MEMORIAL SERVICES FOR EDUARDO "EDDIE' TORRES NOVEMBER 5,2019

MEMORIAL SERVICES FOR EDUARDO "EDDIE' TORRES NOVEMBER 5,2019

EASTSIDE LEGEND EDDIE TORRES PASSES AWAY

Eddie Torres was born and raised in Texas and after a stint in the Marine Corp he relocated to California.

Eddie attended East Los Angeles College and majored in sociology. Upon graduation Eddie took on a job working with gang members and potential gang members to keep them out of trouble.

As part of his plan in helping gang members, Eddie began promoting dances with local bands. At a dance held at St Alonsos Church in East Los Angeles, Eddie met a band called The Fabulous Gentiles. Impressed by the band Eddie urged them to change their name. They became Thee Midniters (taken from one of their favorite groups Hank Ballard & The Midnighters).

Eddie became the groups manager and arranged concerts for the band while giving them discipline and direction. The band would do as many as four shows a night traveling great distances between performances and their popularity grew.

Over the years Eddie became friends and partnered with Dick Hugg "Huggy Boy" and they promoted and sponsored concerts and dances in the neighborhood as well as the Huggy Boy Show.

To promote the band, Torres contacted Mike Carcano, owner of The Record Inn on Whittier Boulevard who showcased the band's record releases by holding in-store appearances. While the rest of the world was caught up in Beatlemania, Eddie Torres in East Los Angeles, California was giving rise to Midnitersmania.

In December, 1965 Eddie booked Thee Midniters to a major concert held at the Hollywood Bowl and hosted by Casey Kasem and radio station KRLA. The band also got exposure on local television shows Shebang and 9th Street West.

In 1966, Torres started his own record label, Whittier Records to further promote the band and their music. Thee Midniters were now the hottest band in town but Eddie wanted them to get them to the next level. He urged them to start writing their own songs which under major pressure they did.

The only thing missing was a record deal with a major record label and national exposure. Eddie contended that his Whittier label would become as big as another local record label, A&M Records but try as he might Eddie could never achieve that success.

RCA Records became interested in signing the band but a deal was never made. The band has their side of the story and Eddie has his. Whether Torres didn't want to lose control of the band and sabatoged any deal or the fact that RCA didn't want to give Torres or the band any upfront money for their album "Love Sprecial Delivery" is up for discussion.

The RCA debacle marked the beginning of the end of the relationship between Eddie and the band. Eddie officially departed in late 1968.

Eddie did not leave the music business. He would go on to promote other Chicano musicians including Thee Impalas, The Runabouts and Mark Guerrero. The importance and impact of Eddie Torres on the East Los Angeles music scene can not be over emphasized. He gave us the best band to ever come out of East L.A...... Thee Midniters.

Eddie Torres passed away October 17,2019, a legend of the Easiside Sound.

Land Of 1000 Dances - The Rampart Records Complete Singles Collection, by Various Artists

"Something musically vital was happening in East Los Angeles when all-around entertainment guru Eddie Davis' Rampart Records documented the fusion that became the West Coast Eastside Sound. Founded in 1961, Rampart Records is now celebrating its 58th anniversary with this box set collection. Rampart produced music unlike any other -- rock & roll and rhythm and blues, but with a Mexican twist. The singles on this collection are from Rampart's first 17 years, as the sounds changed from doo wop to R&B to garage to funk to disco. Hear East LA's greatest hits from the West Coast's longest running independent record company. Discover the amazing history and super-fine music from the classic Rampart Records catalogue, still going strong after 58 years! Among the gems heard on Land Of 1000 Dances is 'Hector Parts 1 & 2,' a double-barreled, organ-driven instrumental by The Village Callers, which was heard on the soundtrack to Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino's hit summer film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt. Other top-flight Rampart acts surveyed include the storming, horn-driven garage soul unit The Blendells, whose cover of Stevie Wonder's single 'La La La La La' is a crate digger classic; R&B foursome The Atlantics, whose lineup included future '70s love man Barry White; soul balladeer Ron Holden; The Soul-jers, the military-garbed duo of former Mixtures vocalists Philip Tucker and Delbert Franklin; Motown-styled vocal quartet The Four Tempos; Latin songstresses Didi Scorzo and Graciela Palafox; and funk/disco pioneers Eastside Connection. Hector Gonzalez, bassist of Eastside Connection, has overseen Rampart's assets since Eddie Davis' death in 1994 and co-produced Land Of 1000 Dances with Michael Minky."

