NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED - (Crescent 637) Out of San Diego, California, this 1963 disc is the second of three singles issued by Betty Turner and The Chevelles on the tiny, Dore Records distributed, Crescent label. 'The Winds kept Laughing' was written and produced by John Gummoe and Lenny Greene of The Cascades who would visit hitsville themselves that same year with their Valiant single, 'Rhythm Of The Rain'. According to Lenny, their band manager at that time asked that they write some songs for Betty and her group since he wanted to record them. The sessions were eventually held in a garage studio built by John and Lenny where they were using a Woolensak reel to reel recorder at 7 1/2 speed. The musicians on the record were Lenny on rhythm guitar, Dave Wilson (of the Cascades) on drums, Dave Stevens (also of the Cascades) on electric bass and all the horns were amazingly done by some local kids from the high school, plus two elderly retired musicians contributed their talents. Lenny remembered that the amp and reverb came from sending all signals through a Fender Bandmaster amp with the speakers disconnected. That was their amp, mixer and sound effects combined. They used the same setup on all of the early Cascade demo's when they were shopping for a contract prior to hooking up with Valiant. At one time there was an RCA engineer who asked Lenny what studio they recorded at and when he told him what they were doing he was understandably totally blown away.
While the three Crescent singles and a later single on Liberty may have not reached hit status for Betty Turner when originally released, they have since become quite coveted and highly collectable discs among Soul music collectors.
