About Me

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=170 BGCOLOR="#000099" TEXT="#F7F7FF" background="13baac00erkqpg.gif"> <bR> <bR> <div> <B><IMG SRC="07ab6880.jpg" border=0 width="182" height="136" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> <div> <B>Bill Spoon at work in "</B><B>Belspoon Studio</B><B>"</B></div> <div> <B>Bill is hard a work singing lead of some of the new "Soul Notes" material</B></div> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000066" FACE="Arial" ><B>Lou Ragland</B></FONT>     |     <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Lou Ragland"><U>home</U></A></div> <div> <B>About Me</B><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id37.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="My Photos"><U>My Photos</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id27.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="My Photos"><U>My Photos</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id18.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="My Favorites"><U>My Favorites</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id19.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="My Hobbies"><U>My Hobbies</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id20.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="My Resume"><U>My Resume</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id21.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Favorite Links"><U>Favorite Links</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id22.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact Me"><U>Contact Me</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id23.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Miscellaneous"><U>Miscellaneous</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id31.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="My Photos"><U>My Photos</U></A></div> <div> <I>About Me</I></div> <div> <B>Lou is the lead singer and CO-owner of "The World Famous Inks Spots" He along with his wife operate Ragland Enterprises, Ragland Publications and The Las Vegas Music Association. Lou Still performs as a single and with the group. There is a new show in the works right now called "Someotha Brothers" featuring Lou Ragland and some of his famous friends, look for it in your atmosphere soon!  For the first time in history the World Famous Ink Spots have recorded a Christmas album, when you can get your hands on a CD and be pleasantly surprised.  Lou Ragland in Alaska, see below;</B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>Interview with John "Soul" Smith</B></div> <bR> <div> On a recent visit to Las Vegas, I took the opportunity to trap Lou Ragland, produce my tape recorder and quiz him on all the aspects about Cleveland soul that I could recall before he could escape my clutches. Much to his credit, Lou took the time and effort necessary to help me and I must say although his memory isn't 100% perfect, it's not far off this level of perfection. Since returning home, I have asked him further questions to fill in some gaps and I hope you will agree that the following data is very illuminating with regard to the happenings on the city's soul scene over a 20 year period…….<FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> JRS: What do you remember about Jessie Fisher </div> <div> LR: Jessie, he was always around the Way Out Studios. I was the only staff engineer at Way Out from 1965 to 1967, so knew. Way Out was at 1966 E 55th Street and at that time it led everything in Cleveland. It was 8 track, so Agency and Cleveland Recording lost a lot of business to Way Out. I would unlock the studio and we would work from 8am to 8pm on Way Out stuff. During those times, I trained up Tim Lockhart as an engineer. Other artists would block book the studio, like Bobby Womack and Bob Davis would book it for his artists, he had 3 groups……...Before they were at 1966 E 55th Street, Way Out had an earlier studio at 1871 E 55th. That was used as a rehearsal studio and then it was over to Cleveland Recording at 1900 Euclid (Ave. – next to the University) to cut the record. Sometimes Schneider's would be used as it was the only studio that could cut straight onto an acetate.…. Jessie Fisher really didn't think that he was an artist. People would hear him sing and he had more of a gospel flair than anything. Maybe the church figured in his background. When he would come into the studio, everyone would say….we got a song for Jessie, let's try it out on him….I think he had a day job so he would come in the evening after we had worked things out. Tyrone Henry and James McClain of the Springers wrote his track "Why" and Jessie, James Calloway and myself wrote "Little John". We cut that there and then in the studio. </div> <div> JRS: Was he a young guy </div> <bR> <div> <IMG SRC="15edd9b0.jpg" border=0 width="221" height="155" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> <B>Lou Ragland</B></div> <bR> <div> LR: He was a little older than us ( Lou was 24 in 1966 ), maybe a couple of years. He started coming around Way Out in 1965/66, he wouldn't sing backing vocals or any of that. He was </div> <div> actually a friend of Lester's ( Lester Johnson -- Way Out director ) and he knew the members of the Hornets pretty well. They introduced him to me. William Thompson, who was known as "Red" because he was a very light skinned black man, was the guy mostly interested in Jessie. With Lester being pals with him, he would always say….go in the back ( to the actual recording studio ) and see what these guys can pull up (cut) on you. Johnson and (Bill) Branch weren't even in the studio for sessions. They would come along later, listen to the tracks and decide what got issued. </div> <div> JRS: I guess that if Jessie was always hanging around the studio from the mid 60's, he cut a lot of stuff that wasn't released. If there was nobody around to sing, and he turned up, I guess you got him to sing ?? </div> <div> LR: For two years he came to the studio solid, but I didn't follow him much after that. ( after 1967, some new guys came on, Tim Lockhart etc. & took Lou's place in the studio as he went out on the road playing guitar for the Terry Knight Review. Lou had sold all his instruments before taking the studio job at Way Out, so he didn't have a guitar when asked by Tom Baker to go on the road. But he was being offered good money -- $400 a week – and he remembered that Kim Tolliver had a guitar hanging on her house wall as decoration. So Lou went and explained the situation to her and she gave him the guitar to use ). I went out on the road with Terry Knight who was originally from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Now the Sensations (also from Michigan), they were the guys who did a lot of recording. </div> <div> JRS: So there are a lot of un-issued Sensations tracks !! Now they weren't from Cleveland but were also from upstate Michigan (Battle Creek ?) . Did they play live shows in Cleveland. </div> <div> LR: They had no performance abilities at all, they could just make records. You had Rico (Roosevelt Simmons), John Washington and the third guy was always moving around. At one time it was Jimmy Butler (I may have misheard this name ?) and then other guys (Joe Kelly, Chester Florence). </div> <div> JRS: They were just a trio ?? </div> <div> LR: Yes, just a trio. John Washington played the piano and he wrote songs from the piano. He </div> <div> passed out his songs to different people. </div> <div> JRS: Did you engineer or produce their tracks ?? </div> <div> LR: No, I didn't produce them, it might have been Willie Smith (Lou was the engineer on their sessions though). He was the guy down there doing that at the time. He was also the first arranger I knew of, to work there. He was from Cleveland and had learnt his trade back in the 40's, in the big band era. He had worked with Choker Campbell ( by the mid sixties, Campbell was working in Motown's studio as well as heading up the Hitsville tour band). Willie Smith's still around Cleveland……… Ace Carter was the arranger producer for Joan Bias recordings, that was my second time singing in a recording session after "Never Let Me Go". </div> <div> JRS: So they just came to Cleveland to record. </div> <div> LR: No, finally they moved. You see, during those days, we thought we were gonna be the next Motown and we prepared for it. Then you had John Wooten and Jim Brown ( Cleveland Brown's football player after whom the Big Jim label was named ), Judge Lloyd Brown and all these big guys supporting the label. John Wooten and Judge Lloyd Brown were members of the board and directors of Way Out Records.</div> <bR> <div> <IMG SRC="062b6880.gif" border=0 width="182" height="136" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> <B> Lou Ragland and Berry Gordy Jr. </B></div> <div> Picture taken back stage at the Rio Hotel casino after a Smokie Robinson concert, by Estella Ragland.</div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>