Last weekend, my wife and I drove outside of Nashville and visited a flea market in Woodbury, TN, about 45 minutes from our house. It was a beautiful sunny day and I wasn’t sure we would find anything at the flea market, but Woodbury is packed full of antique stores so there was always a chance I would find some records to look through.
After finding a few items at the flea market, we left for lunch on the square while waiting for the antique stores to open. The first store we visited was packed full of vendors and most of the records for sale were overpriced.
While sifting through a pile of records, I found an interesting looking 45 wedged in between two LPs. It had a black label with a gold 70s type font and looked interesting enough for me to research further. I found a few copies had recently sold on eBay between $35 and $50 while the lowest copy for sale on Discogs was $75. I saw the $1 price tag on the beaten up 45 sleeve and smiled.
I joked with my wife that the group listed on this 45, Hodges, James, Smith & Crawford, sounded more like a law firm than a soul group. In fact, they released another 45 a year later calling themselves The Firm of Hodges, James, Smith & Crawford, so someone else must have told them the same thing.
What I was most interested in was the label, Mpingo Records, from Nashville, TN. I’ve lived in Nashville for over 20 years and had never heard of this record label.
I asked a friend of mine in a vinyl collectors Facebook group and he was able to dig up some information on Mpingo, most notably that the label was owned by Mickey Stevenson (who has the producer credit on this single). Stevenson was Motown’s head of A&R during its peak years and co-wrote songs like Dancing in the Street, Ask the Lonely, It Takes Two and Devil With the Blue Dress On.
Mpingo only has three releases listed on Discogs, so I’m not sure if it went under quickly or if there are plenty of other releases out there yet to be added to the Discogs database.
The song Nobody starts with a funky guitar and bass line followed by drums that would sound perfect in a break. I didn’t expect to hear those strong female vocals come piping in as I assumed this was a male group. What a great surprise.
I now have another record label to look out for while shopping for records with Mpingo Records!
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