Those nice people at Motown//Universal have agreed to licence a collectors seven-inch 45 to go with the first 500 copies of the forthcoming Al Abrams book "Hype & Soul"

HITSVILLE USA - GREETINGS TO TAMLA MOTOWN APPRECIATION SOCIETY

This is the disc produced by Motown and given to Dave Godin to hand out to members of his TMAS after his famous visit to Hitsville.

Features snippets of tracks/speech from Margaret Phelps,Berry Gordy Jnr, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Stevie Wonder,Marvin Gaye, The Marvelettes, The Temptations, Martha & The Vandellas, Eddie Holland, Kim Weston, The Supremes.

We will be reproducing the original label design and it will be colour vinyl. Al is very complimentary about Dave Godin in the book, so we thought this would be a nice touch.

The mammoth job of getting the book ready is almost over and all the pages are due to be laid out by the end of this month. We are aiming to publish by the end of May.

Al has supplied a mindblowing pile of archive documents and photographs to go with a series of essays he has written about this time at Motown.

He became Berry Gordy's first employee in 1959, when he was just 18,and after being given the job of promoting records at record hops & radio stations he became Motown's director of publicity.It was Al who came up with the phrase "The Sound Of Young America" and his recollections are amazing (taking the first acetate of "Money" to New York and getting Alan Freed to play it, driving Della Reese from Detroit to Windsor and a cop on a motor bike stopping them and racially abusing Della, almost losing his job over the Tommy Good march on Hitsville, being smuggled under age into the 20 Grand Club and sitting with Berry Gordy, Jackie Wilson and Sir Mack Rice, taking a very young Little Stevie Wonder to a promotion event and getting him to sing to the kids in the neighbourhood from the porch of Al's house, the list goes on and on !!!)

Al writes so well it makes you think you are there with him.

Hype & Soul will be published by Soulvation and will be hardback with a dust cover.

A facility to buy on line from the Soulvation web site will be available soon.

All The Best,

Neil..

Edited March 6, 201114 yr by NeilRushton1

This looks like an essential purchase to me.

Thanks for the advance notice.

Well the marathon is almost over and all being well Glenn Gunton will have finiished laying out the pages for the book next week.

There is so much good stuff from Al we have now added 48 pages, including 32 page of some of his actual press releases.

And there's also now snippets from when Al was in charge of publicity at Stax after he left Motown (he later looked after PR for James Brown, Aretha Franklin and Invictus, but that's another load of stories!), .

If you're into Soul this book will give you goosebumps. I am constantly amazed to be getting e-mails from the guy who was Berry Gordy's first employee. Al is a lovely guy and full of energy now aged 70, goodness what he was like in his 20's!. Hopefully the book reflects the way he was pluggd into the mains at Hitsville. All about "The Sound Of Young America" from the man who came up with the phrase.

Pre-ordering faclity will be available from April 1 on the Soulvation web site - www.soulvation.biz

Edited March 25, 201114 yr by NeilRushton1

Has there been any progress with this book?

Cant wait , if its half as good has Berry ,Me & Motown by Raynoma L Singleton its gonna be a cracker, love the stories from Detroit ect ect and the rise of Hitsville

To kind of copy what they said about Stevie, Hype & Soul is almost ready! And it's incredible and well worth the work put into it.

Al has come up with last minute goodies including what is believed to be the only USA newspaper interview with The Elgins in which Sandra Edwards reveals the quirky way the group came up with the name.

The new stuff is being added, everything else has been proof read, the TMAS single was mastered last week ,and collectors memorabilia being sorted right now.

My mind was blown apart seeing all the separate pieces as the book came together, but reading them all together is just fantastic..

Never mind hearing stuff second hand about HItsville, this is direct from Al Abrams who was Berry Gordy's Ist employee. Not only does he come up with incredibly detailed first person stories, he has backed it up with reams of never before seen documents and photographs from his "I never threw anything away" archives. It has been a privilege to have worked with Al on this..

We wil announce details of how to buy it soon. Ist Ist 500 only will have the TMAS single.

All The Best,

Neil

Edited May 18, 201114 yr by NeilRushton1