WINNER RECORDS

ABOUT WINNER PRODUCING COMPANY
by Mark Naftalin
           I founded Winner Producing Company in 1987 and have been operating it ever since with my wife, Ellen. So far there are two business entities within Winner Producing Company: Winner Records and Pencil Man Music, our publishing company. (The name "Pencil Man" honors Percy Mayfield, who used it as a nickname for himself based on his initials.)
           The first Winner release, in 1988, was a 45: "Honest And True"/"Treehouse Blues." "Honest And True" is the theme music I use on my weekly radio show, "Mark Naftalin's Blues Power Hour." I play all five instruments on this song, which was recorded in my living room in about 1971 using two tape recorders. "Treehouse Blues" is a piano solo recorded during one of the "Blue Monday Party" live radio shows that I produced back in the 'eighties.

           The first Winner album release was Ron Thompson's Just Like A Devil, which was also recorded during "Blue Monday Party" broadcasts and released in 1990. Four of the songs are solos, two are duets with Ron on guitar and me on piano, and four are with the "Blue Monday Party" house band. Ron sings on all songs.

           The second Winner release was Percy Mayfield Live (1992), which was also recorded during "Blue Monday Party" broadcasts. This album includes the first and only released example of Percy's piano playing. When Percy plays piano, I play organ. On all the other songs, I play piano.

           The third Winner release was Strawberry Jam by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band (1995). This album is made from documentary recordings of the band that I collected during our travels. The recordings span the period between early 1966, shortly after I joined the band, and early 1968, shortly before my departure. The title song is my composition and arrangement.

           The fourth Winner release, from 1996, is another live Butterfield Blues Band recording from the same source tapes as Strawberry Jam. Entitled East-West Live, the album consists of three versions of that pathbreaking song. Total time: 56 minutes. Musicians are the same as on the studio version of "East-West" released on the album of that name in 1966: Paul Butterfield, harmonica; Michael Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop, guitars; Mark Naftalin, keyboards; Jerome Arnold, bass; Billy Davenport, drums.

           In 1999 we released three videos, licensed from Videotunes. Two of these -- Mark Naftalin's Blue Monday Party, Volume 1 (starring Lowell Fulson and Percy Mayfield) and Mark Naftalin's Blue Monday Party, Volume 2 (starring John Lee Hooker and Charlie Musselwhite) -- were taped at the Blue Monday Party show and dance that I produced in the Bay Area from 1979 to 1983. The third video -- Percy Mayfield -- Poet Laureate Of The Blues -- is a documentary on Percy Mayfield in which I function as interviewer and pianist. This video includes interview and duet segments taped at Percy's home in Los Angeles in 1982 along with stage footage (from the second Blue Monday Party video) and testimonials from Ray Charles and B.B. King. All three videos have been broadcast on PBS stations around the country.