The Five Dollars, "So Strange" c/w "You Know I Can't Refuse," Fortune 826 (rel. 8/1956)
Any time I can grab a slab of Fortune Records, I’m a happy camper. This ultimate mom ‘n’ pop hole-in-the-wall label operated out of a decrepit cinderblock building in a bad part of Detroit. Run by Joe and Devora Brown, this ramshackle facility had a dirt floor in its recording chamber. Devora was the musical director—she was a songwriter of some small acclaim—and, as recalled by Andre Williams, one of the label’s local stars, she taped everything: “…going to the bathroom, talking…that recorder was on from the time she walked in that booth until the time we walked out of the studio…they were recording…every single thing!”
Before they were christened The Five Dollars by Vee-Jay Records co-founder Calvin Carter (in a great story I won’t spoil; you gotta read it!), this vocalizing sextet were teenage wanna-bes The Del-Torros. They’d sung on Detroit street-corners, harmonizing on their favorite r&b hits of the day and working on derivative but spirited originals. They got the attention of Fortune’s first family, who signed them to a contract and then didn’t do anything about getting them into their primitive studio.
The youthful group pulled a daring stunt (the aforementioned encounter with Vee-Jay’s head honchos) which convinced Devora Brown that these guys meant business. She got them into the studio in the early summer of 1955, where, with new member Andre Williams in tow, they recorded two originals. (One side, "Harmony of Love," cribbed the melody of a record by The El Dorados, "Baby I Need You"—a trick they'd resume on the topside of today's record.
Andre Williams was a double-duty Fortune star: solo act and member of The Five Dollars, a vocal quartet with a gimmick borne of desperation: they harmonized without lyrics. Not on every song, mind you; they knew they could only get away with this X amount of times. They did this because Williams didn’t feel like penning lyrics. Ms. Brown liked this sound, and thought it could sell records, so she went with it for two singles.
Today we’ll hear the second wordless deck with a solid flipside, recorded in cruddy conditions and a bit hissy from the low-end audio equipment. This is dirt-floor rhythm and blues music with a real mystique to it.
“So Strange” features a stand-up bass, a distant piano and primitive percussion, augmented by an unusually crisp tenor sax. Elements of this record drift in and out of high fidelity as the Five Dollars make with a beguiling vocal blend. The bass voice doubles with the bass fiddle; Eddie Hurt makes with the high tenor part; Williams and the others fill in the middle.
Fortune’s erratic reverb equipment produces a shimmering sound more apt for a ‘50s monster movie, and the crusty-toned electric guitar that pops up towards the end suggests the musicians trucked in their own amps and that this player’s equipment had been kicked around. Glorious soupy crud all the way!
One feels the tolerance of Cash Box's reviewer stretched beyond comfortable limits.
On the flip, the Dollars do a zesty Latin-r&b take on a song by rival group The Orchids, “You Know I Can’t Refuse.” The Fortune crud-sound takes over here. Everything mooshes together in a lo-fi haze. Again, elements come in and out of focus. The guitar solo in the middle of the record is surprisingly crisp; the Dollars’ vocals get clear then muddy.
Despite its technical shortcomings, it's riveting, eccentric doo-wop with a hard bluesy edge: The Drifters on a weekend bender. Had the Browns owned better equipment, this might sound just like 100 other doo-wop records. But it doesn’t—oh, how it doesn’t.
Extra credit reading: Marv Goldberg published an article on the history of The Five Dollars which provoked Andre Williams, Charles Evans and Jay Johnson (all group members) to fire off contradictory letters. Read them here:
Tomorrow: our memory-lane week concludes with the cheerful, loopy New Orleans delight of The Hueys, with mega-appealing vocals and a bright, scrappy sound. You'll never think about ice cream the same way after you hear "Coo Coo Over You!"
"So Strange" sounds to me like a doo-wop train song—it's rhythm is a locomotive slowly leaving the station, valves opening, steam hissing, steel wheels slowly turning on the track. "You Know..." is a fun latin jump song. For some reason It reminds me of The Beatles jamming on the 1930s song "Besame Mucho."
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