Englishman John Broven is known to most New Orleans and Louisiana music buffs via his two excellent books, Rhythm & Blues In New Orleans and South To Louisiana. While Broven has pretty much kept a cover on his typewriter the past few years, he hasn’t stopped documenting the music of this city and state.

Since 1991, Broven has been an A&R consultant for the London-based Ace label and has been involved in producing various Cajun, swamp pop, blues and rock and roll reissue compilations. Recently, that position facilitated a return to the Crescent City in order to pick up the tapes that comprised the Frisco Records legacy.

“Frisco was a small New Orleans label owned by Connie LaRocca whose major artist was Danny White,” explained Broven. “They were in business in the early 1960s. Ironically, I first saw those tapes in a closet when I came over to do the book (Rhythm and Blues In New Orleans) in 1973. I stayed with her son, James LaRocca, who was a contributor to Blues Unlimited (as was Broven). I had no idea his mother was in the record business, but we became friends and stayed in touch over the years.

“Connie has been approached several times about reissuing the Frisco material in the past few years. Earl King was going to have the tapes copied in the 1980s but nothing happened. We tried to do a deal in 1992-had a studio booked to copy the tapes- but the project was canceled at the last minute. Recently, we heard that another label was interested in the tapes, but Connie told them she had a previous commitment to Ace. At that point we figured we better do a deal now.

“We got about 20 seven-inch mono master tapes and a couple of larger stereo master tapes. We’ve got session sheets so we know who all the musicians are on the records. Frisco used some of New Orleans’ best players. I haven’t listened to all the tapes yet, but this could be a real treasure. Right now I don’t know if we’ll do a Frisco anthology and a separate Danny White CD, or put them together on one CD.”

Some other projects Broven recently completed include a swamp blues anthology, two early Fats Domino collections and a Cookie & the Cupcakes reissue.

“The Cookie CD had been on the back burner for some time,” said Broven. “It’s got their first recordings when they were called. the Boogie Ramblers which came from Goldband. The rest of the CD was licensed from Floyd Soileau {who administers the Khoury’s/Lyric catalog} but he only had master tapes for some of the material. The rest was dubbed from disc.

“We recopied a lot of tracks that were below par sound-wise. With the technology studios have today, you can get rid of the surface noise, the tape hiss and the static that you couldn’t eliminate just a few years ago.”

Technology was called on to enhance Fats Domino’s Early Imperial Singles Vol. 1 & 2 which were recently issued by Ace.

“Fats’ early material has been reissued several times, but as far as sound reproduction is concerned the Ace reissues are far superior,” said Broven. “We worked with tapes from the EMI vaults, but in some situations the tapes weren’t the best source.

“A lot of the original master tapes were missing. Many of the existing tapes came from LPs that had been copied and remastered. Imperial tried to cash in on Fats’ popularity by putting out a lot of Fats Domino LPs in the late 1950s and early 1960s. When they chose material for those LPs they had to use older tracks to fill them out. After Fats recorded “Ain’t That A Shame” (1955), Imperial’s engineer Bunny Robbins used to speed up a lot of Fats’ master tapes. When they sequenced the LPs, they sped up a lot of the older songs too. So up until now, most Domino compilations were made up of tracks that were reissued at their adjusted speed.

“We remastered a lot of tracks from clean 78s or we slowed the tapes down to ensure that the listener hears the music the way it was originally recorded. In the case of Fats’ recorded legacy, I guess you could say we’re rewriting history the way it should have been written.”

Broven is also involved in mining the Excello Records vaults.

“Right now I’m working on a live Slim Harpo CD that was recorded in Mobile at the Sage Auditorium in June of 1961,” continued Broven. “It was recorded around the time ‘Raining In My Heart’ was a hit. Slim had his regular band with him. What makes this release so special is that it’s a rare opportunity to hear one of the great blues artists from the 1950s and 1960s. recorded on stage in his prime.”

The other Excello reissues planned for the immediate future will include material produced by the late Crowley, LA record man, J.D. Miller.

“We’ll be doing a third Lightnin’ Slim CD- Wintertime Blues,” said Broven. “It will include his later material (1962-1965). I think that Lightnin’ Slim is a very underrated blues artist. I think his material is right up there with Muddy Waters, B.B. King and Howlin’ Wolf.”

“The other Excello project is the J.D. Miller R&B Legacy that mops up odd singles by people like Skinny Dynamo, Jimmy Anderson and Tabby Thomas. J.D. was really a talented writer and producer- he got the best out of his artists. The more I listen to the things he recorded, the more I appreciate his contributions. Even when he tried to update the sound in his studio in the 1960s by adding extra instrumentation, the quality remained in his productions.”

Another Broven project is a Harold Battiste tribute CD.

“Harold’s notoriety is primarily in the field of jazz, but this CD will concentrate on his contributions to R&B,” said Broven. “It will include tracks he produced on Specialty, Ric, AFO and Atlantic. Artists included will be Prince La La, Dr. John, Johnny Adams and even Sonny & Cher. Harold is really excited about the project.”

Clearly Broven enjoys his duties at Ace, as he sees his work as an extension of his research and writing As Broven said with a modest chuckle, “I guess you’d say now that my job is adding music to the words.”

G.G. Shinn-ex-Boogie King vocalist is in the studio for Sound of New Orleans. One of the songs he recorded was “Loan Me Your Handkerchief.” Helping out on guitar was Irving Bannister, who played guitar on the original Danny White version…. Ex- WWOZ, Black Top and Ultrasonic Studio go-getter Patricia Gorman is off to Los Angeles to seek fame and fortune