The Jim Dandy label

The Jim Dandy label story:
Memories of photos and records

Jim Dandy advertising in "The Colonnade"
(Milledgeville, Georgia), December 7, 1957

I have been into the story of the small Jim Dandy record label since late 2010. Since my first post about it back then, I was able to assamble more detailed information about this local South Carolina label that was operated by Jim Price. Carolina music researcher Vance Pollock as well as a handful of witnesses and relatives of Price made it possible to present now an extended write-up about it.

The Jim Dandy record label originated from the small Jim Dandy recording studio, which was located in the Jim Dandy Film Service in Newberry, South Carolina. The film service was opened by James Broy "Jim" Price (born in 1918) and his wife Rita in 1957. By the late 1950s, Price also built a small recording studio within the film service and in 1961, set up the Jim Dandy record label. Its first release was the Elvis inspired "Destiny and Desire" / "Please Be Fair" by Fred Thompson that same year.

In December 1961, Billboard reported that Jim Dandy "offers jockey samples on its two new releases," which were by Melvin Morris with "Charlie's Got a Horn" / "Remember You're Mine" (Jim Dandy #1004) and Jim Stocks with "Knock on Another Door" / "Shadows" (Jim Dandy #1005). Further, Billboard explained that Price was always looking for new artists and songwriters.

Most of the releases were by local artists, including Eddie Kirkley and the duo Buck & Tommy. Songwriter Bill Trader, well-known for penning the hit "(Now and Then) There's a Fool Such As I", recorded an album of his own compositions on Jim Dandy. Trader was born on May 1, 1922, and hit big in 1952 with "(Now and Then) There's a Fool Such As I." It became a hit when Hank Snow recorded it and was later successfully covered by Elvis Presley, Jo Stafford, and Petula Clark. In 1962, Trader and his band, the Castaways, recorded an album of his own compositions. The songs "Cherokee Call" and "Bitter Harvest" from that album were also released on 45rmp.

Another act that recorded for Price was the duo Buck Jones and Tommy Hagen. They were from Wilson, North Carolina, and performed locally with Jimmy Capps, specializing in Louvin Brothers songs. In 1960, they had recorded their first disc for Ronald Killette's Glendale label and followed up with "A Lost Love" / "Never Love Again" for Price's Jim Dandy label (Jim Dandy #1007). The songs were in the Louvin style, which is no suprise since their lead guitarist Jimmy Capps was playing with the Louvins since 1959. Another disc by Buck and Tommy was rushed out by Price in 1962, comprising "Forever" and "Where Shattered Memories Are" (Jim Dandy #1008). Hagen joined up with Charlie Louvin about eight months after the Louvin Brothers split up in 1963. He played mandolin and sang the high harmony parts that Ira used to provide. Buck Jones remained in the Wilson area, recording some more 45s for Tiki Records, working on radio and television as well as running his own nightclub that closed in 2015. 

In 1962, Bill Haney and the Dixie Buddies had at least two releases on Jim Dandy. While "Oh! How I Cry" (Jim Dandy JD-1012) was a bluegrass song, his version of the "Crawdad Song" on Jim Dandy JD-1013 is a country outing with rock'n'roll elements. Haney was born in Haywood County, North Carolina and in 1957, he was part of Curtis Lee and the Dixie Buddies, with whom he appeared on the WRVA New Dominion Barn Dance out of Richmond, Virginia. His first record was made for the Atlanta based Super label. He toured the east coast in the 1950s and 1960s, playing country, bluegrass, and rock'n'roll, and also recorded for Dee-Dee and JFI.  In the 1980s, he performed locally with a band called the "Zassoff Boys" and also recorded an album with this group.

Jim Price closed down his Jim Dandy business in the early 1960s. In 1968, his wife Rita died but he remarried in 1971 and moved to Clinton, South Carolina, where Jim Price died in 1989. He was buried at the Newberry Memorial Gardens next to his first wife.

