#american artists drag their releases and promos for ages

[inthebackgroundscreaming]

I wish there was a way for natori to release the rest of his life’s song catalog so I can kill myself already.

[chiseler]

Lost in the Blues: The Search for Dyin’ Dog

In June of this year, an unidentified seller posted a Jewel Records promo single on eBay. The asking price was $20. The simple accompanying description read:

“DJ PROMO RECORD 45 rpm  70s blues/R&B . Condition is Used. Bought this puppy at an estate sale for the late, great Stan Lewis. The artist is Dyin' Dog; I never heard of him but it's a pretty good record. I picked up two of them and thought I'd see what it's worth. It's a hand cut acetate DJ promo so I figure it must be pretty rare. Date on the label is 1975.”

This was only the second time I had seen proof of the physical existence of a Dyin’ Dog recording. I immediately contacted the seller, who informed me the single was “Bury My Bone” b/w “River Runs Dry,” but he was unable to tell me anything more.

It’s not surprising the seller, or anyone else, doesn’t remember raucous Louisiana blues singer Dyin’ Dog, as he never officially released any records, and never performed in public.

My own search for Dyin’ Dog, whose real name, I’ve since learned, may or may not have been Alvin Snow, began back in 2008, after stumbling across another Jewel promo 45 at a record fair in Jersey City, NJ. Like the seller on eBay, I had never heard of Dyin’ Dog, but the fact I hadn’t heard of him piqued my interest, along with the fact it had been a Jewel release. The seller, who was from Arkansas and specialized in rare indie label blues and R&B singles from the Sixties and Seventies, could tell me nothing about the artist, and couldn’t even remember how he’d come across the promo in the first place.

I brought the record home and put it on the turntable. As rough and minimalist as the production was, I could tell immediately this was unlike any other standard blues being produced in the mid-Seventies, or any other time. In spite of the modern instrumentation, it was raw and primitive, the song structure more akin to the American proto blues coming out of the rural South  of the Twenties than the more urbane sounds coming out of the New Orleans or Chicago scenes in later decades.

Overpowering the band was Dyin’ Dog himself, a voice that shrieked and roared a howl of the most abject anguish from the lower depths of some personal hell we hope we never know. The Howlin’ Wolf influence was clear, but Dying Dog, whoever he was, had taken what Howlin’ Wolf wrought and dragged it with heavy iron chains into much darker, much more horrifying territory, some barren landscape where redemption is not possible.

After all my years of researching the mostly forgotten corners of blues history, how was it I never heard of him? I went to the bookshelf and pilled down all the standard reference works—Kunstler, of course,The Cambridge Guide to Blues and Gospel, Nothing But the Blues, several years worth of the journal American Music and a few others—but search as I might there was absolutely no mention anywhere of any performer who went under the name “Dyin’ Dog.” I did an Internet search, and not only were there no recordings posted anywhere, there was no mention of this character. Had I heard a ghost on that record? Maybe more likely a demon.

The next obvious step was to contact Stan Lewis.

In 1948, Lewis opened Stan’s Record Store in Shreveport, Louisiana. Within a few years the store had expanded into a minor regional chain, and by the end of the Fifties Stan’s Record Store, with it’s huge selection of titles across every popular genre you can imagine, had become the largest mail-order music shop in the American South.

Deciding to expand the operation, in 1964 Lewis founded Jewel Records (joined soon thereafter by the subsidiary labels Ronn and Paula). Lewis signed hundreds of acts—country, R&B, jazz, blues, gospel, rock’nroll, whatever sold—and his stable of artists included, among others, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Memphis slim and John Lee Hooker.

After a successful twenty-year run, Lewis was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1983. In the late Nineties all of Jewel’s master tapes were obtained by the online company eMusic, and at present the rights to the entire Jewel catalog are held by a New York-based holding company, Fuel 2000. Lewis himself passed away in July of 2018 at age 91, which explains the above-mentioned estate sale.

I had the opportunity to speak with Lewis two or three times in the Nineties while researching other Jewel acts. He’d always been friendly and willing to offer as much as he could, so I reached out again in 2009 to see what he could tell me about Dyin’ Dog.

