|
 The story begins with Harry Balk, who owned several movie theaters in the black neighborhoods of early 50’s Detroit. To help offset theater costs, he began running talent shows and amateur night contests to bring in additional income. Lots of kids tried out for the talent show, including Detroit local Roberta Sweed. "There was this kid that kept winning the talent shows week after week, Balk explained. "His name was 'Little Willie John' and he was the first kid I put on record."
 As television became more mainstream, Balk decided to leave the ailing theater business to manage Little Willie John, who had several R & B hits including “All Around The World” and most notably “Fever.” Managing Little Willie John was not only moderately lucrative for Harry, but it gave him his first real taste inside the world of recording studios and production watching Henry Glover at work. “Little Willie John was young, and he and I and his father would drive out to Cincinnati where Sid Nathan owned King Records, and we’d record out there,” recalled Balk in a July 2009 phone call from his home in the L.A. basin.
  Little Willie John became harder and harder to manage, according to Harry, because of run ins with the law and drug-related issues, so Balk made the decision to cut all ties with the young star and began developing fledging R & B sensation Kenny Martin, whom he got signed to the King subsidiary, Federal Records.
 Hanging out in the Detroit night clubs, Balk came across Irving Micahnik, a Detroit businessman who was a furrier and owned Irv’s Furs. Micahnik dressed sharply, always a cigar in hand, and made some decent coin in the fur business. Harry’s eye for good talent and ear for music peaked Irving’s interest, as he was looking to somehow break into the music business and capitalize on Detroit’s vast local talent himself. Micahnik and Balk decided to go into business together around October of 1958, and formed Artists, Inc., a talent and booking agency. Irving was the investor, providing the initial start up costs to secure some office space located on 20 West Alexandrine in Detroit. Each formed their own publishing company at the time, Harry with “Vicki Music” and Irving with “Melanie Music,” named after their daughters. Owning publishing companies would allow the management team to generate income both off of sheet music sales (still very big at the time) and give full control over the collection and administration of the songwriting royalties. Irving had gone to law school, but was never a lawyer. It gave him an uncanny edge to formulate a brilliant idea to set up publishing companies, control the song publishing and the recording masters, and lease the recordings to established major labels that had good distribution, as opposed to selling or signing them over. “Irving was a genius in that regard,” Balk commented. One of their first collaborative discoveries was a group called Freddie & The Parliaments. They signed them to contract and soon discovered a Toledo based group called the Orbits whom they also inked to paper. They set up an audition for Atlas Performers Corporation, a talent agency run by Morty Craft, to see a performance of Freddie & Parliaments (a vocal group), and the Orbits (an instrumental band) were the backing players. The audition was a failure. Freddie & The Parliaments bombed the audition but the feedback to Harry and Irving was that the Orbits had potential.
 About this same time, Harry’s movie theater friend, Stuart Gorelick, whose father also owned several movie theaters in Detroit, started up a recording studio in Dearborn, Michigan above their Carmen Theater called Carmen Studios. Gorelick had instant success in The Royaltones with the Top 20 hit “Poor Boy” in late 1958. Harry and Irving booked studio time at the Carmen for just $60, and brought in the Orbits, whom they renamed as Johnny & The Hurricanes. They also brought in The Dream Girls, a black vocal quartet freshly signed to their talent agency that featured lead singer Elma Holman, who later took the stage name Bobbie Smith. Irv and Harry’s first recording session yielded The Dream Girls’ “Don’t Break My Heart” and “Oh, This Is Why,” backed by The Royaltones, and Johnny & The Hurricanes’ “Crossfire” and “Lazy.” Freddie & The Parliaments attended the session, and provided the handclaps to “Crossfire” since the recording studio was running off single track mono machine at the time. Everything had to be recorded ‘live’ and there was no overdubbing at this early stage.
   Irving and Harry made a trip to New York by car to shop the records to major labels in New York City. Nobody wanted the recordings. Frustrated by their unsuccessful trip, they pondered the idea to form a label and put the recordings out themselves. “So we formed the Twirl label in the spring of ’59,” Balk explained, “and we pressed 1000 copies of ‘Crossfire’ on Twirl. We used deejays in Detroit that we knew to help promote the record locally in Detroit, and the next thing we knew we had them sold. So we pressed I think 2000 more and then pressed 1000 copies of The Dream Girls.” The record took off, and caught the eye of Morty Craft, who had just formed Warwick Records. Morty approached Irving and Harry after originally turning down the Parliaments and offered to place "Crossfire" on Warwick. Micahnik and Balk agreed but cleverly leased the record to Warwick for a limited time, and then having rights revert back to them. The Dream Girls single also achieved some local buzz, and was picked up by Cameo.
   Morty Craft suggested recording a follow-up session in New York, where recording conditions were more professional for a better sound. Irv and Harry agreed and brought Johnny & The Hurricanes to New York to record four more songs, one being “Red River Rock,” which became the second Hurricanes record and a Top 5 hit!
