LUCKY 11 - LUCKY ELEVEN

My name is Harley (Buddy) Ray. I live with my Wife Linda in Mt Morris Michigan. I am the musician that is on the records "Here Comes Rain"/"Lucky Eleven Rock" which is on the Lucky Eleven Label [Lucky Eleven 1111]. I am 65 years old [in May 2005] and have been here in Michigan for 50 years.

I was only 19 years old when I my 2nd cousin Chuck Slaughter and myself got into the music business, back in 1959. Some of your information is not quite correct, but it really does not matter to me. It won't hurt anything. My cousin Chuck and I formed our own nightclub band, and we called it "Buddy Ray and the Shamrocks", because it was fitting to match the "Lucky Eleven " Club and record label. There were a few other folks involved. There was Roxie Williams, Troy Goss and others. Chuck now lives near McKenzie Tennessee, and is 71 years old. Mr Jack Ripley wrote the song "Here Comes Rain". He died just about 4 years ago.

BSN Pubs-Page:
http://www.bsnpubs.com/philadelphia/lucky11/lucky11.html

After doing some recordings on the new label, Slaughter relocated to Tennessee until the mid-1960s, when he returned to run the label as General Manager. Although it had been a country label to this point, Lucky Eleven started recording some of the local rock bands, including Terry Knight and the Pack, Dick Wagner and the Bossmen, and the Jayhawkers, as well as doing bookings for other rock acts such as Question Mark and the Mysterians. They also continued with recording and booking country acts.

The label's most successful artists were Terry Knight and the Pack. Terry Knight (neé Richard Terrance Knapp) was a disc jockey with CKLW, a Windsor, Ontario, based station just across the border from Detroit. He talked a local group, the Jazz Masters, into letting him be their lead singer. At the time, the group was made up of Don Brewer on drums, Bob Caldwell on keyboards, Al Pippins on guitar, and Herm Jackson on bass. They changed the name of the group to "Terry Knight and the Pack" to sound more British. Jackson was drafted shortly thereafter and replaced by a local bassist, Mark Farner. Farner and Brewer later joined with the bassist from Question Mark & the Mysterians, Mel Schacher, to form Grand Funk Railroad, with Terry Knight as their manager.

Although Lucky Eleven put out many singles, including before and after the Cameo-Parkway distribution period, they put out few albums. The first Terry Knight and the Pack album was supervised by Otis Ellis. The label was green and yellow with a horseshoe design.

Der vermutliche Neubeginn 1965 erfolgte mit KING-Pressungen (bis etwa Frühjahr 1966) und einem einfachen Label-Logo, sowie dem Präfix "45-", wie man an den gezeigten Scans aus dem Netz sehen kann. Erst danach gab es das von Dieter gezeigte Logo mit ausgeschriebenem Label-Namen und Präfix "LE-".

Keep Searchin'
Gerd

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TERRY KNIGHT AND THE PACK: Terry Knight (6. April 1943 bis 2004)
recordete zunächst auf Wyngate als THE PACK, dann auf Lucky 11.
Die blaue Platte war im Cameo-Parkway-Vertrieb...