When I’d spoken with him earlier, Lewis could not only share entertaining anecdotes about any act I was curious about, he could cite contract details and sales numbers from memory. But when I mentioned Dyin’ Dog he drew a complete blank. He had no memory of him whatsoever. I even played the single over the phone hoping that might spark something, some kind of memory, but while he admitted he was clearly impressed with the performance, the name rang no bells. He did, however, invite me to pore through the Jewel archives in Shreveport to see what I could find.

The voice I’d heard on that record, guttural, unearthly, scraped to the sinew, continued to haunt me. I couldn’t even tell if Dyin’ Dog was black or white. I had to find out who was behind that sound, and how he got there.

I was able to schedule a trip to Louisiana two months later, and after a week of digging through cardboard boxes overflowing with contracts, press releases and sales reports, I at last came across my first solid lead. In a brief series of correspondence dated early 1975, a young musician named Roland Sheehan sang the praises of a wild new blues singer he was working with. The description sounded decidedly like Dyin’ Dog, though the name Sheehan used was “Alvin Snow.” More exciting still, another note from Sheehan made reference to some demos recorded by Snow and a small band headed by Sheehan on keyboards. He mentioned a few titles—“The Dog’s Dream,” “Pass for White”—which made me even more excited. In his encouraging response, Lewis, who was clearly acquainted with Sheehan, tentatively agreed to put Jewel behind Snow, adding, “But need to do something about the name. And the cursing. He curses too much.”

That was it. There was no further correspondence, no evidence the records were ever released. No press releases, no sales reports, nothing at all. Just those tantalizing hints Dyin’ Dog/Alvin Snow was real.

The next step was to contact Sheehan. He was not hard to find. He was still alive and living in Ruston, Louisiana. With no important business pulling me back to New Jersey, I rented a car in Shreveport and drove seventy miles to the north, to a small town near the Louisiana Tech campus. It was a typically sultry Louisiana afternoon in late July when I knocked on Sheehan’s door. He invited me in and offered me a beer.

Unlike Lewis, Sheehan, a burly man of 58 at the time with the unmistakable accent of a native, could remember Snow well, and was eager to talk about him.

“”Yeah, Alvin and Dyin’ Dog were the same,” Sheehan confirmed. “But Dyin’ Dog came along later. Close to the end. That was Stan’s idea. He thought Alvin needed a bluesier name, so we were Dyin’ Dog and the Mongrels.”

He said he first encountered Snow on the street in Ruston around 1974. Sheehan was in his early twenties and had been playing keyboards for a local blues rock band called The Alliance. He recalls that when he first saw Snow, he mistook him for Johnny Winter.

“He was hard to miss,” Sheehan said. “Ruston’s an itty-bitty town, and you don’t see many albinos just walking down the street here.”

I nearly did a spit take. Dyin’ Dog was an albino?

“Yeah,” Sheehan nodded. “White hair, chalky white skin, everything. Except he had these real pale blue eyes, not pink.”

What really caught his attention, he said, was less Snow being an albino than the song he was singing.

“Just belting it out as he was walking down the street. Screaming it almost. But he was good, like nothing I’d heard.”

So Sheehan stopped him, and the two started talking about music.

“I never really learned that much about him. His personal life or past or anything. He told me once he was raised in an orphanage, but that was it. I think he may have mentioned that his mom was black and his dad was white, or maybe the other way around, I’m not sure. I do remember his birthday was January thirteenth. Always liked to say he was born on Friday the thirteenth. I think it was 1938 or ’39, but I could be wrong. He was living with this nice older lady who had some money. We all just knew her as Miss Lillian. She really loved him. And he had this little dog. Chester, after Chester Burnet. I think someone had abandoned it or something. Its back legs were crippled, so Alvin made it this little cart or chariot or whatever. A thing with wheels so it could pull itself around. Ugliest little thing you ever seen, but Alvin was crazy about it.”

The picture that was coming together of Dyin’ Dog/Alvin Snow in no way corresponded with the picture I’d imagined after hearing that single, but that shouldn’t have surprised me.

