The Ultimate Coasters Collection

The Coasters Down Home Varèse Sarabande CD 302 066 844 2
Back cover of Varèse Sarabande "Down Home" CD.
Tracks list

1 Soul Pad
(Jerry Leiber-Mike Stoller)
Date single 1552, 3/67 and King single 6404, 1973
Recorded 11/18/66
Orchestra under the direction of Mike Stoller
Lead vocals: Billy Guy, Earl Carroll

2 Down Home Girl
(Jerry Leiber-Artie Butler)
Date single 1552(B), 3/67
Recorded 11/18/66
Orchestra under the direction of Mike Stoller
Lead vocal: Billy Guy

3 Talkin’ ’Bout A Woman aka She Can
(Jerry Leiber-Mike Stoller)
Date single 1607, 5/68 and King single 6389(B), 4/72
Recorded 10/30/67
Orchestra under the direction of Artie Butler
Lead vocals: Carl Gardner, Billy Guy, Earl Carroll, Will Jones

4 Mohair Sam
(Dallas Frazier)
Recorded 10/30/67
Orchestra under the direction of Artie Butler
Group vocals

5 Everybody’s Woman
(Jerry Leiber-Mike Stoller)
Date single 1607(B), 5/68 and 1617(B), 7/68
Recorded 10/30/67
Orchestra under the direction of Artie Butler
Lead vocal: Earl Carroll

6 D.W. Washburn
(Jerry Leiber-Mike Stoller)
Date single 1617, 7/68 and King single 6385(B),
11/71 and 6404(B), 1973
Recorded 10/31/67
Orchestra under the direction of Artie Butler
Lead vocals: Billy Guy, Carl Gardner

7 Love Potion Number Nine
(Jerry Leiber-Mike Stoller)
King Single 6385, 11/71, Pop #76, 1971
Recorded 2/13/68 (re-edited and dubbed late 1971)
Lead vocal: Carl Gardner

8 (Down At) Papa Joe’s
(Jerry Smith)
Recorded 2/13/68
Arranged by Charlie Cameliere
Group vocals

9 Cool Jerk
(Donald Storball)
King single 6389, 4/72
Recorded late 1971
Arranged by Marty Sheller,
Orchestra under the direction of Larry Harlow
Lead vocal: Carl Gardner

10 Mustang Sally
(Bonnie Rice)
Recorded late 1971
Arranged by Marty Heller,
Orchestra under the direction of Larry Harlow
Lead vocal: Billy Guy

11 On Broadway
(Barry Mann-Cynthia Weil-Jerry Leiber-Mike Stoller)
Recorded late 1971
Arranged by Marty Sheller,
Orchestra under the direction of Larry Harlow
Lead vocal: Carl Gardner

12 The In Crowd
(Billy Page)
Recorded late 1971
Arranged by Marty Sheller,
Orchestra under the direction of Larry Harlow
Solo vocal by Carl Gardner

All tracks were originally issued on the album
The Coasters On Broadway, King 1146, 1972

All tracks Produced by Leiber and Stoller
Collection Produced by Cary E. Mansfield and Claus Röhnisch
Mastered by Steve Massie for Steve Massie Productions
Annotation: Claus Röhnisch

The Coasters Down Home - Liner Notes
The Coasters in 1969 [Claus Röhnisch collection - edited from King LP cover].

By the end of 1966, The Coasters had been struggling for more than four years, trying to find their next hit. They had charted in the Top 40 ten times during the early rock and roll era (1957-1961), but then their hit-making producers-arrangers-composers, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, branched out beyond Atlantic, taking on other acts and eventually founding their own labels, Red Bird and Blue Cat. The four Coasters at that time were Carl Gardner (original lead singer), Billy Guy (the baritone), Will “Dub” Jones (the gimmick bass vocal, who had replaced Bobby Nunn in late 1957) and Earl “Speedo” Carroll (formerly of The Cadillacs, who replaced the notorious second tenor Cornell Gunter in 1961). With this line-up, The Coasters tried to get back to the top with several new producers and ideas. Several good singles did not become hits, including a Beatlemania “answer” song (“Wild One”) and “Let’s Go Get Stoned,” which The Coasters did several months before Ray Charles recorded it. Legendary saxophonist King Curtis produced The Coasters’ last Atco effort, “She’s A Yum Yum” b/w “Saturday Night Fish Fry.” Issued in March of 1966, it was, unfortunately, a flop.

