Deep City was birthed in academia, with its founders being various teachers and administrators in the Miami-Dade public school system. Like a number of record labels, Deep City had a house band, who would back various singers and soloists. For their house band, the Deep City crew had the brilliant idea to use Florida A&M University’s pep band!
While the early hits produced from this team were Motown carbon copies, the gems here are clearly the bluesy classic R&B songs buried often in the B-Sides. “I Am Controlled by Your Love” by Helene Smith was chosen to be the compilation’s first appearance of what has been considered Miami’s first lady of soul. It backed the spritely “Baby Love” rip-off “Thrills and Chills,” which actually proved to be a major regional hit for Smith and Deep City’s precursor, Clarence Reid’s Reid label. The Motown miming didn’t end there, as Paul Kelly’s “It’s My Baby” is almost a note-for-note version of the Temptations’ “My Girl.”
The collection also features the powerful crooning of the Moovers, which shines on cuts like “Someone to Fulfill My Needs” and “Darling I’ll Go,” while their other two songs “Darling I’ll Go” and “One Little Dance” once again echo the Motown sound. Reid and Clarke were also responsible for discovering the young singers Freida Ray (a 16 year old record store clerk with a bouncy energy felt on her song with the Rocketeers, “Stay Away from My Johnny”) and Betty Wright, a contest winner, discovered at 12, who fronts the two songs “Good Lovin’” and the powerful “Paralyzed,” with the backing vocals of her older sister and Helene Smith.
The demise of the Deep City label came in 1968, only a few years after its launch. Their operation ceased due to dissention in the ranks: the musicians and producers leaving for greener pastures (one going on to win a Grammy in the 1970s) while some of the founders and operators either remained or went back to their day jobs in the school system. Once again, Jeff Lipton’s remastering has brought a number of these songs back to life, and has included the proverbial “bonus cut” of a recording deteriorated beyond the point of repair but good enough not to be ignored. In a similar way, the Deep City label is like that bonus cut: while it’s not essential to the story (the history of soul music in this case), it’s good enough to not be ignored.
samples:
- Helene Smith - I Am Controlled By Your Love
- Betty Wright - Paralyzed
- Moovers - Someone to Fulfill My Needs
Read More