Snow, Sheehan said, had a headful of songs, but didn’t know how to read or write music and couldn’t play any instruments, so the two of them would get together and Snow would hum or sing and Sheehan would transcribe the music.

“It was really wild stuff, really not like anything else. And if you’ve heard his voice you know. I mean he worshipped Howlin’’ Wolf. Really almost literally worshipped the guy, but I think he was doing something different.”

Sheehan pulled together a small backup band and they began rehearsing.

“Everything was coming together. We recorded ten or twelve demos at little studios in Shreveport, places Stan liked to use. I had Stan interested. And then I set up this show. It was going to be kind of a showcase with Dyin’ Dog and The Mongrels opening for my band The Alliance. That was gonna be in January of ’76. The thirteenth, Alvin’s birthday. But then he vanished just a couple days before. No word, nothing. E just vanished.”

Sheehan says a number of things happened in the weeks before Snow disappeared. His beloved dog died in an accident. Then Miss Lillian, the older woman he was living with, passed away on January tenth, three days before his first live show. And though it may be nothing but a strange coincidence, Howlin’ Wolf/Chester Burnett died the same day as Miss Lillian.

“To Alvin, that must’ve been like hearing God Almighty himself had up and died,” Sheehan commented.

Sheehan never saw or heard from Snow again. He also claimed to have no knowledge of what became of the master tapes of those first and only demos.

The ten years following my research trip to Louisiana witnessed enough detours, dead ends, red herrings and smashed hopes to fill a very long and frustrating book. Even with what I presume was his real name and his date of birth, record searches yielded nothing. I can find no information at all about Snow dating either before or after his time in Ruston, ca. 1974-’75.  You would think there would be at least some mention somewhere of an albino named Alvin Snow, whether or not he was still singing, but it was like he had emerged from that barren landscape I heard on that first record, then returned there again.

But now with the emergence of a second promo recording, it’s clear the story isn’t over yet. Someday, I’m confident, we may know what he did those first three and a half decades before he materialized singing on a Louisiana street, and what became of him afterward. Or maybe he’ll join the enigmatic ranks of Emmet Miller and Henry Thomas, and these two remarkable singles will remain the only record we’ll ever have.

by Paul Lyllyde

[slidely]

33 Must Have Marketing Tools For Every Business

With a new year beginning and likely new lofty goals for your marketing efforts, we thought you could use a little assistance. While we can’t fly around the world to aid you in daily tasks, we can find the online tools that will come pretty darn close.  

Of course, you’ve learned by now that every business needs to have a substantial presence online, compelling video ads to grab your audience on social media and a product your customer service team (even if it’s a team of 1) can stand behind. But that’s just the start. To take advantage of the global market you want to create a well-oiled machine that includes all the elements a marketing guru at the big agencies would have.

Now you can!

Try our top 33 innovative tools to make your job easier and your work more effective:

Websites

When’s the last time someone asked you for your business card? It’s likely been ages. Even if they did, wouldn’t it be ideal to give your URL with a pristine website full of all the information any future customer could ever need? Yeah, we thought so. Not only are websites an absolute must, now when creating sales and lead generating campaigns (and if you’re not yet, we highly recommend it) a unique landing page is also a necessary piece of your marketing efforts.

  Wix

With Wix, you can create a drag and drop website for every business vertical. The editor allows you to customize each aspect of your website and brand your content from top to bottom. Not only that, the unique packages for eCommerce, Photography, Restaurants and more include all of the back-end tools required to manage your business online. Whatsmore, they offer a wide selection of in-house and 3rd party apps that can be added to each site for functionality and design. Whether you are an advanced web designer or a first-timer you have an easy-to-use tool to create the exact website you want.

Squarespace

If you’re looking for a stunning website template, you’ve come to the right place. Squarespace puts beauty first with pre-designed sites. You simply need to edit with your own content and make slight adjustments. In need of a domain name? Squarespace is a domain name registrar and your site can thus only be housed within the platform.

