Clarence Reid - I've Been Trying

I've Been Trying

Clarence Reid - Dancing With Nobody But You Babe (Atco 1277) 1969

Nobody But You Babe; Twent Five Miles; Doggone It; Get Back; Don't Look Too Hard; I've Been Trying; Tear you A New Heart; Part Time Lover; Shop Around; Fools Are Not Born; Polk Salad Annie; Send Back My Money

Produced By: Clarence Reid

On this November day we have a Curtis Mayfield song from the Clarence Reid album Dancin' with Nobody But You Babe. I've Been Trying was recorded at the Zoo Recording Studio, in Miami Florida, arranged & produced by Brad Shapiro and Steve Alaimo, with supervision of Henry Stone who was to be the owner of TK Records but at this time a part of Alston Records. Atlantic Records licenced the album and put it out on Atco in 1969. The cover photograph is a very tacky Miami bar scene taken by Bob East. There are also two Northern type dancers contained within; Part Time Lover, Fools are not born, both Reid songs. I just love the backing vocals on I've Been Trying, provided by the Reid Sisters also, Wayne Jackson & Floyd Newman (The Mar-Keys) provide the horns.

During the late 60s and through the 70s, Clarence Reid, singer, songwriter, talent scout, and producer for Henry Stone’s labels, was involved in just about every recording that came out of Stone’s studio. Reid teamed up with Willie Clarke, a fellow Miami songwriter and producer.

They decided to pay legendary South Florida record producer Henry Stone a visit. Stone, who had been turning out hits for years, decided to take Reid and Clarke under his wing and show them how to make hit records. Reid and Clarke, determined to make hit records, spent hours learning the ropes from Stone, which paid off for everybody concerned.

As talent scouts, it was Reid and Clarke who first discovered a 12-year-old singer named Betty Wright in a Liberty City record store in 1966. During the next 10 years, Reid released countless singles for Stone’s Alston label. It was Reid and Clarke who penned Betty Wright’s 1971 No.1 R&B single Clean Up Woman, Reid and Clarke wrote Gwen McCrae’s No. 1 R&B single Rockin’ Chair.

During the 70s Reid went underground, only to resurface as masked recording artist Blowfly, writer and producer of highly X-rated party albums released on Stone’s Weird World label.

Photos; Album Cover, Henry Stone & Betty Wright (aged 14)