A page from the book " The Cincinnati Sound" by Randy McNuttThe "Us Too" Group
Label : Us Too
20057 – I'll Leave You Crying
20058 - The Girl With the Golden Hair
According to Buckeye Beat :
In the late summer of '67 Shad O'Shea (Counterpart Records) (who was still working as a State Farm Insurance agent, employing Len Gartner briefly) took the group to Ray Allen's studio in Louisville (Shad's studio of choice until he built his own) to record their next record. Len wanted to add some orchestration to the record, so they hired a flute player and recut "I'll Leave You Crying", speeding up the tempo and fattening the organ. They also recorded a new song, "The Girl With the Golden Hair" using a similar production. Len played the organ on "Girl..". Shad held off from releasing the 45 for some reason (probably he was trying to shop it to a major label) so the group had a very few copies pressed up on their own label, stating "promotional copy". Shortly after WSAI DJ Tom Dooley (with whom the group had done a couple on-air appearances) called up Hi label owner Joe Coughi and played "I'll Leave You Crying" over the phone. Joe bought the rights over the phone, and put the record out as is. The record did well locally, making top 20 on WSAI and WUBE,and also got some action in scattered cities across the country. Hi pushed "Crying", although Len was behind "Girl" to get the pick side.
Read more HERE
All the articles about the "Us Too Group" fail to mention some of the former, original members including Jim Umhofer. It was I who came up with the name for the group as we were pondering all the British Invasion group names. Although they weren't British, "The Guess Who" was an inspiration, as was the "You Know Who". There are some who will dispute this, but that's the way it occurred.
ReplyDeleteJim Umhofer