Ady Croasdell

Yep artists can be as bad as exploitative label owners. Luckily there aren't many of either types in the business (percentage wise), i find musicians and singers to be honourable and most indie record label owners didn't expect to make a fortune.

Almost by definition with Northern Soul acts the artist received next to sod all at the time as the records didn't sell-I know a few did but we're talking generally here. The record companies also charged costs against the recording and often weren't liable to pay royalties until those costs had been covered. The phrase used in the music business is "in the hole" meaning they are in negative royalty as the costs are more than the record has earnt. However if we approach an artist on a label that we have bought we usually (maybe always, I'm not 100 % sure) wipe the slate clean and start them off with a new standard royalty contract. Sam E Solo will finally get some royalties now the Pied Piper deal has been set up if we can contact him, I think Dave W has his details. There was skullduggery ndeed but hopefully we have learnt from that and treat people better. Artists do often misunderstand the situation. One artist who we have always gone out of our way to help once complained that a CD they were on had sold 126,567 copies but we had only accounted for a couple of thousand. I asked her where she had got her figures from and she said her daughter had seen it on Amazon. On investigation it was the 126, 567th best seller on the site at the time!

Has anyone ever seen You Just Don't Know on any number apart from 113 and You Really Made it Good on anything other than 112?

All correct apart from the date of Romark. Ta This Billy Williams was probably not a band leader, the last Romark was 73 at an educated guess.

Same here but they're missing numbers in the sequence so I wondered if they existed? I've got Hannble (sic) Ta

There's Backtrack an inst flip to Billy Williams Too Much or Eddie Bridges Peekaboo. I know about the Blues ones but the label didn't start until 63

Bump

Do they exist? Ady

I wouldn't mind hearing Come Back Baby, not the flip and I've seen a scan. Ta Ady

Thanks Paul, that's done the job. We're using a duet with Marshall McQueen on the Kent Harris Soul CD, I wanted to make sure there was no difference with the 12 and 7s like there is of the longer Whip It On Me on the 12. Cheers Ady

Now I need to hear the 12" version of 'I Can't Hold Back This Feeling' assuming it was on the flip of the 12" of 'Whip It On Me'? Anyone out there got it?

I wouldn't disagree with any of that squire, I was just giving my view on R&B acts doing the odd soul track.

He was making a soul record instead of a blues based record, that's a different genre to me but it's no big deal. I know blues fans who have collected him for years wouldn't be interested in this track. Perhaps not vastly different though, just different, I don't know of any others of his in that style. Most artists cross genres and though I'd call Aretha Franklin primarily a soul singer she sometimes cut blues or jazz records. If Ray'd used a funk rhythm it would have probably been a funk record. I'm not too bothered about categorisation and don't feel uncomfortable, it's just different styles and I'm Losing Again is an uptempo soul record that has been played on the Northern Soul scene as a classic of its type for years.

Blimey, I might be agreeing with Pete S on here. I think that Bobby Sanders or whoever it was put Ray Agee in the studios and said summat like " Let's try you out as a soul man on this swingin' Detroit type of backing track we've laid down'. It is so vastly different from the 1,000 other records he made, I do think it is an anomaly. I think Mickie Champion was similar and I was going to disagree about Ray Charles but then realised it's written by Ashford & Simpson so of course it's Ray updating himself for the young black crowd. If he can give country a go, he can certainly try the soul thing out. I think for our purposes R&B should be blues with a rhythm rather than soul songs by blues singers but there's 1,000s of instances where it is down the middle.

To save me a bit of time Eddie, what's the difference?

Awfully sad

Never released it was a Richard Barrett production Swan master tape. The Angels was the name on the box but unlikely to be the white group, possibly the Three Degrees or a bunch of black Philly girls

The beginning and end are cut just a little bit, probably is the same.

It wasn't top secret so I left it

Hi Pete, Did you ever get anywhere with this? Somebody just sent me an MP3 of it and I came across this thread researching it. Ady Whoops that was meant to be a PM!

That's handy, they were probably the first ones I did anything resembling a serious sleevenote for so you wouldn't have realised what a flake I was.

It's not much rarer just mainly in the UK. If you ever get the time could you compare your 45 of Oh Why with the CD, assuming you have it, if not I could email an MP3?

Thanks gents I'm fine now John's back from his sojourn and is sorting me out. Ady

Our listing has the Barbara Brown down as 503 so they can't have borrowed it completely.

Ha, so it is. Not too hard. The rarest is probably Curly Mays 505