The Dixie Drifter

The Dixie Drifter was the alias adopted by New York-based disk jockey Enoch Gregory for some mid-’60s record releases. Probably the most successful of the, making the nationwide graphs, was his spoken term single “Spirit Heaven.” The track, authored by producer-composer Teddy Vann (maybe best kept in mind for Johnny Thunder’s 1963 strike “Loop de Loop”) — no question loosely influenced by “Hillbilly Heaven” and “Teenage Heaven” — was a tribute to Dinah Washington, Nat “Ruler” Cole, and Sam Cooke. The record strike in 1965 for Roulette, which later on recorded a whole album called Stories, credited towards the Dixie Drifter. The Commodores’ “Night time Shift,” but not a spoken term release, continued the concept effectively 20 years later on.