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Soul Strut 100: #100 Jr. and His Soulettes - Psychodelic Sounds

RAJRAJ tenacious local 7,783 Posts
edited December 2017 in The Soul Strut 100
I will slowly be unveiling the Top 100 Soul Strut Related Records as Voted by the Strutters Themselves.

#100 is Jr. and His Soulettes - Psychodelic Sounds



Please discuss your reactions to this record. The thread will be archived later in a seperate part of the site.

  Comments

  • GrandfatherGrandfather 2,303 Posts
    it might not be easy but if any dudes have links bookmarked for the OG thread that would be helpful too.

    This album is pretty awesome though. Of course, I dont own a copy but I have heard it and its entire style blew my mind.
  • RAJRAJ tenacious local 7,783 Posts
    I was lucky enough to start searching for the private press record back in the 80's when not too many people cared about such nonsense???.

    it allowed me to track down, talk to and sometimes even meet all kinds of characters...

    So at Chris's request.....the Jr. & The Soulettes Story

    Musta been the late 80's or early 90's....my partner Mark and I
    took a trip up to Oklahoma City to look for records. Most of
    the day we hit various Flea Markets with pretty good success.
    Multiple sealed copies of Guiness and Tomorrow label LP's, about 20
    sealed copies of the Markley LP, and alot more, most of them at
    $1.00 each.

    Our last stop of the day was a place called The Memory Market,
    which is still there today. It's a large metal building that housed
    about 10-15 various antique dealers who specialized in "junk". The
    back 1/3rd of the building was run by two elderly women who dealt in
    nothing but records. Tens of thousands of records, LP's and 45's. We
    started digging in and it was apparent that we were the first ones
    to go through this stuff who were looking for what we were looking
    for. The first hour yielded titles like Badge & Co. a very beat up
    copy of The Marble Phrogg, Darius, Trizo-50 and many more.

    The market was going to close at 6:00 and it was about 5:45 when
    I came across an amazing looking record titled "The Psycho-Delic
    Sounds Of Jr. & The Soulettes". The cover was a "10" with Jr.
    playing a Gibson Firebird behind his head while doing a split on the
    stage. I called Mark over, we pulled out the little Big Bird record
    player we carried with us and put the LP on to give it a spin. It
    was beyond warped, totally destroyed with only about 20% of the
    surface area being playable.....enough though for us to know we had
    found a MONSTER, yet bizarre LP. Mark pointed out that it had an
    Oklahoma City address on the back.

    We paid for all the LP's and headed straight for the pay phone
    in front of the place. We looked in the phone book and sure enough,
    we found a Harold Moore Jr. & Sr. at the same address. I called the
    number and was greeted by something that could only be described as
    sub-human animal sounds.....Uhhhhhoooerrruggyhg....I could not make
    out a single english word this guy might be uttering. Then a second
    party picked up another line and told "Jr." to hang up. It was
    Harold Moore Sr. and he was one very friendly guy.

    It was late winter and by 6:00 it was starting to get dark, yet
    Hariold Sr. invited Mark and I over to his house with the promise
    that "I have a whole suitcase filled with those old rekkids, you
    fellas come on over". We got directions and began to drive to the
    house......it wasn't long before we realized we were going to the
    worst part of OKC.

    In the South it's pretty well known that if you live near the
    railroad tracks or by the river, you're probably in the bad part of
    town. The Moore house was built on stilts, with the river on one
    side and the railroad tracks on the other. We parked, went to the
    front door and rang the bell.....no answer. Then we knocked on the
    door pretty hard.....again, no answer. mark walked around to the
    side of the house and followed some very loud "Disco" music to a
    room in the back of the house. He looked inside and saw Harold Sr.
    sitting in front of a column of amps and receivers that were
    producing this very bass heavy music. he banged on the window, got
    Mr. Moore's attention and he waved for us to go back to the front
    door.

    Harold Sr. opened the front door and acted as if we were long
    lost friends...he quickly invited us in while yelling up the stairs
    at "Jr." while apologizing to us for his "effed up son". He brought
    us back into the "music" room and it was pretty bizarre. In the
    middle of the room stood a camera on a tri-pod. In each corner of
    the room that the camera was facing were little triangular stages
    built into the floor with a full length piece of plexiglas from
    floor to ceiling in front of each "stage". The stage was about large
    enough for one person to stand on.

    Mark was an electronics engineer and in an attempt to start a
    conversation he asked Mr. Moore if he had the "schematics" for this
    contraption he had built out of about 20 amps and receivers. His
    response was "Schematics!! I just found this stuff in the garbage
    and makes it". Our goal was to get some LP's and get back to Dallas
    but Harold had alot to talk about and wanted us to stay.

    After being there about 15 minutes Harold says..."You boys wanna
    see my puppet"!! How do you answer that question to a grown man??
    Of course we said "Sure!!"....He opened his drawer and pulled out a
    puppet made out of a sock. You know, one of those winter socks that
    they make "Sock Monkey's" out of. "This here is my snake" and I'll
    be damned the thing had a hat that could not be described as
    anything but a "Pimp" hat and a big fat set of lips.

    He then went on to explain that everything in the room was set
    up for the puppet....the music, the camera, the stages. He also
    explained that all his grandkids loved the puppet but he couldn't
    tell them about the puppet's "night life". He then pulled out a
    video, put it into a VCR and began to show us just what the puppet
    was all about. Before I attempt to explain what we saw I have to say
    that this moment was surely the most surreal in my life and I'd have
    given anything to have had a camera as I knew I would have to repeat
    what I saw and that no one would believe it.

    The video starts off with that same bass heavy, thumping, Disco
    music and the pimp puppet "dancing" to the beat. Then a black woman,
    a naked black woman comes into the frame and begins to dance with
    the puppet. This goes on for about 5 minutes with the puppet doing
    various obscene things to what appears to be this super-imposed
    naked woman. The video stops, a new song starts to play and now the
    puppet starts dancing with a different, nude, black woman. Friggin'
    Amazing!!!

    After about 10 minutes we've seen enough and tell Mr. Moore that we
    have to be going. Harold then explains at Mark's request just how he
    makes these movies. On a Friday or Saturday night Harold usually
    goes out and picks up a hooker. Not for sex, but to dance with the
    puppet. The naked hooker stands behind the plexiglas in one corner
    of the room while Mr. Moore operates the puppet behind the second
    piece of plexiglas in the opposite corner. The way the camera is set
    up on the tripod, it is able to not only record the puppet, but uses
    the plexiglas to make a reflection of the woman in the opposite
    corner so he gets the effect that they are actually dancing
    together!!! GENIUS!!!!

    Getting down to business we asked for the LP's promising to pay
    him some big bucks. He goes into a closet and drags out a very old
    and beat up suitcase. He opens the suitcase which is FILLED with
    sleeveless 45's. Not an LP to be seen. "Oh you boys are looking for
    those BIG rekkids" he said....."I don't have any of those, they were
    all ruined". Needless to say we were disappointed but we bought a
    few of the 4 different 45's from him, two of them being non-LP cuts.
    Harold apologized for not having any of the LP's and told this
    story.....

    He had 4 children, Jr. and his three sisters who had been
    abandoned by their alcoholic Mom. Harold Sr. worked for a very rich
    Jewish woman who took a liking to the kids and bought them musical
    instruments and paid for lessons(This explains the Gibson Firebird).
    She made the kids a deal that if they learned how to play at least 3
    songs she would get them a slot on some local TV Telethon. The kids
    took to music very quickly and within a year were appearing on local
    TV. The response was so good that the woman paid for them to record
    an LP but suggested they write "original" songs.