The rip-roaring sound of East Los Angeles’ Chicano rock ’n’ rollers of the ’60s and ’70s receives definitive treatment on Land of 1000 Dances: The Rampart Records Complete Singles Collection, due on November 29, 2019 for independent music retail’s annual Black Friday Record Store Day.

Produced by the independent Los Angeles label Minky Records, the four-CD set, which is being released in a limited edition of 1,000 copies, provides a complete overview of defining Mexican-American rock released in a 30-year period between 1961 and 1991 by Rampart, the small but influential company run by entrepreneur, manager, and producer Eddie Davis.

Minky has previously released single-CD collections devoted to two acts that appeared on Davis’ Linda and Gordo imprints: Stompin’ at the Rainbow by the multi-racial R&B unit The Mixtures and Music Is the Answer by God’s Children, the early ’70s soul/funk unit fronted by East Side vocal legends Little Willie G. (of Thee Midniters) and Lil’ Ray.

But Land of 1000 Dances — the product of nearly a decade of research and production — is the most in-depth overview ever assembled of what is familiarly known as the “West Coast East Side Sound.” The eruptive music that launched a thousand low riders down Whittier Boulevard is chronicled through the story of the music’s most prominent and prolific label.

Eddie Davis, who was previously an aspiring singer and Los Angeles restaurateur (“I cooked a lot of hamburgers to make those records,” he said in 1960), found initial music biz success in 1963 with “Farmer John,” a rowdy live-in-the-studio remake of Don & Dewey’s 1959 R&B hit by the Mexican-American group The Premiers. That local smash was issued under his Faro banner, but Rampart would soon become the principal outlet for his musical discoveries.

In his introductory essay, Luis J. Rodriguez — former poet laureate of Los Angeles and author of the bestselling memoir Always Running — says Rampart was Davis’ “dream … of a Motown for Chicano performers.”

Featured among the collection’s 79 tracks (all pristinely mastered by Mark Wheaton) are the original hits of East L.A.’s breakout band Cannibal & the Headhunters, whose pounding 1965 cover of Chris Kenner’s “Land of 1000 Dances” rose to No. 30 on the American singles chart. The quartet went on to appear as the opening act on The Beatles’ ’65 tour, which included legendary stops at Shea Stadium in New York and the Hollywood Bowl.

Rampart’s dozens of 45s covered a bounty of other great music in a variety of styles, ranging through doo-wop, R&B, and soul into funky instrumentals and garage rock and through funk, disco, and Latin pop. Davis did not restrict himself to signing Chicano performers, and Rampart was also the home of many gifted African-American talents.

Among the gems heard on Land of 1000 Dances is “Hector Parts 1 & 2,” a double-barreled, organ-driven instrumental by the Village Callers, which was heard on the soundtrack to Once Upon a Time … In Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino’s hit summer film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt.

Other top-flight Rampart acts surveyed include the storming, horn-driven garage soul unit The Blendells, whose cover of Stevie Wonder’s single “La La La La La” is a crate digger classic; R&B foursome The Atlantics, whose lineup included future ’70s love man Barry White; soul balladeer Ron Holden; The Soul-jers, the military-garbed duo of former Mixtures vocalists Philip Tucker and Delbert Franklin; Motown-styled vocal quartet the Four Tempos; Latin songstresses Didi Scorzo and Graciela Palafox; and funk/disco pioneers Eastside Connection.

Hector Gonzalez, bassist of Eastside Connection, has overseen Rampart’s assets since Eddie Davis’ death in 1994 and co-produced Land of 1000 Dances with Michael Minky.

Deep background on Rampart’s acts and such behind-the-scenes players as key producer-manager Billy Cardenas is supplied in a thoroughly researched historical essay written by the late Los Angeles critic, journalist, and music historian Don Waller, author of The Motown Story.

The first discography of Rampart’s single releases brings together complete recording information on the label’s 45 rpm output. A special 38-page “Rampart on the Road” portfolio features rare photos and memorabilia of tour and East L.A. appearances by Cannibal & the Headhunters (who are seen in hitherto unpublished snapshots with The Beatles) and other performers.

Today, the legacy of Rampart Records can be heard in the work of such Grammy-winning East L.A.-bred artists as Los Lobos and La Santa Cecilia. Land of 1000 Dances affords the deepest look available at a sound that broke out of the barrio to rule the charts.

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