The Trilon Record Manufacturing Company was established in January 1946 at 3123, San Pablo Avenue in Oakland, California. The owner was Rene T. LaMarre, who had started his career as a talent scout and MC for a number of cinemas in the Bay Area during the 1930s. The cinemas put on live shows in the afternoon, and occasionally organised amateur talent shows during the evening. In 1939, LaMarre became the co-owner of the Downtown Theatre in Oakland, where he set up regular junior talent-spotting shows.
It was a natural progression for LaMarre to enter the music-making industry, and he was fortunate to be following in the footsteps of Bob Geddins but with significantly more capital available to him. LaMarre was thinking big. He envisaged being able to draw on local talented performers, of which there were many. He had also learned from the musicians strike during the early forties that he would be wise to hire non-unionised musicians. His ambitious plans included one or more recording studios, a growing number of presses, and weekly production runs that would build to hundreds of thousands of discs. He also took up songwriting.
The label design is a trilon, a triangular pylon, modelled on the 700 foot tower constructed in New York for the World Fair of 1939/1940.
The roster included White and Black performers, covering Jazz, Gospel, Comedy and R&B. Over the two years of operation, around sixty singles were issued, all in the 10” shellac 78rpm format.
During the first year of operation, Bob Geddins came to Trilon seeking a solution to the breakdown of his home-made press. He spoke with Trilon’s President, Harry Leader, who agreed to press Geddins’ recordings and persuaded Geddins to act as a sales representative for Trilon and the Geddins labels in Texas. The outcome of this arrangement was that Geddins lost out financially, as a result of which a significant number of Bob Geddins’ master recordings became the property of Trilon, including tracks by Lowell Fulson and Jimmy McCracklin.
For a while, LaMarre seemed be building a strong business, but by 1948, sales were not growing as expected. The decision was taken to sell the business to Mercury Records for a quarter of a million dollars.
Selected Artists at Trilon
The Vagabonds were four White musicians who formed a vaudeville singing group. Their songs are clever and amusing. They got the label up and running.
The Four Aces were four Black musicians who also sang. Their songs hark back to the crooners of the pre-war era and anticipate elements of Doo-Wop in their harmonies.
Vivianne Green was a pianist and singer, who played with her trio on three Trilon singles. Her songs combine Jazz and Blues in a similar way to those written by Charles Brown, but Vivianne Green has a stronger element of Boogie-Woogie.
There were three Gospel groups on the roster. The Rising Star Gospel Singers, the Paramount Gospel Singers, and the Wright Brothers Jubilee or Gospel Singers. They recorded eighteen traditional Gospel tracks between them.
Bob Scobey added a few Jazz tracks, Jack Rivers & the Texas Tornados and Don Churchill & His Texas Mavericks provided some Country with a touch of Western Swing.
Trilon also released a number of orchestral tracks from local ensembles, which were aimed at the MOR popular market.
That leaves Lowell Fulson and Jimmy McCracklin, whose masters were passed to Trilon by Bob Geddins. They are the most important performers on the label for anyone interested in R&B music.
Lowell Fulson
Fulson hadn’t been with Geddins for long when the transfer of masters occurred. He had released two singles on the Big Town label, his first recordings, in 1947. Two more singles then appeared that year on the Trilon label, “Jelly, Jelly”/ “Mean Woman Blues” and “9.30 Shuffle”/ “Thinking Blues”, credited to Lowell Fulson And The Ful-Tones, with Bob Johnson on bass.
In 1948, three further singles were issued by Bob Geddins, one on Big Town, one on Down Town, and one on Cava-Tone. Trilon also issued another single in 1948, pairing “Tryin’ To Find My Baby”/ “Let’s Throw A Boogie Woogie”, credited to Lowell Fulson And His Band, with Que Martyn on tenor sax.
Just to complicate things further, Jack Lauderdale at Swing Time had also acquired some Fulson tracks from Bob Geddins, “The Blues Is Killing Me”/ “Did You Ever Feel Lucky”, which were also released in 1948.
And there was one more Fulson single from Scotty’s Radio also issued that year! Lowell Fulson recorded “Scotty’s Blues”/ “The Train Is Leaving” with the J. Russell Trio as a one-off publicity recording. Scotty’s Radio was a record store owned by Anthony Urbano Jr. located at 5139 Third Avenue, San Francisco; this single was its only issue, so quite a collector’s item!
Some of the Fulson masters were probably never released by Trilon, but they resurfaced many years later when remastered compilations of Fulson’s work began to appear. Four can be found on a 2004 UK compilation issued by JSP Records entitled “Classic Cuts Remastered: Lowell Fulson 1946-1953”. It is a four-CD collection, featuring 113 tracks.
The extra tracks are “Tell Me Baby”, “Highway ‘99’”, “Whiskey Blues”, and an instrumental “Fulson Boogie”.
The Trilon tracks are an interesting mix. “Tell Me Baby” has a strong piano backing and no guitar, “Thinking Blues” showcases Fulson’s electric guitar, “Highway ‘99’” is Jazz Blues, “Fulson Boogie” is exactly that, with a nice interplay of piano and guitar, and “9.30 Shuffle” is R&B Blues. Trilon probably had just ten tracks by Fulson out of the hundreds that he recorded, but they encapsulate the development of West Coast Blues beautifully.
Jimmy McCracklin’s appearances on Trilon are just as complicated as Lowell Fulson’s. McCracklin had started out with Globe in 1945, where he had three singles issued before moving to Courtney, where he cut four tracks in 1946. His next single appeared on Excelsior, still in 1946, after which he moved to Bob Geddins’ labels in Oakland, where he formed the Blues Blasters. The Blasters were Little Red on drums and Robert Kelton on guitar, plus McCracklin on vocals and piano. Horns were added on most of the tracks they recorded.
Two singles were issued on the Cava-Tone label in 1947 and two on Down Town in 1948. After Bob Geddins’ financial problems that year, several McCracklin masters passed to Trilon.
Their first McCracklin single, issued as Trilon 197 in 1948, was a re-issue of McCracklin’s second Courtney release, with “Rock And Rye” on the A-side and “Miss Minnie Lee Blues” on the B-side. That was followed by two more singles in 1949. The first was Trilon 244, an instrumental “South Side Mood”, backed by “I Can’t Understand Love”.
The second was Trilon 245, “When I’m Gone”, backed by “Listen Woman”. Trilon 244 also appeared on the Marvel label as Marvel 701.
Several more masters were retained by Trilon but not released. There are nine Jimmy McCracklin tracks on the 2004 JSP compilation, three of which are new. They are “Rock And Rye (Part 2), “Playin’ On Me”, and “Big Foot Mama”.
Several of the tracks are up-tempo Jump Blues (“Rock And Rye” Parts 1 and 2, “Big Foot Mama”, and “I Can’t Understand Love”). Jimmy’s piano is often to the fore, with Jazzy solos on saxophones and trumpet. Others tracks (“You Had Your Chance” and “Miss Minnie Lee Blues”) are set at a slower tempo, with a more R&B backing.
McCracklin went on to record for at least six more labels, including Modern, Swing Time, and Irma. He is regarded as a highly significant performer, at the heart of the development of Blues, R&B, and Rock & Roll on the West Coast.
In 2008, the UK’s Acrobat Records issued a 3-CD compilation of the Trilon recordings. All the label’s artists are included, with twenty-seven tracks on each of the CDs.
Perhaps the most surprising inclusion is a track recorded by Bob Geddins! It is a slow Country Blues with a piano backing. Perhaps Rene LaMarre felt that he owed Bob Geddins a favour.