WordPress

If you’re ready to code a website to fit your specific website needs and build a truly robust online presence, many businesses look to WordPress. They are a free and open-source content management system. They offer both a plug-in and template system. Should you want to adjust your appearance over time, you can change between templates easily and efficiently to grow your business.

Landing Pages

While a website is a must, often a campaign needs to be directed to something a bit more specific. For example, are you trying to reach out to only mom’s on Mother’s Day? Do you have a special coupon you want only a select group of customers to access? These are the times when creating a separate landing page can give you the customization and flexibility you need to create your full marketing vision from top to bottom.

  Optimizely

Ever wanted to A/B test a web page? Of course, why wouldn’t you? After pouring yourself into your most valuable web asset, testing which elements can perform best will give you a significant advantage. Optimizely also has numerous personalization and customization offerings so that your site can target each unique market.

Unbounce

When running a marketing campaign for your business, Unbounce is an excellent platform for creating a landing page. In 2017 they released Convertibles, “a series of website advertisements designed by the platform’s users to appear at varying points in a web browser’s exploration.” They also created a free Landing Page Analyzer to assess landing page performance and help you choose the perfect template.

Instapage

For agencies and marketing teams, this is the ideal tool for creating landing pages collaboratively. The tool allows for multiple users to create and comment within the platform, speeding up the design and execution process. They also include templates designed with conversion optimization in mind. The landing page can easily integrate with other elements of your campaign such as CRMs and emailing marketing tools.

LeadPages

Centered around high-performance and beautiful templates, you can easily customize your landing page for each campaign. Built on a drag and drop editor, they have all the bells and whistles including pop-ups and SMS opt-in codes and 1-click sign-up links. Really, the additional features are endless for campaign development.

Visual Content: Videos

Videos passed from being the way of the future and now solidified themselves as the power house of the present. A recent study shows that more video content is uploaded in 30 days than major American television networks have created in 30 years! So, since people love clearly to consume video content, it means as an advertiser, you need to create compelling  and dynamic work to grab the all that coveted watch time.

  Promo

You’ve officially found your one stop shop for video content creation. With professional level footage, pre-cut and fully licensed music and an easy to use editor included, you can make compelling video ads for every online channel in a matter of minutes. Racing to make content for social media or a specific holiday? Not to worry. Promo offers ready-made Collections for special days, sales and industries. Just add your message and logo and hit publish!

Legend App

Snag this fun and easy to use mobile app to add text to images and make silly GIFs. All you need to do is think up the text you’d like to share and they’ll do the adorable design for you. Because … why not?!

WeVideo

If you’ve already got the footage, then with WeVideo you’re ready to edit and create a super professional video.  Along with it’s advanced editing options, massive video storage capabilities (meaning you can continue the editing process everywhere) and easy-to-navigate interface, this tool also offers up to 4k resolution for the highest quality viewing experience. What more could you want? A green screen? With WeVideo, you can use that, too. 

PowToon

Looking to spice up your brand? Try using animated video to take your messaging in a playful direction. You can create cartoon videos for marketing efforts, training, IT and company presentations. It’s perfect not only for your business but also getting noticed in the academic world.

Visual Content: Images

As a small business and marketer, you’ll always need professional level images–whether they’re for revamping your website, creating an online invitation, showcasing a specific product that’s new, or even putting some easy and organic content on one of your less dominant social media channels. But while snapping a picture with your mobile phone can work in some situations, more often than not a professional level image is necessary to keep your brand’s bar high.

  Canva

No need to be a graphic designer when you have this easy software to ensure you look like a professional. You know all of those fun inspirational quotes and event images posted all over the internet? Now you can make your own without an in-house team. Grab a beautiful background, chose the font that fits your brand and add your text. If your passion for design begins to grow, Canva also offers tutorials, design courses, teaching materials and loads of ideas to get you exploring your artistic side.

Snappa

A graphic design editor for the non-graphic designer in all of us. This drag and drop system allows you to adjust the background, use your own photos, write text, include shapes and even add-on effects. Everything is 100% royalty-free and licensed for commercial use.