Discography

45rpm  
JD4501: Fred Thompson - Please Be Fair / Destiny and Desire (1961)
JD-1000:
JD-1001:
JD-1002: Saxons - You Are the One / The Power of Love (1961)
JD-1002: Judy Wright with Musical Accp. - Stop / The City of Despair (1961)
JD-1003:  
JD-1004: Melvin Morris - Charlie's Got a Horn / Remember You're Mine (1961)
JD-1005: Jim Stocks - Knock on Another Door / Shadows (1961)
JD-1006: Jim Hardin - It's a Shame / Blue Eyes
JD-1007: Buck & Tommy - A Lost Love / Never Love Again
JD-1008: Buck & Tommy - Forever / Where Shattered Memories Are
JD-1009: Eddy Kirkley - I'll Keep Telling Myself / Ole' Blues (1962)
JD-1010:
JD-1011: 
JD-1012: Bill Haney - Oh! How I Cry / 27 Strings (1962) 
JD-1013: Bill Haney & the Dixie Buddies - Crawdad Song / Lookout, I See a Heartbreak (1962)
JD-1014: Castaways - Caravan / Carol's Theme
JD-1015: Ideals Combo - Lift-Off / Double Shot
JD-45-962: Bill Trader and the Castaways - Cherokee Call / Bitter Harvest

Note: The number JD-1002 was apparently used twice.
 
Extended Play
EP 101: Lulu Belle & Scotty - Tenderly He Watches Over Me / When They Ring the Golden Bells // Have I Told You Lately That I Love You / Spanish Fandango
 
EP 102: Arthur Smith and the Crossroads Quartet - Deliverance Will Come / Will the Circle Be Unbroken / Amazing Grace // Beyond the Sunset / The Ninety and Nine / Whispering Hope

JDLL P102: Arthur Smith and the Crossroads Quartet - I Look Up / He Will Set Your Fields on Fire / When He Reached Down His Hand for Me // I Can Find My Way from Here / Going Down the Valley / How Great Thou Art
 
Albums  
JD-LP-963: Bill Trader & the Castaways - Bill Trader Sings his Songs 

Sources: Billboard, RCS, Country & Western blog, eBay, Bill Haney's website, Jerry Kendall, Bob, Kay Bank Custom Pressings, Mr. TeenSwe, Lightnin', Hayne Davis, Safran's Antiques, The Directory of American 45 RPM Records (by Ken Clee)

Gene & Martha Burns on Camaro

  Gene and Martha Burns - You're Looking at Me (Camaro 45-3447), 1971
Following my latest post, here's another one from Style Wooten's Camaro imprint. I don't know very much about Gene and Martha Burns other than they had three releases in 1971 on Camaro and another on Ouachita Records.

The Ouachita record was a Rimrock custom pressing and featured their version of the old Gene Autry & Jimmy Long hit "That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine." The label was based in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, which is located south of Hot Sprints and likley took its name from the Lake Ouachita or the Ouachita River in the Ouachita National Forest north of Hot Springs. Thus I believe they were a local act from Arkadelphia and possibly a brother-sister duet rather than a husband-wife duo, since it reads on their Ouachita release "arranged and produced by the Twins."

If anyone out there has more information on them to share, please feel free to contact me. I'm really interested in their story.

Gene & Martha Burns Discography

Camaro 45-3432: The Valley of Death / Old Time Faith (1971)
Camaro 45-3447: You're Looking at Me / Wonder Who (1971)
Camaro 45-3448: Shake You From My Mind / 100 Proof Tears (1971)
Ouachita OS-34: Silver Haired Daddy of Mine / ?

Read more

• Camaro Records discography

• Ouachita Records Discography

Wallace Gillispie on Camaro

Wallace Gillispie - Dim Lights Thick Some (Camaro 45-3491), 1973

Here's an odd one from Style Wooten's Camaro label in Memphis. Being a custom pressing company, amateur singers were no rarity on Wooten's labels. Gillispie recorded this gem in 1973. For the flip side, he used all of his songwriting talent to come up with "The Son of a Farmer," which was pretty much a reworking of "Life to Go." To be sure to escape any copyright infringements, Wooten didn't put up the composers of "Dim Lights, Thick Smoke," which were of course Joe Maphis and his wife Rose Lee. Their original version became a hit in 1953 on the OKeh label.