 With a major hit under their belts, royalties started flowing in, which helped to fund additional acts. Johnny & The Hurricanes would score several more major and minor hits, and soon Harry and Irving signed on Shirley Jackson, a piano player; Willie Jones and The Royal Jokers (with Willie going solo), and they took another crack at Fred Kelly from the Parliaments (without the Parliaments) and leased their recordings to MGM’s subsidiary, Metro Records. Inside of a year, Balk and Micahnik were growing leary of Morty Craft. “We had one of the hottest groups in the country, Johnny & the Hurricanes,” Balk recalled in a recent interview with the author. “In 1959, Johnny & The Hurricanes were huge, we had three or four hits, two best-selling albums, and Morty was doing backdoor deals and hustling with other New York suits.”
 Johnny & The Hurricanes became the gravy train of all gravy trains. A true cash cow act. Revamping old folk songs and cowboy tunes that were in the public domain, Harry and Irving were able to tag their own names to the songs as composers, Harry as “Tom King” and Irving as “Ira Mack.” Producers’ royalties were assigned and credited to “King-Mack Productions.” The winning formula was so ingenius that it might have made Albert Einstein's head swim.
 In 1960, Micahnik and Balk cut loose Warwick and Morty Craft to sign a new pact with Johnny & Freddy Bienstock at Bigtop Records. Bigtop was owned by the Aberbach brothers, Jean and Julian, who also owned the massive Hill & Range Publishing arm. Irv and Harry formed EmBee Productions, named after their surname initials, and Artists, Inc. continued signing acts to their stable. Liza Smith, Mike Drummond, The Five Teenbeats and then, in the summer of ’60, Del Shannon and Max Crook.
 “We never had to really search out acts,” Balk explained, “We got a lot of foot traffic to our door. If we liked them, we signed them, and if not, ‘Hit the door!’ Ollie McLaughlin, who was a deejay in Ann Arbor, brought in Del Shannon and Max Crook. Ollie and Max were friends and that’s how we signed Del.”
 Del and Max brought in “Runaway” and in January of ’61 they recorded a session in New York. “I had the best New York session men on that record,” Harry said with a smile. Leased to Bigtop Records out of New York, “Runaway” shot to #1 on the Billboard charts in April ’61 where it remained for four weeks, becoming the most successful recording in the Vicki Music catalog.
 Balk produced Shannon’s follow up single, “Hats Off To Larry,” which topped out on the charts at #5. Balk and Micahnik had two hit-makers on their registrar, and some of those proceeds helped to fund additional acts and ‘risks’ in recording and releasing more singles by the Dream Girls and Kenny Martin, but also newcomers such as Mickey Denton, Harry’s wife Patti Jerome, Johnny Gibson, Spencer Sterling (C.P. Spencer), Don & Juan, Danny Zella & The Zeltones, and Bobby Darin protégé Jamie Coe.
 By 1962, Johnny & The Hurricanes' hits were drying up, and Del Shannon’s hits had tapered a bit also, but he consistently cranked out Top 40 hits for the Twirl stable under the Bigtop banner well into ’63.
 Twirl struck gold in Don & Juan, releasing “What’s Your Name” in ’62 and watching it climb to the Top 10 as a Bigtop release. “Leasing records to major labels minimized our risks,” explained Balk. “They would take a cut, of course, but their distribution systems were far superior to what we could pull off having released on Twirl alone.” Irving managed most of the live booking gigs for the acts signed to Artists, Inc. and he managed to do a pretty good job of keeping the acts on the road and on tour, especially when they had a hit record. Sometimes he traveled with them overseas, such was the case with Del Shannon on European and Australasian tours.
 In August of 1962, Balk and Micahnik attempted to take Twirl to bigger heights by issuing recordings on their own label. Included on their “2000” numbered series were The Young Sisters, Patti Jerome, Maximilian (Max Crook), Grant Higgins, The Four Imperials, Ronnie Putirka, Eddie Reid, Vivian Jones, and The Royaltones.
 By 1963, things got ugly. Irving Michanik, who allegedly was a habitual gambler, had many unpaid debts in New York and Detroit, including unpaid recording time. Recording studios Bell Sound and Mirasound were pressuring Bigtop Records for payment. In the end, Johnny Bienstock paid the outstanding bill, thus denying Irving any access to the masters, and severed ties altogether.
 Aside from that, Johnny Paris of the Hurricanes had managed to lose the original Hurricanes by this point, having to replace four Hurricanes with new members, and trying to move away from ‘kiddie’ instrumentals and progress into the vocal market. Del Shannon, the other breadwinner of Twirl, was looking to break free from Artists, Inc. as royalties that were due were not being paid out to him. Micahnik blackballed Shannon in the industry, threatening lawsuit against anyone who would sign him. Del’s response was to form his own label, BerLee Records, and took Twirl Records to court.
 Fires were eventually put out after Shannon's BerLee sales ailed and all parties realized everyone was a loser in the break up. Matters were settled, and Shannon came back to Twirl in early ‘64, with his subsequent recordings being leased to Amy Records, a subsidiary of Bell Records. Bell also owned the Mala label where Johnny & The Hurricanes recordings would see future releases. “Most of our records from this point fell under Bell via Amy or Mala,” Balk explained. Balk and Micahnik leased out their recordings to labels such as Jubilee and Josie in the interim of 1963, between being cut loose by Bigtop and having signed with Larry Utall’s Bell Records conglomerate. “Actually I think our first record with Utall might have been with Willie Jones, on the ‘Mr. Peacock’ label,” mentioned Harry.
