Thomas Cain – Hold Up / Try My Love 45 (Soul Direction) 7″ Vinyl

Recorded at Wishbone Studios, Muscle Shoals Alabama around 1976 are seeing a release for the first time anywhere in any format.

The Story of My journey with Thomas Cain.

Working from home became a way of life for a lot of people and in some ways made us all a little closer albeit in some strange ways. Facebook had its livestreaming sessions and house party & Zoom apps kept us in touch virtually but ultimately gave us all an opportunity to look at everything with different eyes.
Not being able to get across the pond to the USA for my regular trips to seek out stock for my website made life a little more difficult but certainly not unbearable and of course did give me more time to think about not only my inventory but indeed my own collection.
This thought process lead me to start the painstaking task of researching some of my personally coveted master tapes and acetates and I came across one’s that had always had a sense of mystery that I had never uncovered until now.
I purchased the tracks in question many years ago from a collector (now record label owner and publisher) just for the sheer sound of it. A superb upbeat melodic 70s soul sound on a handsome 10” Masterfonics Acetate. Never knowing much about it other than the artist seemingly only released one 45 in his own name “Thomas Cain”. A few years later I came across a 12” one sided LP acetate with these 2 tracks + 4 others which had been recorded with a little more backing instrumentation, again on a Masterfonics Acetate.
Fast forward to 2020 and the extra time afforded me and the fact that the record label I was to create had begun to grow as a concept I decided to do a little investigation into its origins.
After a few of the usual dead end leads I finally found an article in Encyclopaedia Alabama on Thomas. On reading the article and seeing that he had worked with fellow Alabama singer-songwriter Arthur Alexander and formed a 20-year song writing and publishing relationship with the soul legend I knew I was on the right track. Having been told he was Senior Director, Writer/Publisher Relations for BMI I tracked him down to a BMI office in Tennessee. I called the office, and after a conversation with a rather bemused colleague I was given an email to use to try and contact him. I mailed out my story I had so far and what I was looking to do with the tracks, but most of all wanted to fill in the blanks to the history of the 2 wonderful songs in question.
After a couple of months had gone by with no reply (which is not unusual), just a couple of days before Christmas day 2020 I received a reply from the man himself. His answer was polite and professional with just a hint of caution as I am sure he would be after an email from a guy he didn’t know about tracks he performed over four decades ago. Having said that he was responsive in his reply and wanted to know more. He suggested a contact after the holidays and see where that lead to.
I promptly answered with a huge thanks and promised to make contact again a few weeks later which I made a note in the diary to do.
Our second contact was easier having previously broken the ice, although Thomas has always been a pleasure to have contact with.
I put my idea forward with as much vigour and energy as would allow and he came back liking what I was proposing. He informed me that he had kept audio files from the original masters and began re-calling all the musicians on the track, the Wishbone studio it was recorded at, and the engineers involved. I began to think he may be as excited about the project as I was. Between us we have been able to come up with 2 superbly mastered tracks for your listening and hopefully dancing pleasure.
It has been a long journey to get to the point of release, but between us we both wanted everything to be in place with all the I’s and T’s properly dotted and crossed.
In the time I have corresponded with Thomas he has been and absolute gentleman and a pleasure to work with and for someone with his knowledge of the industry and connections I feel truly honoured to be able to have just a tiny part in this great man’s music.

Thomas Glenn Cain

Thomas Glenn Cain was born on November 8th, 1946 in (Athens Limestone County) Alabama. At the age of 10,his musical journey began by rigging his grandmother’s broken-down pump organ and teaching himself how to play. Cain’s father was a church deacon and a song leader of congregational hymns, so music was never far from Thomas’ early life. A year later he started playing the trumpet. His first piano teacher was Celestine Bridgeforth. In the 7 th grade, at segregated Trinity High School he studied piano under the tutelage of Wynetta Harris, who was a prominent music teacher in the Black community. In 1965, Cain went on to Alabama A&M University in Normal, Alabama where he majored in music and in his spare time, he played in bands locally. Band member and trombonist Fred Wesley suggested that Cain leave Alabama so, in the fall of 1966, he left Alabama and enrolled in Tennessee State University in Nashville. Immediately, after moving to Nashville and as a trumpet player, Cain joined Tyrone Smith’s “Soul Revue” where they played in Montreal as the backing band for Arthur Conley and Rufus Thomas. In 1969, Cain graduated from TSU with a degree in music. In 1970, Cain met singer/songwriter Arthur Alexander and began what was to be a song writing and publishing relationship lasting more than 20 years. He co-wrote and worked on Arthur’s 1972 Muscle Shoals album. It was around this time that he met Dennis (“Hunka Hunka Burning Love”) Linde at Combine Music Corp. This meeting produced his only 45 recording on RCA “Dragging It Out” and “Crawling” written with Linde in 1975. These two tracks “Hold Up” & “Try My Love” were recorded around 1976 at Wishbone Recording Studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Cain registered the songs but nothing was done with them until now. Incidentally, both songs were written with Michael Bacon who is the brother of Hollywood movie star Kevin Bacon. In 1980, Cain formed Sweet Baby Music, a co-publishing venture with Combine Music Corp. The company went on to have several #1 Country hits and in 1984, Frances Preston the president of BMI hired Cain where he became a Senior Director of writer publisher relation by the 1990’s. Cain retired from BMI June 30, 2012. Thomas Cain is completing his first fiction book and working on a story about how his grandmother’s broken down organ led to Music Row and a career in the music business. – Soul Direction