Read more:

• Camaro Records Discography

The Story of Perfect Records

The (short) Story of Perfect Records

(Miami, Florida) 

According to researcher John Miller, Perfect Records "made its appearance during the early 1950s and was devoted exclusively to Country and Western music." A sentence which might bear some inaccuracies. Maybe Miller did not knew better when he wrote these words in 1979 for the first volume of the "Miami Rockabilly" LPs but Perfect issued not only country material but also latin jazz. But the label did made its first appearance on the market in the early 1950s.

Perfect Records was one of Harold Doane's labels, owner of the American Transcription and Recording Service, later shortened to ART. Much has been written on this blog about about his other labels Art and AFS. During my intense research over the last few years, I assumed for a long time that Perfect was likely established by Doane in 1955. No records dated earlier than 1955 had surfaced until September 2022, when I discovered that he re-released old-time recordings by the Carter Family, the Coon Creek Girls and Roy Acuff on green labeled 78rpm records in 1953 (how he got hold of these recordings is unknown so far). Therefore, Miller's statement that Perfect was solely intended for country & western material, which I believed to be a falsity, was actually true - at least at the beginning of the label's life. However, the fact that latin jazz records by Machito & his Afro-Cuban Orchestra were released as early as 1955, shows that Doane soon broadened Perfect's repertoire.

After the re-issue of those old-time recordings, Doane set up another 100 series that seem to be country recordings without exception. The 100 series was issued only in the US - or South Florida to be precise. Other discs with different catalog numbers were likely produced for markets outside the US, including Panama and Costa Rica.

By 1956, rockabilly entered the repertoire of Perfect, as it was the case with so many labels in those days. The first recordings in this new style were those by Tommy Spurlin and the Southern Boys, a local Miami country outfit that had developed their own rockabilly tunes by then. West Palm Beach singer Wesley Hardin followed up with two recordings of hits of the day, "Honky Tonk Man" (Johnny Horton) and "Cry! Cry! Cry!" (Johnny Cash). The last known rockabilly release on Perfect was by Mike Shaw, once a member of radio and TV personality Happy Harold Thaxton's popular country band (who also had a release on Perfect). Shaw laid down two rasping recordings of "Long Gone Baby" and "Frankie and Johnnie," which became local hits.

The Perfect label was, however, a rather short-lived affair. After Shaw's record, the last known was by Rit Corso. By 1956 or 1957, the label vanished from the local music scene. In 1957, Doane replaced it with AFS Records, which operated well into the early 1960s.

If anyone can contribute to the discography or can share memories of Harold Doane's operations, artists, or the Miami country music scene in general, please feel free to leave a comment or contact me via e-mail. 

Read more about Miami's musical past:

• ART Records

• AFS Records

• Gold Coast Jamboree

• Old South Jamboree

• The Roxsters

• Happy Harold Thaxton  

 

Discography

16-101
The Carter Family
The Homestead on the Farm (A.P. Carter)

P-49176
Roy Acuff and his Smoky Mountain Boys
Will the Circle Be Unbroken (n.c.)
P-49179
July 1953

16-102
Coon Creek Girls
Pretty Polly (n.c.)
P-49177
The Carter Family

Beautiful Isle O'er the Sea (A.P. Carter)
P-49178
July 1953

Perfect 100

Perfect 101

Perfect P-102

Harold Donelson with the Buckeroos

Hillbilly Waltz (Harold Donelson)

ART-126 A

Eddie Thorpe with the Buckeroos

Rose of San Antone (Bob Wills)
ART-126 B

Perfect 103

Perfect P-104

Happy Harold and his Dixie Millers

Queen of the Smokeys (Cecil Carbonell)

Art 136-A

Mary Peck with Happy Harold and his Dixie Millers

Broken Hearted (Cecil Carbonell)

Art 136-B

Perfect 105

Perfect 106

Perfect 45-C-107

Tommy Spurlin and the Southern Boys

Danger! (Spurlin) / Ain't Had No Lovin' (Since the Last Time It Rained) (Spurlin)

A / B

1955

Billboard C&W review on October 22, 1955

Perfect 45-C-108

Tommy Spurlin and the Southern Boys

There Might Have Been a Love Song (Spurlin) / Tomorrow I'll Be Gone (Spurlin)

A / B

Perfect 45-109

Tommy Spurlin and the Southern Boys

Hang Loose (I've Gotta Rock) (Spurlin; Frost) / One-Eyed Sam (n.c.)
A / B

1956

Billboard C&W review on August 4, 1956

Perfect 45-C-110

Wes Hardin with the Southern Boys

Cry Cry Cry (Cash) / Honky Tonk Man (n.c.)

