Mind-Melting Sax-strumental Cover!

• Listen to this song in a Spotify playlist here (though note, spotify doesn’t have all / many of the songs featured on the site so some playlists may be incomplete or feature slightly different versions than the original 45s I’m referring to here).
• Listen to the song on Youtube: sorry, not on there either, I’m hoping to start a youtube channel so I can get some of these up there too.
• Download the songs here: Ain’t No Sunshine

Welcome back everyone, it’s Wednesday so we have another 45 for you and this one has been on rotation and on my brain regularly since I picked it up a few years ago while driving up the East Coast in no other place than New Jersey, home state of Jerome P Lyons.

I picked this 45 up without being able to listen to it because I’m a fan of Bill Withers (aren’t we all) and love a good reimagining of a song but also was intrigued by the “New Egypt, NJ” location of the label and the slightly unusual type setting. As you can hear, I was not disappointed. The record delivers with a super moody octave/electronic sax take on the Withers classic. The drums and heavy and slow and combined with the reverb on the guitar you can feel and hear the space around them as they let Jerome carry it home.

As far as biographic information this has been a really tough one to crack. Firstly, New Egypt, NJ is a small town. It’s technically an unincorporated town with spotty census information but around the time of this record it would have only had around 2000 people living there. While New Egypt is not exactly a hot spot it did have a major stop on the train lines which ended in 1979, you can get public transit into Philly and being smack dab in the center of the state you’re at least centrally located. The 308 PO Box listed on the record came up in some newspapers before and after T’wan’s time but for industrial parts and the like, nothing connecting dots on who Jerome was or illuminating T’wan’s fate.

Jerome P Lyons did put out a couple other 45s and there’s a little bit to be gleaned from them. All of his releases are on T’wan and T’wan’s only artist is Jerome and Jerome accompanied by To Be Continued so it feels reasonable to think this label was his project. The date on his cover of the country tune I Can’t Stop Loving You by Don Gibson is 1975. It’s pretty standard fare with a trading off organ and sax solo and lacks the mystery of today’s side but it does provide a year for us on the label which is great. He did write the B-side of today’s record and another track “Blues for Jerome Jr.” on his third and only other release.

The final piece of information I was able to find in looking through some old newspapers was this wonderful bit of advertising.

I was also able to find a public notice from Asbury Park Public Meeting where Jerome secured the rental of the Convention Hall himself for $1000 – not a small amount of money in 1975! Asbury Park is a 45 minute drive from New Egypt which, as we said, is a small town, but you gotta give it up for Mr. Lyons for stepping off his home turf and putting up some real money to make this show happen. He was really trying to sell these records and catch someone’s eye.

As you can see the bill features along with headliners BT Express, Jerome P. Evans himself above The People’s Choice, the great Philly group who were recording for TSOP/ Gamble and Huff at this point and had lots of great records under their belt. Just below People’s Choice is the group Jerome hooked up with for today’s record To Be Continued. I can’t find and don’t know anything else about them except on Sept 13th 1975 they played this show and sometime around then they also recorded with Jerome P. Lyons.

Other small interesting note, Black Sabbath played a show which has been widely bootleged at the Convention center a month before Jerome’s show which yielded this wonderful marquee shot

I don’t have anything else real I can add to this, just speculation and dreams, if you know anything about this record, please let me know, I’m always happy to learn more!

Hope you’re holding up ok and you enjoy today’s 45. We’ll be back on Friday with a full hour of 45s from the stax label. This will be part one of a two part series, part one going up to 1968 and part two the following Friday, starting in 1968 with some of my favorite and overlooked 45s from the label.

Until then, Peace!
-George / Snack Attack

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