Friday, September 25, 2015

Who Can I Believe


Judy Stewart
and her Beatle Buddies

Mayhew-Stride
Janon Music ASCAP

Diplomat 45-0101
Synthetic Plastics Co.
Newark, N.J.
1964

b/w I'll Take You Back Again.  Both songs were also on the album issued by The Beatle Buddies on Diplomat Records (#2313).  The album doesn't have the Judy Stewart credit, doesn't have any songwriter credits.  But it does have a picture of the anonymous ladies on the cover.



Aubrey Mayhew,
composer of the song and also probably producer of the Beatle Buddies, grew up in Washington and went into the music business in the late 1940s, first as a booker, then as director of the Hayloft Jamboree on the radio station WCOP in Boston.
After working for budget record companies such as Pickwick Records and Diplomat Records, he formed Little Darlin Records.He was also known as passionate collector of John F Kennedy memorabilia.

Aubrey Mayhew was in Houston in November 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. At the time, Mayhew was working for the New York-based Diplomat Records. “I was staying at the Shamrock Hotel in Houston, trying to buy some George Jones tapes from Pappy Daily [the owner of Jones' Starday record label],” he said. “The Kennedy assassination happened right there on television. I immediately called a friend in Houston, who brought over two tape recorders and all the tape he could carry.

“We recorded everything off the television for about 12 hours. I rushed the material back to New York, and we put out the first ‘Kennedy Speeches’ album. At that time, we had 300 Woolworth stores in our pocket. We got prime display. We sold about 3 million albums in four months.”

This incident led Mayhew to his affinity for Kennedy memorabilia.  His prize possession is the Texas School Book Depository. “Why did I buy it?” he asked me. “It was a premium item for my collection. I paid $600,000 for it.”

Mayhew removed the original window where Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly shot Kennedy. Mayhew claims the window is stored in Nashville, but some in Dallas argue that it is not the original window. “There’s a debate over everything in life,” Mayhew said emphatically. “I don’t lie! I don’t cheat! I don’t steal! I saw them take that window out.”

Mayhew, 81, died in 2009 at hospice care facility in Nashville.

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