Garethx

Hi Geoff: The version of Lost Someone people are referring to is a seventies remake on the Hell double album, where it's taken at a jaunty mid pace. I could be wrong, but I usually credit Ivor Jones as being the first person I heard play this in a soul club (doubtless someone played it as a new release, though). The Wednesday night at Smersh was George Jackson, where we had an almost unwritten rule of playing JB soul records. As I stated above, there are loads of them, and there would simply be no soul music as we know it without the great man.

A textbook example of this phenomenon is proably the Steeplechase album on Polydor.

Does Boz Scaggs Atlantic lp count? Some great Southern music, which isn't specifically soul, but is certainly very soulful, particularly "I'll Be Long Gone".

Lost Someone is a magical record, but really JB did absolutely tons of 'real soul', probably more than anyone who ever drew breath. Big favourites are "Sometimes A Man Has To Go To The Crossroads" or "King Heroin".

Cheers Joan & Ted.

The other side, Why Don't You Love Me, is much better, but I stil don't think you'd dig it Roger.

There is a huge doubt in my mind as to whether The Professionals version of DMBC features Steve Mancha on lead vocals: he had a tremendously distinctive voice and the guy who sings the group version has never sounded anything like him to my ears. Anyone out there agree with me? Soundclips would be a good place to start: anyone got any for a side by side comparison?

Good points well made, Mr Parry. That's what I mean about that period in the record industry being fascinating. It was a time of cultural and cross-cultural explosion. The links between 'white music' and 'black music' were breaking down in the US. Witness the phenomenon of Southern Soul, where the studio bands of Fame (pretty much entirely white), Stax (the definitive 'mixed' band) or the all-black bands such as Bobby Patterson's Mustangs were all making pretty much the same kind of music as one another before they were even aware of the others' existence. The political upheaval and fallout of events of the late 60s (key of which was probably the assassination of MLK) meant that this cross-polination of musical ideas and racial co-existence would be pushed to the sidelines for practically the next two decades.

Sounds like a great idea, Steve. I once had the idea of a club where each deejay's set would comprise records bought with a twenty quid budget that day. Your night sounds like the quality might be a bit higher!

Yes. I should have stated that the bit of the Popcorn scene that I find interesting is the very early soul angle of it. The white showtunes and post Rock & Roll ballads send me straight back home to listen to the entire run of Willie Johnson 45s! (that's the 70s deep soul artist from Georgia, not the 1930s bluesman, BTW)

Thanks for putting up these links; they're very interesting tracks. A neighbour of ours collects Popcorn and I always find it a pleasure to look through her record boxes, as it was a fascinating era in the recording industry. The point at which 'soul' as we know it was born out of forms of music which were soulful but generically something else is a subject that could run and run. I would unreservedly recommend Kent's "Birth of Soul" series to anyone on the entire board, containing as they do a whole host of brilliant sounds from the very well known to the relatively obscure.

A record I've kept going back to over the last few years is The Music Makers instrumental version of The Intruders "United" on Gamble. An organ-led version which is to my ears far better than the vocal.

This record seems to have polarised opinion like few others in recent times, so I might as well add my own personal view. I think it's a lame attempt at a self-conciously retro-soul sound. The melody is instant but ultimately unsatisfying; the vocal is competent but completely uninspired. The aspect of this that would have appealed in a club context is that it's well engineered and properly EQd: thus making it stand out when directly compared to the thirty to forty year old records played around it. The Nicole Willis track is the pop counterpart to groups such as The DapKings, Charles Walker & The Dynamites and many others who clelebrate the funk and soul of the past without compromising much of the essential rawness of that music. To me the Nicole Willis scenario is really little different from the playing of The Maisonettes "Heartbreak Avenue" in the early 80s. If someone presents a line of logic to illustrate that this is a materially different case in any meaningful way I will be amazed. Has the 'rare soul' scene (I use the term in inverted punctuation merely to distinguish it from the wider world of soul music) really come to this point again? This particular track and "Tribute to Betty" by DJ Genesis seem to me to be the current versions of Party Time Man. Six months from now all their current proponents will claim to hate these particular tracks with a passion and will talk of rounding up all copies and smashing them with hammers etc. You mark my words...

At the risk of being shot down in flames quicker than Flight 93 I must admit to having something of a soft spot for Beachcomber. I don't necessarily think it has a place on the Northern Soul scene anymore and I'm not advocating that anybody play the thing in a nightclub, but as a piece of eccentric early 60s grooviness it's a good sound. Perfect for a cocktail party, I'd have thought. The idea of an instrumental allnighter is an amusing one, but seems doomed to failure.

I did, yes. I'm going to take bids until Friday evening. The highest bidder wil be notified by carrier pidgeon on Saturday, or with an ill wind, Sunday. best, gareth.

The flip of Doug Banks, Since You Went Away, is one of the very best Big City Soul records ever made. The top side makes me cringe a bit now, but the other side really is a masterpiece, and for that reason I could never part with the disc.

Emorise Kelly actually from Oakland originally. Sang in the same gospel quintet as Buddy Conner (they must have been good...)

The Carmelita 45 on the same label as Sy Hightower, Carmen, was played by Sam at Yarmouth with the comment that it was the finest record he had picked up in the last five years. Both sides are really good LA crossover, and it will be a monster. Ellipsis is still 'massive' (although it seems to have as many detractors as fans), alongside the reactivation of the Florence Trapp 45 from the Stafford days. Also on the 70s front Billy Proctor on Epic seems to have garnered fresh interest after years of not being played anywhere as far as I can recall. Steve Guarnori played some really good unfamiliar sounds too. Perhaps he will be kind enough to list some of these on here in the near future.

BOBBY WILBURN "I'M A LONELY MAN" / "I'M A LONELY MAN" GAMBLE WDJ OFFERS OVER £150 Great record in stunning conditon. Vinyl and label flawless, with date stamp and tiny, neat pencil writing (from the time, it looks like a radio station library code) on one of the sides. I'm sure the pencil could be carefully removed, but to me it adds to the authenticity of the record. Please PM if interested. TIA gareth.

The Tayster LP is completely different to the Atco distributed "Nobody But You"; presumably older material released by Jack Taylor to cash in on the success of NBY. It's a fantastic album, with a few tracks which never saw the light of day on any other format, including a phenomenal deep track, Otis, Heaven Will Welcome You (the basis of Big Maybelle's Heaven Will Welcome You tribute to Martin Luther King). The cover of the Tayster lp is priceless too, with a poorly superimposed cutout of Clarence's face on a shot of Neil Armstrong standing on the moon! Or maybe it really was Clarence... another one for you conspiracy theorists out there.

JM was not the dealer I had in mind...

Why has the scene's longest-running and most respected record dealer refused to ever stock Frederick Hymes III?

I bought a Lisa Hill at the time, and have continued to play it for the last two decades! Interesting to see that it's been compiled...

Fear The Caribbean Pirate! Priceless.

The LJ Reynolds and the Relations 45 on Monique is pretty difficult to find. Great, though. The other side, "Stop, Look Over Your Past" is blistering midtempo soul.