Roburt

A track that I had on a cheap Marble Arch label UK comp LP from 1966 ... the cut hung around till the 80's and then really took off ... Muscle Shoals at it's best ... this certainly made a big impression on me in 66 ... YOU PEOPLE COME BACK NOW.

I've posted too much on this thread already ... BUT just have to add that I can't believe there's been so many posts on here AND YET no mention yet of OTIS REDDING and his records. Otis was a big factor in southern soul catching on with UK fans in 1963/64.

Available from Amazon, etc ...

The prevailing view of many involved with the UK music biz in the mid 60's ... a music mag 45 review ...

Well his heart would have been into it ... BUT as with Chuck Jackson; joining Motown might have killed off his recording career for a while ... but then, he might have thrived & been even bigger. GETTING WAY OFF THE ORIGINAL TOPIC NOW ... but Bloodstone's career only took off (commercially) when the moved to the UK, teamed up with Mike Vernon and started cutting in London & Oxfordshire. From 73 to 76 they had 2 big US 45 hits every year ... their Decca contract then ran out & they could sign with a big US label (by then, they were much bigger back in the States than here). They took their time but went with Motown as their new label. It killed their career record wise & they only returned to winning ways when they escaped Motown & signed with the Isley's T Neck label.

What might have been ... though it could have turned out to be a train wreck ... it seems BG had songs like "Reach Out I'll Be There" & "Walk Away Renee" pencilled in to be cut by this Welsh guy ...

MORE IN A SIMILAR VEIN TO THE ABOVE .... a DJ who you wouldn't have expected to have been championing a NS ender years ahead of it taking off on the scene ... FLUFF FREEMAN .... AND OF COURSE, the likes of the Beatles, Stones, Tom Jones, Rusty Springbored bigging up our music helped convince UK labels to put more stuff out.

With reference to the UK mod / soul scene .... UK 45 & LP releases that catered to the mod crowd in the early 60's came (a lot of the time) from the likes of Pye (& it's subsid labels), then Sue / Island with EMI always having it's toe in the water. A stranger collaboration came when Oriole took on the Motown catalogue. But EMI jumped in & got hold of Motown. Even though the company was a massive worldwide organisation, it always seemed to have the b*lls to employ staff who liked their own particular specialities ... soul in particular. It soon realised that to market US 45's by (then) obscure acts you had to badge them up to catch buyers attention. Hence SOUL SUPPLY, DISCOTHEQUE 66, etc.

Not talking bout the influence of latin sounds on the NS scene but on the UK soul scene in general ... BUT many latin sounds got little or no attention from UK record companies, so the genre was always gonna struggle to get more widespread acceptance. As a indicator of what I mean I go with Jo Cuba. He had a UK 45 release (with BANG BANG) in Dec 66 (Pye Int). While he had no more UK releases right thru to the mid 70's, he had around 17 more US 45's out on the same label as "Bang Bang" (& therefore all probably available for UK licensing by Pye). If your definition of Latin just means the Boogaloo stuff, then even the soul singers who made boogaloo records in the mid 60's, soon moved onto other stuff ... see what Jerry O was pushing as the main sounds in his live act by 1970 ... James Brown & Stax covers ....

If you meant influential with UK fans (rather than influential with other US acts or with US buyers) ... then if your local club DJ had imports as early as 63 OR if not & he only had UK 45's then from 65 right through to 1970, "Harlem Shuffle" would have been just about the biggest mod / UK soul club track of influence.

I'd agree with our kid; you can't ignore at least one track from the Duke / Peacock / Backbeat catalogue.

Cleveland soul producer / label owner has passed ... another sad loss to our music.

I'd say NOT ... other 60's soul songs have been done by more different artists.

A song that everyone performed back in the 60's (UK beat groups & US soul acts) was "Knock On Wood". It has stood the test of time too, so I'd nominate Eddie Floyd's biggie. PLUS ... with regard to Chicago R&B / soul ... most Chicago tracks were very blues based until around 1962 when Curtis Mayfield + the Impressions took the city's sound in a whole new direction. You could nominate one of many songs Curtis penned as INFLUENTIAL but I guess it's his songbook / sound as a whole that counts as being the most influential factor. Can't ignore the influence of early 60's Motown tracks, mid 60's Stax tracks or early to mid 60's New Orleans stuff (pre & post Allen Toussaint). As it was performed by so many other UK & US acts I'd go with "Ride Your Pony" as being the most influential of AT's songs / recordings).

On Doris Willingham's "You can't do that" Jayboy UK version the backing slows down about 15 seconds into the track ...

The individual records are easier to make out on this version of the pic ... AND why not have Rufus too ...

Of course, many hit R&B / soul songs got covered a lot, both by UK & US artists ... another such song was Rufus Thomas's "Walking The Dog" ...

One of Glenn Dorsey's earlier groups ...

Other things happening 50 years ago ... BTW, Glenn Dorsey (of the Jonseses) had been in R&B / soul groups since the late 50's ... ALSO ... R Dean Taylor's "Ghost In My House" had just dropped out of the UK pop chart top 10 ...

In contrast to Cleveland & Detroit ... Edwin's 45 was new to this Miami pop stn's chart in mid September (@ #40) ... it dropped to #44 the next week and then disappeared altogether .... so it didn't make much impact in Miami at all.

Edwin's 45 took off quickly in Cleveland coz he was from there. The local radio DJ's knew him, lots of the record buying public knew of him (from the days he led a group there & from his work as the male singer with Bill Doggett), so I would guess they were hammering it from the first day they got a copy of it.

Middle of July 1965 ... Detroit radio Stn WCHB's chart ... just a couple of weeks after it had been issued, Edwin's 45 was already shooting up their Top 20

The UK recorded version of 00 SOUL ... when acts would perform songs live back then, they'd up the tempo to increase the energy of their shows. I guess Alex Harvey would have done this in his live shows ahead of recording the song, hence it being a more uptempo version than the original ... SPEAKING OF WHICH ...

I write for a soul music mag at present -- S U Nth (& for others in the past), so my pieces can be very WORDY (sorry). But finding obscure soul facts is my passion. Ady C refers to me as a soul sleuth. I did this research as a 'side issue' to the latest article I'm preparing. At first, I thought I'd just dump all the facts (as only some are relevant to my actual article). But then I decided to write it all up as a short piece to post on here. It's hard too see the details in my pics above, so I've split the big one in two ... Lots of other tracks have received similar treatment down the years but Edwin's initial 45 and the way it's popularity spread out from Detroit to influence other artists seemed just about the ideal example to use (IMHO).

Just ahead of Edwin signing with Ric Tic / Golden World, he was still gigging as the male singer with Bill Doggett's band. It was Bill's refusal to help Edwin record "OO Soul" that led him to quit the band and go solo. When his 45 hit big, Edwin had to head straight back to Cleveland (where he still knew many musicians) to hire the guys that became his backing band ... His first REALLY BIG live shows were @ the Harlem Apollo in late August 65 (a week's engagement). Others on the bill with him were Jerry Butler, Staples Singers, Gladys Knight & Pips, Jamo Thomas & Royalettes. Meanwhile, Alex Harvey was over in the UK doing club gigs & performing "OO Soul" live ...