By the end of that year, Leiber & Stoller had folded their Red Bird and Blue Cat labels and were given control of the Columbia Records subsidiary Date Records. They signed The Coasters with the idea of trying to recapture the group’s glory days.

In November of 1966, the four Coasters met with Leiber & Stoller at A&R Studios in New York. They engaged some former New Orleans musicians, fronted by pianist/organist James Booker, and recorded two tracks with Phil Ramone as the engineer. That first single for Date was “Soul Pad” b/w the funky “Down Home Girl,” a song New Orleans blues singer Alvin Robinson had recorded for Jerry and Mike a couple of years earlier, and which also had been recorded by The Rolling Stones in 1964 for their album The Rolling Stones, Now. The songs were high-quality stuff, but they flopped. It would be almost a year before a collaboration between Leiber & Stoller and The Coasters was to be tried again.

The second session for Date was at Columbia Recording Studios in New York, in October of 1967, with Artie Butler as arranger and conductor, and Mike Stoller playing the piano. This time, the cream of New York session men were hired, including Eric Gayle on guitar, and Bernard “Pretty” Purdie on drums. Four tracks were recorded, including “She Can” (later retitled “Talkin’ ‘Bout A Woman),” an “answer” song to Christine Kittrell’s and Peggy Lee’s “I’m A Woman” that featured all four Coasters as leads, and its flip side, an Earl Carroll-led typical Leiber-Stoller satire titled “Everybody’s Woman.” The third recording was the original version of “D.W. Washburn,” which is considered a masterpiece in the same class as Leiber-Stoller’s Peggy Lee recording of “Is That All There Is.” But instead of releasing The Coasters’ version as a single, their old business partner Lester Sill, who was head of Screen Gems-Columbia Music, gave the song to The Monkees. When Leiber and Stoller finally released The Coasters’ recording a few months later, coupled with a reissue of “Everybody’s Woman,” it went nowhere. The fourth song recorded, “Mohair Sam,” had to wait for the 1972 release of the On Broadway album.

In February of 1968, the time had come for a third session, again produced by Jerry and Mike for Date Records, but this time at Bell Sound Studios in New York. Included were a new recording of The Clovers’ classic “Love Potion Number Nine,” with Carl Gardner taking lead, and The Dixiebelles’ ”(Down At) Papa Joe’s.” These tracks were held for release until November of 1971, after Jerry and Mike had purchased all The Coasters’ Date masters and assigned them to King.

It was Jerry and Mike’s intention to release the On Broadway album on King, but first they needed some additional tracks. A session was held in late autumn of 1971 in New York with Dave Palmer engineering, Marty Sheller arranging, and Larry Harlow conducting. Only one change had been made in The Coasters’ recording lineup: Ronnie “Mr. Bass Man” Bright (from The Valentines and a late model of Carroll’s Cadillacs) had now replaced Will Jones as the group’s bass singer (he is still with the group today). The Coasters made four recordings, which were remixed and edited at Electric Lady Studios in New York, together with “Love Potion Number Nine” (which was released as a single in November of 1971 and became The Coasters’ 20th and last pop hit on the Billboard charts, reaching #76). The four new tracks were “Cool Jerk” (also issued as a single), the Billy Guy-led rendition of “Mustang Sally,” a Latin-flavored “On Broadway” that was used as the title track, and “The In Crowd,” which is actually a solo vocal by Carl Gardner.

Billy Guy left The Coasters shortly after the release of the album, replaced permanently by Jimmy Norman. Gardner, Carroll, Norman and Bright worked as a tight group through the rest of the 1970s, touring the world under the management of James Evans, who had managed them since the mid-1960s. When Carroll left in the early 1980s, The Coasters changed management again, this time to Carl Gardner’s wife, Veta. The Coasters began in California in late 1955, moved to New York in late 1957, recruited a couple of New Yorkers during the 60s, and are still active today, but now with Carl Gardner Jr. taking the lead.
— Claus Röhnisch