Emanuel Laskey’s first recording for Thelma was a song he wrote with Thelma Gordy (Coleman) and Richard Street in 1963 – ‘Welfare Cheese’.

It became a sizeable regional hit, both in sales and radio play, on release and looked destined to crossover to a national market.Then, in November, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas and sales of the record were suspended.

While this might seem an over reaction, the reasoning was sound and respectful, because a lyric in the song referred to Kennedy by name. By the time the record returned to the market, momentum had been lost and the opportunity missed. It was re issued as the B side of ‘Crazy’ but never duplicated the previous success.

A lasting legacy from this episode was the nickname ‘Cheese’ that persisted throughout his life. Laskey assisted Thelma in other ways, by bringing other artists into the company. “Tommy, Ronnie and Joe did the background vocals on some of my records. Thelma Records in turn put them together as a group and they became the Fabulous Peps.”

He had known Billy Kennedy since their days working in the Wonderbread bakery together and readily recommended him. “He wanted to sing so much that he would work the nightshift, sit around the studio all day, go have a sleep for a couple of hours and then go back to work.”

Through his familiarity with many local performers he ‘discovered’ Martha Star, and Joe Matthews who both recorded for the label along with a pre pubescent Rose Battiste who remembers her first foray into the heady world of entertainment clearly. “The company was located across the street from my high school, which made it real easy to hang out there. The first person who took the time to hear me sing was Emanuel Laskey. He brought me to Don Davis and he recorded ‘I just can’t leave you’ on me when I was about 13 or 14. It was really exciting hearing your own song on the radio. I was queen of the neighbourhood!”

music: "Welfare Cheese" - Emanuel Laskey (Thelma 100b)

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