The Right Kind

The Right Kind was thick with talent. Besides singer/guitarist Cal Valentine, the unit comprised tenor player Ronnie Lewis, bassist Bobby Reid and drummer Frank Samuels. The band who was so tight and so popular that in the first 3 years that they spent together they "worked seven nights a week, six hours a night, off one night a year and that was Christmas night.....we could play a whole month and not play everything we had accomplished". The band signed with the prestigious Galaxy label and although they recorded around a dozen songs, including My Money Is Funny, You Ought To Slow Dance Baby and the big hit Why Did You Have To Lie, Cal and the rest of the band found it difficult to submit to the strenuous demands placed on them in the studio and eventually quit. The end came for The Right Kind when they so impressed Etta James when backing her at the Sportsman in Oakland, she asked them to accompany her ona two week gig in Las Vegas, a chance that they jumped at, but when Etta moved on and asked them to go with her, Cal, who believed that this was a backwards step, declined and returned to Oakland, but the other 3 decided it was an opportunity they didn’t want to miss and left with Etta.