 Having the Royaltones signed to their stable of artists, Balk maximized that band by using them in a sense as Twirl's in-house band. Rehearsals would take place in the back room of the Twirl office on Alexandrine and Woodward in Detroit, and the Royaltones would be paid about $5.00 each to rehearse whomever was singing vocals for the upcoming session. The Royaltones replaced most of the New York session men once used by Balk and Micahnik, and each member was paid $15.00 at a professional session, which was much more less than having to pay the session aces about $150 to $200 each to play at a Bell Sound or Mirasound session. Sometimes fellow artists Johnny Gibson, Shirley Jackson, or Duke Browner would sit in on keys, as The Royaltones by this point no longer had a keyboard player. T.J. Fowler was used as the arranger on some Detroit sessions, while Bill Ramal was utilized as the arranger for all New York sessions. Harry Balk signed on as A & R man for Lou Guarino’s new American Arts label out of Pennsylvania, and released Bobbie Smith, Mickey Denton, Patti Jerome, and The Volumes on the label. Dave Yorko, formerly of Johnny & The Hurricanes, reclaimed the Orbits name and issued a single on American Arts produced by Balk under the name Dave & The Orbits (“Chili Beans” b/w "Cheetas Uncle").
 By the end of 1965, Irving and Harry decided to part ways. As Harry put it, “In the end, nobody was getting paid, I wasn’t getting my royalties either, things were getting bad, so I sold out my share of Vicki Music and interests in Twirl Records to Irving for a lump sum, and we parted ways.” Harry formed a new label, Impact Records, and a new publishing company called Gomba, and took in John Rhys as a junior partner, scoring a Top 10 hit in “Oh How Happy” by The Shades of Blue. He retained some of the groups like The Volumes, elements of The Royaltones, Mickey Denton, and Patti Jerome, while discovering new talent. He later started Inferno Records and by 1968 sold out to Berry Gordy and took a job at Motown where he worked to establish white acts and the Rare Earth label.
  Irving relocated the Twirl label to New York, releasing a final Don & Juan single and finding a stable of new artists to include Buddy & Stacey ("Angel"), Joann Courcy (who recorded the legendary Northern Soul floor filler "I Got The Power"), Dale Brooks ("What Is There To Tell"), The Carvelles, The Jagged Edge (who recorded a masterful garage punker "Midnight To Six Man"), and cut-in artist Dickie Goodman ("James Bomb"). By the summer of 1966, Irving was shut down by the Internal Revenue Service and did some temporary jail time for tax evasion. Once released, he went on to manage Chubby Checker, but died suddenly in 1977 of a heart attack.
 Determined to get his own copyrights back, Del Shannon bought the publishing rights to the entire Vicki Music catalog and the rights to the masters at Irving’s Estate Sale. However, Johnny Paris was aggressive in claimed his rights as well, and managed to acquire back the Johnny & The Hurricanes masters and Irving Micahnik’s songwriting credits (Ira Mack).
 Although the Twirl label had a lifespan of about seven years, it preceded Motown by a few months and had a major output with it's roots beginning with "race records" a la Little Willie John and Kenny Martin, to early rock ‘n roll with Johnny & The Hurricanes, paving a way for west coast surf music, to bridging the gap in a period after Buddy Holly's death and before the British Invasion with chartmakers like Del Shannon, and where the doo-wop sounds and R & B evolved into what is now considered Northern Soul through acts like The Volumes, Don & Juan, and Bobbie Smith & The Dream Girls.
In the summer of 2008, Del Shannon’s former manager and Bug Music founder, Dan Bourgoise, along with longtime Shannon supporter Brian Young, teamed up to re-launch the Twirl Records label in 2009, giving it a renewed life and utilizing digital download technology by way of iTunes and MP3 formats as the new mainstream to make the old catalog readily available and accessible worldwide for the first time in nearly 50 years. In staying with the tradition of Twirl, the publishing catalog of music and master recordings are available for licensing, and/or movie and television synchronization. Best of all, the songwriters will be paid royalties for their work which has, unfortunately, sat dormant for many, many years.
|
HOME | HISTORY | ARTISTS | STORE | CATALOG | DISCOGRAPHY | CONTACTS | MYSPACE | TWITTER | YOUTUBE | FACEBOOK
© Copyright 2009 TwirlRecords.com, Twirl Records, and Mole Hole Records. All Rights Reserved. Administered by Bug Music, Inc.
Vicki Music, Melanie Music, Marcella Music, and Bal-Mac Music catalogs are wholly owned by Mole Hole Music, Appoline Ave Music,
and Belton Street Music. "EmBee Productions", "King-Mack Productions", and "Twirl Records" are Trademarks of Mole Hole Records.
Johnny Paris and Johnny and the Hurricanes® are Registered Trademarks of Sonja Paris. Website maintained by Brian C. Young