    This is where Harold Sr. comes in, writing all the songs that
    appear on the LP, with most of them being attacks on the drunken and
    supposedly abusive ex-Mrs. Moore......"Mama drinks Tequila, She
    stays drunk all the time"......once the LP was recorded and pressed
    the next step was to get them in the local record stores. At least
    one store told Mr. Moore that they could not stock them unless they
    were shrink wrapped. Harold went to a butcher shop where his brother
    worked and used their shrinkwrap machine to seal the
    LP's....unfortunately this was a high heat machine and he melted
    every single LP in the process. This wasn't discovered until someone
    bought one and brought it home....all the LP's were pulled from the
    stores and rather than re-press it, the woman decided to release some
    45's.

    The 45's themselves are a work of art....with photos of each of
    the kids heads on the label....very home made and cheesy looking. As
    Mark and I were leaving the Moore's home he asked for two favors.
    One was to write to the Guinness World Book Of Records and request
    that his kids be put in as "The youngest group to make an LP and
    play their own instruments" which we did to no avail. The second was
    to never tell his grandkids what we saw the puppet doing...which has
    not been a problem to uphold.

    No matter how well I told that story there is no way you can
    begin to understand just how weird it was. If I ever win the lottery
    this will be just one chapter in a film I'd like to make about some
    of the folks I've met in this wacky world of music....hope you
    enjoyed.

    Rich

    P.S. The day after we got home I made a cassette of the LP and a
    xerox of the cover and sent it to legendary Psych dealer Paul Major. Paul truly thoughtthat I had made this whole thing up and that there was NO WAY an LP
    like that existed......he eventually believed me.

    http://www.soulstrut.com/index.php/forums/viewthread/11774/
  • DB_CooperDB_Cooper Manhatin' 7,823 Posts
    Wasn't this the one where Rock met the dude but was only able to get his hands on a 45? I didn't know the actual album ever turned up in listenable form.



    PLEASE TO POST TEH JUICES
  • TheKindCromangTheKindCromang 1,463 Posts
    Only one OG LP shows up on CFranzy and it sold for $365 earlier this month
  • GuzzoGuzzo 8,611 Posts
    TheKindCromang said:
    Only one OG LP shows up on CFranzy and it sold for $365 earlier this month

    had I known I wold of dropped the coin for it.
  • inVrsinVrs 687 Posts
    just a quick check: have there been multiple reissues of this, maybe a recent one? Or only this
    http://www.popsike.com/JR-AND-HIS-SOULETTES-kiddie-funk-RARE-80s-press-lp/180282632032.html ?
    I m sure i ve seen a reissue in the bins at a store near here, just wanted to check.
  • DB_CooperDB_Cooper Manhatin' 7,823 Posts
    inVrs said:
    just a quick check: have there been multiple reissues of this, maybe a recent one? Or only this
    http://www.popsike.com/JR-AND-HIS-SOULETTES-kiddie-funk-RARE-80s-press-lp/180282632032.html ?
    I m sure i ve seen a reissue in the bins at a store near here, just wanted to check.

    I had no idea it had been reissued. But a quick google search revealed that the juice was, indeed, widely available.
  • holmesholmes 3,532 Posts
    yes, i believe there are a couple of reissues.
    i love this lp, have a reissue filed, knowing the story behind it's discovery makes it all the more insane.
    a fun album.
  • pcmrpcmr 5,591 Posts
    the post was epic and the record itself is fitting to start off the list because it represents to me what digging for records is all about.
    Looks cool, has a unique sound but the more you learn about the record the more you ''get it'', finally self-produced pipedream band that got discovered and i s now appreciated is what record collecting is made of
  • The_Hook_UpThe_Hook_Up 8,182 Posts
    I remember a band mate buying a used CD copy at Recycled Books in Denton, TX around 99 or 2000...we listened to it after band practice...hot, sweaty, typical shitty Texas August day. Being a little brain drained from learning songs at practice, hot, half-drunk listening to it was truly a "what the fuck is this?" moment. I'll never forget sitting on that fucked up couch in that hot ass house hearing "Mama Love Tequila".
  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    Never heard it, but I like everything about it, kiddy soul, private weirdness, Roc's stories about finding it and the dad...
  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    good start to the party
  • RAJRAJ tenacious local 7,783 Posts
    Lil dude's getting down:

