Richard Barrett (The Valentines) this week on The Juke In The Back

The Juke In The Back” focuses on the “soul that came before rock n’ roll,” the records that inspired Elvis, Buddy Holly, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and countless others.
This week, the “Juke In The Back” honors one of the silent architects of Rock n’ Roll, Richard Barrett. On the surface, he’s known today to fans of vocal group music as the lead singer and chief songwriter for The Valentines. They had a string of solid singles on George Goldner’s Rama Records from 1955-57, but due to Rama’s lack of promotion for the group, they never scored a national hit. When you dig a little deeper, you find that Barrett played a pivotal role in getting Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers, The Chantels and Little Anthony & the Imperials signed to Goldner’s Gee and End Records, respectively. Barrett worked with the groups, including The Cleftones, to perfect their sound and produced many of their hit records. He was a immensely talented, driven man, who accomplished a lot more than he ever gets credit for. Matt The Cat fills the ol’ Rockola “Juke In The Back” with Valentines records and sheds some light on the influence that Richard Barrett had on Rhythm & Blues and early Rock n’ Roll.
Join Matt the Cat for Juke in the Back, tomorrow afternoon at 03:00 PM Eastern, after Ringo and before Anne, on Mushroom FM, the home of the fun guys, making four decades of magic mushroom memories!