Roburt

Boba, we are at cross purposes here I think. I'm talking about Birmingham, ENGLAND not Birmingham, Alabama.

I believe a good 'standard' by which to judge the record buying scene is sweet soul. Many on here will not value sweet soul ballads at all & would have unloaded such tracks bought blind not long after acquiring them. For years, sweet soul 45 tracks (unless C/W a NS, SS, DS, MS or funk cut) sold for a few cents. Then harmony group collectors started to buy them. More recently there has sprung up a whole swath of sweet soul collectors and so prices are climbing & some 45's are now much sought after. But if a NS fan had received a collectable sweet soul 45 say 20 years ago, they would probably not have checked out if it was 'rare', they would have 'dumped it' if it wasn't to their liking. So they would have been happy to get rid of it for (say) 50p, whilst today a sweet soul collector might be willing to pay 250$ for a copy. So it's all 'horses for courses' as they say. I like SOME sweet soul (the Delfonics / Van Dykes are fine with me but Stylistics tracks I have a lot more trouble with). As Boba knows the sweet soul 'market' but most on here don't .... perhaps it would be enlightening for him to give a quick rundown on that scene ... .... how quickly (or not) it has built up, what are the 'in-demand' 45's at present and which of these are actually rare 45's. Over to you Bob.

This ain't really about soul cuts, but I thought someone here who is Birmingham based might be able to help a bit. I recently bought a few 10" & 12" acetates that contain 1950's R&B tracks (in all I'd say that the acetates contain around 40 tracks). No info at all on the tracks & the acetates are in great condition. However the cuts on them are all over the place in recording quality / volume settings (some sound to have been lifted off old 78's). I know very little about the source of these discs apart from the fact that they were mastered by Midas Music Complex of Birmingham (ADDRESS: New Enterprise Workshop, Nechells, Birmingham B18 7RL). Anyone know anything at all about this outfit & what type of music they usually get involved with ??

A bottle of your best Rose Battiste please ............

Chalky, I have enough to do already (mag articles + a book) without going back to 'improve' old pieces I have done in the past (which must number in the 100's by now). The wife sometimes expects me to do stuff around that house that doesn't just involve my sitting in front of a keyboard. Plus Robb has elaborated on the full facts, so everyone interested will know now anyway.

Yet anuda un ...........

Get your orders in now ...... https://www.northernbrewing.co.uk/90300/info.php?p=2 Charlie Rees (from Cheshire area originally ... so not OVO.... Original Vagrant Only) used to call that way on his journey up to the Cleggy weekender & lay a stock in for the event (I'd wager that our's wasn't that only caravan fridge that had no room for food during the weekender).

RE: if a record is decent and rare enough that you don't see it every day, it gets stuck into the ?00 pound category ........ I concur with Bob, but lots of times' the 'seller / owner' will not realise just how rare a certain 45 is. I recall a number of tales told by John Anderson about him selling very rare 45's for 'next to nothing' because at the time he didn't fully realise how rare the item was ..... if a box with 20 copies of a 45 lands on your desk, it's not that rare to you !! I knew about the 1979 Emkay Records 45 releases back in the early 80's. I'd had copies of most of these 45's in my hands by the mid 80's coz a friend had them. I had the cuts on tape a few weeks later & played the tape all the time. Eventually I obtained a copy of every 45 on the label & they sat in one of my record boxes (pushed under the bed in the spare bedroom). Then about 18 months ago, info on the Otis Williams 45 on Emkay was all over the net ... as it was getting a UK release. But just about all the talk was of 'previously unreleased' gems to gain UK 45 release .... I for one knew the 2 tracks had gained US release back in the late 70's ... BUT .... had no real idea how rare this US 45 was. I had looked for it on EvilBay & in rare price guides without success but to me that didn't automatically make it rare or sought after.

Robb, of course you are right about the Renfro 45 coming 1st ... but my piece had to be kept down to a max length (in 'number of words' terms). So I chose to write a couple of sentences focusing on the group's Bell releases and just added the info on Renfro as an aside. Writing a piece on an artist that is restricted in max length (because the space allocated for it has already been determined) can be very difficult at times. If a old soul artist only had a couple of releases then it's easy. But if a singer was in a number of groups & sang solo (as Morris Ch did), then you have to skip some of the detailed explanations on one topic to ensure all the major issues still get mentioned.

..it appears to be neither 'Northern' nor 'Rare' nor 'danceable'... Surely these aren't the ONLY CRITERIA that count in making a 45 expensive to buy ???

...................... After his discharge from the Services, Morris Chestnut ended up in Los Angeles where he met up with members of the doo wop group, the Vows. His cousin Ralph was a member of the group that had a record released on Markay in 1961, this being produced by George Motola. Via the Vows, Morris got to know Motola, who impressed, signed Morris to his L&M label. Using the Vows on backing vocals, Motola cut Morris on a song he had written himself, "I Need Somebody", this being released under the name of James Washington Lee. Musical styles were moving on though and the line-up of the Vows was revised, Morris became a member and the group hooked up with Jobete Music's LA office team. They cut some demos of songs the team had written and these were forwarded onto Detroit to be considered by Motown's hit acts as future recording material. If these songs were rejected, the LA team had a deal with Motown that allowed them to cut them locally and release them on a LA based label. This arrangement resulted in a Vows 45 being issued in 1964 on the Tamara label. Using the revised name of the Vowels, Morris also fronted an outfit that had a couple of singles released on the Le Bam label. Motown hadn't given up all interest in the Vows though and in 1965 they were signed to a deal, cut some tracks and enjoyed a 45 release on the VIP label, "Tell Me" (# 25016 -- May 1965). Promotion of this single was only half-hearted and it sank without a trace. Unfortunately this was to prove to be their only Motown release and so the group moved on. Morris had already teamed up with Roy Haggins, David & Robert Jones to form the Sound Masters. Herman C Allen signed the group to Julet Records and the 45 "Lonely, Lonely" (Julet # 102) was released. Morris' stay with the group was to be short lived however. Next he teamed up with Jones, Bledsoe & Smith to form the Attractions. The group secured a contract with Bell Records, their first release being "Destination You" (# 659) in January 1967 (also issued on Renfro). Two further 45's followed later that year, "That Girl Is Mine" (# 674) in June and "Why Shouldn't A Man Cry" (# 690) in September. Morris must have been extremely busy that year as around April his NS anthem "Too Darn Soulful" was released on Amy (# 981), another of the Bell Record's family of labels. None of these records enjoyed any great measure of commercial success and no more of the group's releases were to escape on Bell. By 1971, under the revised name of the Hollywood Attractions, they had a last release on the Sugar Shack label ..................

This one's just for Ady then ......... nobody else is allowed to look at it !!

Still not managed to get CD1 out of the player. ......... Hopefully I'll get to hear CD2 sometime soon I'm away for 4 days from Saturday, will have to put CD2 in the car .... sorted !!!).

In the 1960's, lots of Bahamians moved across to Florida ... so it was only natural that some of the Island's entertainers would follow them over to do some shows ........ one of them was Jay Mitchell who was in MIami in the late 60's & early 70's ........ .... (and he even got to record a few tracks down at Criteria studios) ........... NUMERO liked the stuff he laid down & so (later on) released a 12" & a VA CD with his stuff on.

..... Alberta Baker on Soul Time ...... courtesy of the Tropical Record Co.

I don't know where they had been (probably out touring as the Fabulettes), but the Marvels (Mar-Vells) were back home at the Continental Club early in 1968 ............

Donnie's Bradleys 45 was released in Europe on Ariola .........

RE: i'm not TOTALLY against people on the radio playing off legitimate compilation CD's ............... FHEW, THAT'S GOOD TO KNOW, I can sleep nights now. I'm not bothered (& neither are 99% of radio listeners) what type of media tracks on the radio are played off ....... WTF does it matter !?!?!

Here's a show by a somewhat 'unknown bio' type of artist ..... Mary Hylor. I know that she was born (I presume in Miami) around the end of the 1940's ..... .... she got into singing & cut the track "He Walked Down The Isle" which was released on MPRC (Music Production & