Bill Dobslaw and the Riviera label: the record side, at its true size

1963–1966 · the Rivieras' singles and the label's whole catalogue

One hour in Chicago, on a twenty-one-year-old's money: The record producers of this city amount, in the documented record, to one young man performing the producer's functions without the title. Bill Dobslaw was twenty-one when he became the Rivieras' manager in 1963 — the band itself, five South Bend Central High School students, is the Music chapter's. What Dobslaw did is the producing of the era in its small-label form: he booked and paid for one hour at Chicago's Columbia Recording Studios in the summer of 1963, in which the band cut "California Sun" in three takes; he owned the label the record came out on — the discography record is plain that "Bill Dobslaw owned the label and also managed the Rivieras, occasionally singing with them as well"; a thousand copies were pressed on his Riviera label (R-1401, December 1963); one of them reached the Chicago disc jockey Art Roberts at WLS, who broke the record; and Dobslaw secured the national distribution deal with USA Records of Chicago that carried it to No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The label's whole catalogue is documented and small: eight singles by the Rivieras and two albums, and one 45 each by the Kastaways and the Sigma Five — the same La Porte group under two names, on Otto Nuss's recollection to Kicks magazine; La Porte is its own city, west of here, and its bands are printed as La Porte's on a South Bend label. No South Bend studio stood behind any of it: the record was made in Chicago because Chicago was where the studios were, and Junior Walker's South Bend-formed band likewise made its records in Battle Creek and Detroit. That is the record side's honest shape — the city's talent, other cities' rooms, and one manager-label owner who did the producing himself. The later local scene's documented music production stands at the size the Music chapter gives it: joHn Kennedy, of Kennedy's Kitchen, co-produced two recordings with his earlier band Seamaisin and produced the music for Dennis Courtney's film of Joyce's Araby (1997), a Student Academy Award nominee — a Notre Dame student production, and the city's one documented film-production credit of its kind.

Sources:

1. The Music chapter of this record — the Rivieras' formation, manager Bill Dobslaw aged twenty-one, the 1963 Columbia Recording Studios session and the three takes of "California Sun," the December 1963 release on the band's own Riviera label (R-1401), the Billboard record (No. 5, 29 February 1964), and the eight singles on the band's own label; joHn Kennedy's production record with Seamaisin and the Araby film (1997).
2. Garage Hangover, La Porte discography record — "Bill Dobslaw owned the label and also managed the Rivieras"; the Riviera label's further releases, one 45 each by the Kastaways and the Sigma Five, one group under two names per Otto Nuss's interview in Kicks magazine.
3. Indiana Music Encyclopedia, Rivieras entry — eight singles and two LPs in the first run, 1962–1966, on their own Riviera Records, distributed by Chicago's USA Records, which released the first LP.
4. Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, via the BlackCat Rivieras profile — the thousand-copy pressing, the WLS break by Art Roberts, and Dobslaw's USA Records distribution deal.