Venngage

Sometimes the best way to share a more complex piece of content with your audience is with an infographic. While these used to require a designer, and a ton of work we might add, now you can represent your data more easily and beautifully. Pick from a collection of templates, add your own charts and additional visuals and customize the look and feel to match your brand. That’s it. Super simple. Now share your data discoveries with the world.

Awesome Screenshot

Need to snag a screenshot and have it look presentable? We do this pretty much every day for something within the content team and, no doubt, most professionals do, too. The people at Awesome Screenshot understand it’s way easier to communicate with visuals. That’s why they offer a screenshot system that has additional features such as project organization, the ability to deliver feedback on the image and collaborative options.

Social Media Management

Yes, the world is on social media. And we do mean the world. With 2.07 Billion people visiting Facebook weekly, every business has an active audience on social media. With this thriving audience just waiting for your messaging, you’ll need to make sure interesting and active content is a regular part of your daily routine. That’s why any tool that can help organize the work and minimize the time spent is a huge asset.

  Hootsuite

If you’re like most businesses you’re managing a handful of social media channels. (And if you’re not yet, it’s a must!) Save yourself time and get a bird’s eye view of all the content you’re publishing across your socials by using the Hootsuite platform. You can integrate Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, and many more. They even added the ability to include MailChimp, Reddit, Storify, Tumblr, and Marketo for an even more inclusive experience. Schedule your posts, stay on message between team members and oversee your stats all in one system.

Buffer

Just like Hootsuite, Buffer allows you to manage all of your social media channels in one place. If you haven’t quite figured out the best times of day to post on each channel to maximize engagement, they have built in time slots showcasing when your unique audience is most active online. They include suggestions for content items that will get each kind of engagement for each social platform.

  Meet Edgar

Maxed out with all of your marketing efforts? With Edgar you can simply place the content inside the system and it will post it for you. Ditch the real-time stress, but still get the real-time engagement from your customers. What does that really mean (we’re looking at you international businesses)? Going to bed on time and knowing your amazing content is still circulating the world around the clock.

Data and Analytics

Why play a guessing game with your marketing efforts? Learn from your customers, assess your own initiatives and get better each time by analyzing the data. While this is often an intimidating proposition, it’s easier than you may think. With these tools, you can perform the basic to the most advanced data analysis and grow your business based on the results.

  KissMetrics

If you’re ready to track visitor behavior on your website and follow up with behavior-based emails, you’ve found the right tool. KissMetrics offers an easy solution to analyze and then create segmentation within your email lists all in one location. This is an excellent service when you want to communicate with customers and, more specifically, to their unique visiting patterns, which will likely push effective engagement growth and purchases.

Mixpanel

Track user interactions with web and mobile applications and target communication with them. The offering includes in-app A/B tests and user survey forms as well as custom reports and retention measurements. This tool is not for the faint of heart and we recommend it to those of you who’ve been around the numerical block a time or two.

FunnelDash

Are you focusing your efforts on Facebook marketing? Good plan. FunnelDash can give you an advantage when it comes to accessing your campaign analytics for profitable advertising. Easily optimize ROAS and access a dashboard that can include 10’s of campaigns organized based on your parameters all at once.  

Email Marketing and Automation

Certainly, you receive daily emails from your family, friends, gym, local coffee shop and a few companies you vaguely remembered signing up to getting the mailing list and can’t quite bring yourself to click unsubscribe. That’s because, just as everyone is on social media, everyone and their grandmother look at their email. We surely don’t need to convince you that flyers are a thing of the past (though often quite fun and can sometimes come in handy) but making beautifully designed emails and monitoring your leads closely with automatic systems is the real future of successful lead generation.

  MailChimp

What once started as an email marketing system, MailChimp has expanded to offer a wide array of marketing automation services. They also may have the best new tagline of the entire list – “Marketing automation is like a second brain for your business.” And they’re exactly right. Removing the manual tasks while still being able to engage with your audience in a successful way is ideal for all small and medium-sized business owners. With gorgeous email templates, data-driven lists and now 3 advertising channel options, this is an excellent tool to launch those new to automation with a flair for design.

