Today we visit the little record company from Detroit that put out all those nifty R&B records that Porky played. We spent a lot of money on them when we could find them. I remember my first Purple Fortune record. It was THE WIND by Nolan Strong and The Diablos. Just-Tom and I found it at a great record store in Pittsburgh's North Side called Stedafords. It's still in business.

Fortune Records was a small studio that had a little store front where they sold the records they made. In one door and out the other. The studio was rather crude with only a few microphones and an upright piano. The control room was very small with a make-shift audio mixer and one Ampex 350, full track tape machine. If you have any Fortune records, you know that the quality is rather poor. The studio was run on a shoestring by Jack and Devora Brown. They made the first recordings in the living room of their house. That's where Devora Brown had her piano. I assume they bought another one for the first studio that was in a large building in Detroit. They moved in there in 1954, but later moved to the little block building in the picture in 1956. Fortune Records lasted until the mid 1990s, although they didn't do much recording after 1972. The building was demolished October 27, 2001. The sad thing for music historians is that unlike Motown's Hitsville USA that was turned into a museum, there is no building, no old equipment, and no pictures. It's hard to believe that nobody took any pictures. At least we have the records. Many have been reissued by Norton Records in N.Y.

Now available at Norton Records… “MIND OVER MATTER: The Myths and Mysteries of Detroit's Fortune Records.”