1 / 2

1956

Perfect 45-C-111

Mike Shaw with Sons of the Drifting Sands

Long Gone Baby (Shaw) / Frankie & Johnny (arr. by Shaw)

1 / 2

1956

Billboard C&W review on October 27, 1956

Perfect 112

Perfect 113

Perfect 114

Perfect 45-115
Rit Corso
I Like You (Beulke-Houseman) / Sweetest Voice on Earth (Beulke-Ax)
45-115-1 / 45-115-2

Perfect TR 45-4000
Machito and his Afro-Cuban Orchestra
Holiday Mambo (Chico O'Farrill) / Si Si - No No (Rafael Blanco Suazo)
ZTSP 24603 / ZTSP 24604 (Columbia)
1955

Perfect 45-4001
Machito and his Afro-Cuban Orchestra
with Graciella & the Rigual Brothers
Hay Que Recordar (Piloto-Vera)
ZTSP 24518 (Columbia)
Machito and his Afro-Cuban Orchestra
Negro Nanamboro (Mariano Merceron)
ZTSP 24519 (Columbia) 
1956  

Perfect No.#
Machito and his Afro-Cuban Orchestra
Adios (Woods-Madriguera)
ZTSP 24093 (Columbia)
Machito and his Afro-Cuban Orchestra / Vocal: The Skylarks
Mambo a la Savoy (Fuller-Machito) 
ZTSP 24094 (Columbia) 
1956 

Perfect No.#
Machito and his Afro-Cuban Orchestra
Bella Mora (Menita Caron) / Sambia (Rene Hernandez)
P 52219 / P 52220 

CCR on America

  Creedence Clearwater Revival - Who'll Stop the Rain (America 17013), 1970
Just a nice 45 I'm enjoying. This is the legit January 1970 France release of their US single, I think. I found it at a German flea market, no clue how it travelled that far.

Fiddlen Jamie on MSP

Fiddlen Jamie and the Country D's - Truck Drivin Man (MSP 6001)
This awesome recording came to me by one of Ohio's large musical experts, Scott Cheesebrew. When I heard "Truck Drivin Man," I was instantly struck with the great guitar work and the simple but charming quality of this record. When I first posted this record in 2016, I assumed "Fiddlen Jamie" was Jamie Gene Dennis from Saginaw, Michigan, but since then, many visitors left comments and revealed that I was wrong.

According to one of my visitors, Jamie Dennis hailed from Cement City in Lenawee County, South Michigan, near Lake Columbia. Dennis started to appear on local shows as a fiddler with his family band, also comprised of his father on rhythm guitar and his mother on bass. One of his most popular songs was his version of the fiddle standard "Orange Blossom Special". Throughout the years, Dennis would perform at countless spots in Michigan, including the Gospel Barn, the Golden Nugget Saloon, and at Meckly's Flavor Fruit Farms in Somerset, Michigan.

Dennis went to Columbia Lake High School and his teenage girlfriend remembered him as follows: "I dated Jamie briefly when I was 16. [...] His musical talent was incredible! I remember hanging out at his house one time and he told me to find any song on the radio and he would play it for me by ear, and he did, perfectly. I seem too remember that he did not even read sheet music! I went with the family in their motor home to one of the concerts they were playing, it was so fun. [...]"

At some point, Dennis made recordings of "Truck Drivin Man," "Arkansas Traveler," and "Black Mountain Rag" with his parents, known as "The Country D's." The songs were released by the MSP label of Archbold, Ohio, about which nothing is known. They made another record eventually, a cassette featuring live performances of their act.

While their act had focused on Dennis' image as a kiddie star, Dennis had outgrown this image by the 1980s and he went solo, switching to guitar and drums. While they still lived in Michigan in the 1980s, the family apparently later moved to Florida. While Dennis' parents had been deceased by 2019, his whereabouts are unknown to me.

Sources
• Special thanks to the many visitors, who remembered Fiddlen Jamie and shared their memories with me.