Talk:Len Stark

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C&P from Soulful Detroit

BOBBY ELI

By Rich on Thursday, February 07, 2002 - 08:37 pm: Hey Bobby, somewhere on the net I saw a reference to a single you did on Melron entitled Big Butters Pt1 b/w Pt 2. I've never heard the tune, but I was curious about it. Any recollections on that one.

By Polly Esther on Thursday, February 07, 2002 - 08:58 pm:

I can tell you about big butters, that was one of the only songs that Bobby sang on. It was a pre-historic cousin to RAP. Len Stark who owned Melron Records was a 47 year old dock worker who dabbled in lyric writing. His son Barney befriended Bobby when he lived in North Philly. He mentioned that his father wrote lyrics and that Bobby should hook up with his father. Bobby was thirteen at the time. The first project they did together was a girls group that went to Bobby's school, they were called the Sweethearts. Mr. Stark took his money that he earned from his day job and had Bobby get some of his musician friends together and go into Reco-Art studio which later became Sigma and record Bobby's first ever production called You'll Always Know on Harris Records it is extremely rare. Right around this time Mr. Stark started Melron named after his sons Melvin and Ronnie. The first artist was Rocky Brown. There was studio time left over on Rocky's session so Mr. Stark showed Bobby some lyrics that he had written about a ficticious fisherman named Big Butters. Mr. Stark prompted Bobby to recite the lyrics to a hastily constructed 5 1/2 minute backing track with the out of tune Del Rio's doing the backing vocals. Everything was recorded at the same time. Bobby had a acetate made up and gave it to Rockin Robin who was a radio personality in Philly. He put it on without listening to it and hastily took it off the turntable never to be heard from again until it magically resurfaced on a Best of Melron CD compilation that Philly Archives released in 2000. Melron is truly one of the rarest of rare pre Gamble and Huff record companies. This is the only time Bobby lent his lead vocals to any recording. There are several rarities where Bobby does some "backing vocals", one of them being Aki-Wawa by Cupit on Neptune Records, Bo did it on Marmaduke Records. Those are several that I know of offhand.

By Davie G on Friday, February 08, 2002 - 05:43 pm:

Polly,

Thanks for the info. on Melron - a real mystery label until Philly Archives resurrected them.

Bobby,

I know you did a lot of worl with Len Barry - did you work on the Electric Indian album - in fact are you the ELectric Indian ??

For the benefit of readers who might not know this one - Electric Indian was the name given to a bunch of Philly sessionmen who had a surprise instrumental hit "Keem-O-Sabe" on United Artists

By phillysoulman on Friday, February 08, 2002 - 06:09 pm:

Hi Davie,

Interestingly, the Melron cd has some songs on it that are rehearsals done in my house in north Philly!! I dont know where Dave Brown dug up that stuff. I was still in school and the audio/video dept. used to lend me their tape recorder thinking that I was practicing the technical stuff. Little did they know that I was recording all of these people that used to come to my house to rehearse and try to make things happen. During this time is when I met Len Stark, who "founded" Melron. He was your typical cigar chomping type that you might find working the docks. In fact, he did work on the docks!! His publishing company, Moonlake was named after a celery distribution company that he saw on a crate. His lyrics left a lot to be desired but this was my "grand entrance" into the world of record production so I appreciated the chance that he gave me. the stuff on the cd is the rarest of the rare!!!

https://soulfuldetroit.com/archives/1/196.html?1022180479

Karl Twist (talk) 13:54, 21 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

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