  • big earbig ear 67 Posts
    really like the music
    loved the story
  • pickwick33pickwick33 8,946 Posts
    Love this album. Remember buying a CD reissue in the nineties. Haven't played it in years, but I do recall that every single song sounded alike, with the exception of "Pop Junior Pop," which is at least in a different key. I think that song might be my favorite for that reason.
  • iconicon 86 Posts
    A mint copy of this showed up at ARC a couple years ago that apparently was found in Austin with no heat issues at all. Eventually sold for $800 and I regret now not paying that for it. 2 of the 45s turned up at the same show for $2.
    Crazy story, crazy record. I would imagine Rock will have digging stories for quite a few of the SS100.
  • yuichiyuichi Urban sprawl 11,332 Posts
    Don't care too much for private press kiddie funk, but this is dope.
  • CousinLarryCousinLarry 4,618 Posts
    big ear said:
    really like the music
    loved the story

    Exactly, this record has such a brilliant couldn't make this shit up if you tried back story.
  • inVrsinVrs 687 Posts
    just got the reissue today, apparently has been sitting in the bins of this store for over a year. love the vibe, cant think of any record that compares to this... so, whats #99? lets keep this going!
  • doisndoisn baleadas&pupuzas 303 Posts
    very nice to see this finally happen!

    didnt knew this one before, so thanks for the introduction. dl and just skipped through, rock blues got some for me but in all, not really my cup of tea, bit too weird, could grow but i dont think so. but really looking forward to read the story and check it out in full at least once. Lets see, what a great Site this is!
  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,794 Posts
    How old were the players? It's a facemelter with that backstory.

    I've never complied a personal top 100, so I can't say if this would make the cut, but that yootoob above is great. Good choice people!
  • tripledoubletripledouble 7,636 Posts
    rock's harold sr. story has always been one of the best.
    i seem to recall someone on the board finding a copy years back? maybe one of the guys from rehash?
  • pimlicosquirrelpimlicosquirrel 772 Posts
    The back story is great. Semi-related; I worked at a large chain store in the late 80's with a shrink wrap machine. We opened and re-wrapped every record that came through the door (adding a tag). Dudes would turn the heat all the way up and the conveyor speed to compensate. The resulting pile-ups dished the fuck out of a lot of records. We falsified an insurance claim by running a hose over thousands of records when a pipe burst in a stairwell.

    This is the shit
  • karlophonekarlophone 1,697 Posts
    tripledouble said:
    rock's harold sr. story has always been one of the best.
    i seem to recall someone on the board finding a copy years back? maybe one of the guys from rehash?

    god knows where that old finds post is, but that was me. i turned up a decent-ish vg- unwarped playable copy like 4? 5? +??? years ago. i hadnt read the story and was totally unaware of the legend of this record at the time. i knew it was cool and weird based on how it looked, but thats it. When i realized what i had (after the Strut reacted and i did my homework) i was flabbergasted - mostly because it was found in upstate NY. my only clue is it was in a small stack of local rnb OK City records, (none of the others were particularly good). Whoever got rid of them to the guy i got them from must have been from OK and for whatever reason had headed north, only to dump his/her records along the way.

    its pretty much my favorite, most treasured LP in my collection. i paid $40 if i recall correctly??? it was a haggle because the seller also liked the way it looked a lot. Neither of us had a clue about it.

    im not sure why the record looks green in that one spot, must be the mylar sleeve.

  • RAJRAJ tenacious local 7,783 Posts
    Sick!
  • doisndoisn baleadas&pupuzas 303 Posts
    good read, crazy story! :beerbang: but cant listen to it still.
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