Campaign Monitor

If you’re using 3rd party apps such as Shopify or Salesforce, you can import data and customize messaging based on your current user behavior. If you’re a busy bee, perhaps you travel often, this system allows you to schedule all of your emails in advance and not worry about it compromising your own daily activities.

Autopilot

Your customers want to hear from you in a variety of ways. Now you can send personalized emails, in-app messages, SMS, and postcards. Use autopilot to acquire leads, nurture these relationships and grow your business. You can create a unique buying experience online and offline and then sync all the data together in your CRM.

Drip

If you’ve got an eCommerce business, you’ve found your match. Drip was specifically created to support selling products online. For those who are visual learners, their workflow was designed for you with customization options that let you see exactly what’s ahead of you and simplify your sales funnel.

PPC and Conversion Optimization

Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could simply put a compelling piece of content online and poof, your customers start rolling in? Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite work that way. To run effective ads, you need to use conversion optimization tools. Social media platforms have built-in dashboards, but if you’re looking for an extra push, with additional data and customized suggestions, you can find a few below.

  Needls

Make sure your Facebook and Instagram advertising is effective. As a RoboAgency, Needls allows you to determine the perfect target audience for your ads by monitoring social media conversations in real time. Start by inputting information about your business. They will then create and distribute your ad. You will monitor it using the system available and then optimize.

SumoMe

Track your website traffic for free. One excellent way to take advantage of this tool is by using the pop-ups feature. With List Builder, you create pop-ups that appear on clicks, timers and before people leave. We highly recommend using pop-ups both on your homepage, within product pages and, most effectively, on your blog.

HotJar

Have you heard of “heatmaps?” These allow you to view user activity on websites and mobile and understand what they want by visually representing their clicks, taps and scrolling behavior. This is just one of the many features Hotjar has to offer. They also include recording options to see exactly where a user scrolls. This, in addition to conversion funnels, feedback polls, surveys and user test will give you a wide scope of how each site visitor experiences you online and how to adjust accordingly.

Optinmonster

A challenge many of us face is how to convert abandoned users into subscribers. OptinMonster is a powerful conversion optimization and lead generation software that does just that. They have offerings specific to eCommerce, publishers, agencies and B2B marketers. Each of the offerings allow you to do A/B testing in order to maximize your research to make the most informed marketing strategy.

Technical Support and Customer Success

You need a hand. And so do your customers. There is never enough emphasis you can put on support and customer success, as far as we’re concerned. This is how you build your company via word of mouth and have the loyalty of returns. Not to mention, it just feels good! But this too can be overwhelming as human interactions can be extremely time consuming. Not to fear, you can offer the quality of customer care you want with a little help from these online tools.

  Zendesk

Looking to scale your business and need to make sure your customer support is ready for the undertaking? Zendesk emphasizes this exact pain point in all of their offerings. They offer responsive and personalized customer support on all channels 24/7. The set-up takes days and is flexible so you can evolve with your customer’s needs.

Helpshift

With the first AI and Bot-powered customer service platform you can offer support on mobile and desktop apps, mobile and desktop websites, and via email. With a built-in chat box, simple requests can be automated and transition to human support when needed. You can also offer in-channel self-service so that customers can help themselves without getting lost in a Help Center or Google search.

Olark

Looking for a human approach to your support needs? This software allows you to talk directly and easily to your customers on your website. It’s that simple. With a live chat app that can integrate on all sites, you can open up your communication as well as get real-time reporting and a back-end team management system.

JotForm

Learn about your customers needs, interests and requests by delivering simple online forms. Just build and customize your form, send it out, and receive email notifications as the results roll in. To make it even quicker and more beautiful, they offer templates and themes so you can look your very best while collecting the precious info.

    Whether you’re a team of 50 or you’re going at it alone, we see the challenges of running marketing efforts. But remember, with online innovation and uniquely designed tools galore, you have more help than you realized. If all of this is new to you, start with one or two areas to grow your expertise and add more and more tools as you build your confidence and routine.

  Ready to create your professional marketing videos? Try Promo Today!

33 Must Have Marketing Tools For Every Business was originally published on Promo by Slidely - Video ads and Marketing