Totty - 1977 - Totty

Totty

1977

Totty

01. Thus Saith The Lord 1:30

02. T-Town Teasers 2:41

03. Crack In The Cosmic Egg 5:04

04. Love Down By One Share (Love Song To A Whore) 4:57

05. I´ve Done Made Up My Mind 5:40

06. Wicked Truth 4:09

07. Tryin´ To Forget You 3:47

08. Take Me Away Jesus 4:48

09. Somebody Help Me 8:27

Bass, Synthesizer, Vocals – Byron Totty

Guitar, Piano, Synthesizer, Vocals – Dennis Totty

Drums – David Blue, George Cooper, Roger Roden

In 1976 the Totty Brothers were in a three piece band with drummer George Cooper called Starstream Bodine. They went into Charity Recording Studios in Tulsa, Oklahoma to record six original songs to be used in a band ‘promo package’, which would be sent out to talent booking agents and other music industry people. This was done in order to hopefully book more live appearances, and possibly generate interest from a record label for their original songs.

Shortly after the six songs were completed, George moved out of state. After a short while, instead of scraping the project, The Totty Brothers decided to add a few more songs to the six songs and make a full album of all original tunes. Needing studio drumming help to record three more songs, they asked drummers Roger Roden, drummer from their old band Cedric, and David Blue, the drummer for the band Bliss, their favorite Oklahoma band, to play on the new sessions . They would not worry about putting together a live act at this time. Basically just finish out recording the full album, and then concentrate on doing promo work by sending out the 9 songs to record companies.

Once the full album was mixed and completed, the album was pressed on vinyl and 50 copies were made, with plain white album covers and no artwork. (This wasn’t to copy the Beatles white album. This was strictly a financial decision. This was the least expensive way to get the albums pressed)

This white album, along with lyric sheets, mimeographed photos, and album and contact info, were all enclosed in a clear plastic bag and sealed with a white, circular adhesive tab. This package was created in 1976

After a short while, word-of-mouth about this promo package started to pick up steam in the Oklahoma area. After a couple of radio stations played a song from the package, several local artists stepped up and donated their services in order to turn their ‘promo’ album into a ‘real’ album, with artwork and photography for both covers, plus a lyric sheet insert. Thus, the final version of the Totty album was created. They decided to follow in the footsteps of other independent artists at that time and start their own record and publishing company, and release their album on their own label. In 1977, the first completed Totty album was officially released by Our First Record Company (OFRC-01).

They made an appointment one afternoon with Oklahoma City’s largest rock station , KATT, to see if the station would play a song from the album. During the meeting, after listening to 2 songs, the program director said ‘yes, we’ll play this’. That night, on KATT’s album spotlight hour, they played the entire Totty album.

The brothers were soon driving their car around to record stores and radio stations in Oklahoma, trying to get the album into any kind of record store that would sell it. Later, after they had put together an act, they also sold the album at live performances. (They later performed two concerts for KATT radio which were recorded and re-broadcast on air.)

The album was also gaining a word-of-mouth buzz due to the somewhat controversial lyrics that were contained in the album. There were actually some rock radio stations who would not play the album because they felt the album was 'too religious'. At the same time, there were christian radio stations who would not play the album because they felt it was 'too satanic'.

The Totty Brothers of Tulsa Oklahoma provide the listener with an overall strong hard rock entry. Comes complete with a righteous Christian message mixed with more traditional male fare - like scoring with girls. And just how many righteous men have gotten religion over similar? Not a lot of albums out there, pre 1980 especially, that have titles with referencing Jesus... and whores(?!). No matter though, as this one delivers the goods - even in the laymen sense - with plenty of solid distorted guitar fronted hard rock tunes. This is the pre-NWOBHM era, but with that same take no prisoners attitude. File alongside Truth & Janey, and Poobah. This is the good stuff.