is a fine example of an interweaving of two of our native musical forms, ‘country’ and jazz,” wrote the singer, “and I heartily recommend it.”

“Both Berry and I liked jazz,” said Ales, “and Berry especially. Detroit was a fantastic town for jazz, but it was tough to sell records.” Yet Gordy’s interest in broadening Motown’s base was not confined to that style. Ales convinced him to diversify into country, employing Klein’s experience and expertise. “That’s when we decided to change Mel-O-Dy.”

In 1962, the label’s initial 45s had featured the Temptations (billed as the Pirates), the Vandellas (as the Vells) and Lamont Dozier. On February 7, 1963, the first of the “new” Mel-O-Dy singles went to market: “Sugar Cane Curtain” by the Chuck-A-Lucks, a vocal trio – not exactly country, but certainly not R&B. Klein had inked them at the end of ’62, with recording done at Pams Studio in Dallas. The single was scheduled for release on Duchess in January, but he then evidently firmed up his Motown deal.

A WEEK IN DETROIT

There followed 15 Mel-O-Dy singles in 1963-64, with a couple spilling over into ’65. Most were by male soloists signed and produced by Klein at Motown’s expense, including Howard Crockett, Gene Henslee, Bruce Channel and Dorsey Burnette. Generally, the sound was period country & western, often with Johnny Cash undertones, or in the case of Channel’s “You Make Me Happy,” resembling the singer’s own, earlier pop No. 1, “Hey! Baby.”

For liner notes in The Complete Motown Singles Volume 4: 1964, Channel told Bill Dahl, “I went with Al to Detroit and spent a week out there. Berry cut some things on me, I think about six sides. Holland-Dozier-Holland were involved in doing some of them.” Two of the H/D/H tracks were “Call On Me” (predating the Four Tops’ version) and “I Wanted To Cry,” both cut in December 1963.

Even so, none of the Mel-O-Dy tracks registered on the Billboard charts, and the subsidiary was quietly laid to rest. Yet two of Klein’s productions have lived on, at least in infamy. The revamped label’s second single, “The Interview (Summit Chanted Evening)” by Bert Haney and Brice Armstrong, was a “cut-up,” featuring excerpts from recent hits by others, spliced into a comic exchange between Haney as John Kennedy and Armstrong as Nikita Krushchev. The result was utterly dreadful, but decades later, it still commanded hours of derisive attention on the popular Motown Junkies site – with even an appearance by an 84-year-old Haney (“How could you be so cruel to an old man?”).

***Motown’s worst-ever single? Discuss***

Klein’s other black mark was “Randy, The Newspaper Boy,” released under the V.I.P. imprint in November 1964. This Christmas novelty single – if novelty is the word – was narrated by Ray Otis, a prominent DJ at all-powerful WKMH Detroit when the recording was made, two years before. (It left no commercial impression, but also exercised Motown Junkies readers long afterwards, including ex-Motown publicist Al Abrams, who confirmed the true identity of Oddis/Otis.)

But for Klein’s skills as a salesman, Ales – or Gordy – might have jettisoned him after Mel-O-Dy. Instead, the Texan (*to make an assumption about his birth) advanced and prospered, spending half his time working out of Motown’s Dallas office, the other half in Detroit. In 1968, he was featured in trade paper Hitkit, although his was a generic interview in which only the obvious was stated, as in, “I feel that enthusiasm is one of the most basic ingredients in establishing hits.”

Still, Klein had no shortage of that when appointed in 1969 to handle Chisa Records at Motown. In particular, Stewart Levine remembers his effectiveness with Monk Montgomery, the bass-playing brother of guitar god Wes. “One of the Crusaders, Wayne Henderson, really loved Monk and wanted to do an album with him. And I thought, ‘How the fuck do you make an album with a bass lead when you’re with Motown?’ ”

Once released, Montgomery’s It’s Never Too Late (including a version of Stevie Wonder’s “A Place In The Sun”) was prodigiously promoted. “Al took it on himself to bring Monk’s record home,” says Levine, “and he got it on the radio. In Detroit, Monk sold out Cobo Hall – it was 3,000 people, and it was insane. The Crusaders opened for him!

“When Al had a passion for something, he went against all the grains. He was a quirky, original guy. A bit uncomfortable. He had a goatee and shit, and wore funny hats. I could never quite figure him out, and I don’t think he could figure me out, either. In that Motown operation, you would never think a guy like that could be in it, trusted by the guys upstairs. But he was.”

West Grand Blog is taking a short break. See you on the other side, with luck.

Footnotes: Al Klein left Motown in 1970 and again formed his own business in Dallas, including Ground Sound Productions, for which he re-teamed with Bruce Channel and Howard Crockett. Later, he moved to New Mexico, working with Albuquerque rock band Mudd and signing them to MCA’s Uni Records. In 1972, Klein died in unknown circumstances, albeit consistent with his reputation as an unusual, intriguing Motown man.

Music notes: The Complete Motown Singles series, mentioned above, is an obvious place to sample Al Klein’s Mel-O-Dy work, and it forms the basis of this playlist. Johnny Carroll’s “The Sally Ann” actually predates those days (it came out on Duchess), while the Chuck-A-Lucks and Ralph Sharon were also recorded before Klein joined Motown. And yes, if you must, “Randy, The Newspaper Boy” is present, too. Finally, there are a couple of tracks which Klein promoted on Chisa Records’ behalf, namely, Monk Montgomery’s “A Place In The Sun” and Arthur Adams’ timeless “It’s Private Tonight.” Elsewhere, Bruce Channel’s “I Wanted To Cry” from his Holland/Dozier/Holland sessions, came out on Ace Records’ fine 2014 CD compilation, Satisfaction Guaranteed! Motown Guys 1961-69, while another track, “Call On Me,” is on YouTube, as linked above.