From:  "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Tue Jun 15, 2004  1:35 am 
Subject:  This Is My Story : The Marvels

THE MARVELS (By Tony Wilkinson)

For many many years, sitting on my shelves has been the record 'What's The Use'
c/w 'The UT' (ABC Paramount 10243) by Harry M. and The Marvels. 'What's The
Use' is a superb bluesy mid tempo piano lead rocker, worthy of Jerry Lee's
output at Sun. During the passage of time, I managed to secure another two
releases by the band on the same label and there the trail ran cold. That is
until I recently acquired the CD 'Don't Pony With Tony. Do the UT With The
Marvels' on Night Train NTI CD 7137. This has excellent liner notes by Kevin L.
Goins and it upon these that the following piece is based.

Harry 'M' Middlebrooks was born into a musical family on 31st August 1938 and
was raised in the town of Thomaston, Georgia. He started to lean the piano at
the age of six and in his teens entered and won Freddy Miller's 'Stars Of
Tomorrow' talent contest. Harry says that he took the place of Brenda Lee on
the show after she moved to Nashville as a result of securing a contract with
Decca Records. Whilst at the Georgia Tech in Atlanta, he formed the band The
Collegians, who cut their musical teeth playing at various frat dances and
college sororities in Alabama, Texas and Georgia.

Come 1961, Harry wrote the song 'The U-T' which was about a dance popular at the
University Of Tennessee. Gathering up a group of musicians, a session was
booked at the National Recording studio in Atlanta with the late Felton Jarvis
engineering. After dubbing in some screams and cheering by Bill Lowery's
daughter and friends, Jarvis took the tape to radio station WQXL and the song
became a big local hit. Felton was also a talent scout for ABC Paramount
Records and he secured a contract with the label for the group. Upon release
and, due to heavy promotion and personal appearances, the disc appeared on radio
charts in Chicago, Dallas and Baltimore. To break the record nationally, an
appearance on Dick Clark's American Bandstand was being negotiated. However,
seemingly over a difference of opinion on the publishing rights between Lowery
and Clark, this failed to materialize and the record stalled.

Harry and guys then returned to the recording studio with Jarvis and laid down
some more sides. These resulted in the singles 'You Are My Sunshine/I Won't
Love Back (ABC Paramount 10321) and 'How Do You Tell A Heartache Goodbye/I
Deserve To Cry' (ABC Paramount 10586) being issued but found little favour with
the record buying public. After completing his education at Georgia Tech, Harry
entered into the US Army Quartermaster Corps at Fort Lee, Texas for two years.
However the rest of the Marvels wanted to carry on performing and recording. At
a fraternity party, their drummer Ronnie Rich had met Cliff Thomas who had
returned to Georgia Tech, after his spell as a recording artist for Phillips
International, to complete his education. Cliff offered to take the place of
Harry M. and was taken on board. The band worked weekends on the southern
college circuit whilst attending college during the week.

Dik admirably told the story of Cliff and his brother Ed Thomas in a recent TIMS
piece, so please bear with any overlaps. Cliff and Ed submitted two songs,
'Shame' and 'Do You No Wrong' to Johnny Vincent at Ace Records who sent the guys
to Cosimo's Studio in New Orleans to cut the sides. Backed up by Allen
Toussaint on piano, Earl Palmer on drums and Mac Rebennack on bass, seemingly
excellent rhythm tracks were laid down but the record was subsequently marred by
the insistence of Vincent in overdubbing strings.

The Thomas brothers were then involved in the recording of Huey Piano Smith's
comeback hit 'The Popeye' which had lyric supplied by Cliff to a previously
recorded backing track. When Vincent called for a Popeye album, Cliff could not
get sufficient time off college and so Vincent sent him $400 to record the set
in Atlanta. The brothers Thomas wrote the songs and along with The Marvels
augmented by Joe South and Jerry Reed, completed the project in two days flat.
The album was released to hit the 1962 Christmas market.

Cliff and Ed continued to write for Vincent during the early sixties and also
became involved in the Atlanta music scene where they discovered The Tams of
'What Kind Of Fool Do You Think I Am' in 1963. A year later Cliff graduated and
The Marvels were no more.

Meanwhile Harry M Middlebrooks had returned to the Atlanta recording scene after
completing his two years serving his country recording and writing for Bill
Lowry. In addition, he played piano on Billy Joe Royal's 'Down In The Boondocks'
and organ on 'I Knew You When'. One of his compositions, co-authored with
saxophonist Dave Sharpe, was the instrumental 'Spooky' that Dennis Yost and The
Classics IV turned into a monster hit in 1967. By that time Middlebrooks had
relocated to Los Angles, becoming involved in film and television acting as well
as hosting his own variety show on KABC television and recording albums for
Reprise and Capitol. He describes the latter as 'pure pop stuff, no rock 'n'
roll'. Some of the unreleased material cut in Atlanta is issued for the first
time on the aforementioned Night Train CD. Harry still performs on the west
coast and tours occasionally. If only he would return to his rock 'n' roll
piano playing roots.

Suggested Listening:

Night Train NTI CD 7137 'Do The UT with The Marvels (released 2003)