The Contours at EPCOT Tonite...

[flyinglizard]

I've been looking forward to the Contours appearance at the "Eat to the Beat" Concert series at Food & Wine, since they were first posted. I saw them tonite and I was very disappointed...

Sylvester Potts is the only original from the first Contours, but that happens with the old groups. He can still sing pretty well though.

They started the set with "First I Look at the Purse", a big hit- good start. Then they did "Higher and Higher" by Jackie Wilson. Then they did a long medley of hits by the Temps... Then "Shout" by the Isley Brothers. The 40 minute set ended with "Do You Love Me", their big hit.

So I figured, OK, the second set they'll probably do some of their own stuff so I waited in line with all the old people... Same set as the first, so I left when they started the Temps medley. Being an ex musician, I don't do that very often.

They could have easily done all their old stuff for 40 minutes. Isn't that why the name "Contours" is a draw to older audiences?

They forgot to sing-

Shake Sherry
Don't Let her Be Your Baby
Can You Do It
Can You Jerk Like Me
That Day When She Needed Me
Just a Little Misunderstanding
It's So Hard Being A Loser

Nor the hard-to-find and my personal favorite from the Contours, "It Must Be Love", written by Sylvester himself!

So if you wanted to see the Contours, and weren't able to be there, ya missed some good singers, but NOT the CONTOURS!

 

[Hound 109]

Thanks for the info Flying Lizard. I think from the response (of this post) probably not to many folks are familiar with the Contours.

I'm not, but I did know that they did "Do You Love Me"...which I think everyone would agree is a fantastic song (& would know it as soon as it started off).

If I had been at Epcot, I would have LOVED the set you outlined (Jackie Wilson song, Temps songs, Isleys & the one above).

Thanks again.

hound

 

[flyinglizard]

Like I said, they are still a gifted vocal group and fine entertainers. I'm just sorry they ignored their own musical history in favor of better known songs by other groups. Hard for me to understand why they would do that...

 

[flyinglizard]

I just went back to Steve Soares site, http://pages.prodigy.net/stevesoares/ , and clicked on The Contours...

It seems to be a totally DIFFERENT group than the one I saw last nite!

Maybe it was all just a bad dream...

 

[flyinglizard]

After doing a little homework, I discovered that the group I saw the other night is really a group from Detroit known as "UPSCALE" and they are legally allowed to use the name "Contours featuring Sylvester Potts", under a licensing agreement, since Sylvester was in the group. However, the group must be specifically promoted as "The Contours featuring Sylvester Potts" in accordance with the agreement.

There is another group called "The Contours featuring Joe Billingslea"- Joe was one of the founding members- that still perform and do a lot of the original Contours hits in their shows. In my opinion, this is the real "Contours".

As the Hound 109 pointed out, from the response to this post, "not too many folks are familiar with the Contours", so this my last post on the subject.

But if they don't sound like the Contours, and they only perform two songs by the Contours.... it's not really the Contours!