Effective period / Period of releases: 1971

Raised in Pennsylvania, Bartel was bitten by the rock and roll bug while a kid. By the mid-1960s he was playing keyboards and fronting Johnny Bartel And The Soul Masters. 1968 found Bartel and company living in Southern California where they released a highly collectable single for the small Solid Smoke label: Johnny Bartel And The Soul Masters - I Waited Too Long .
Bartel and company then signed to Jimmy Curtiss' newly formed Perception label and he made his debut with 1971's cleverly-titled The Jon Bartel Thing - Bartel. 1969 found Curtiss and Perception having arranged a distribution deal with Capitol, which saw the release of The Jon Bartel Thing - The Jon Bartel Thing with the same line up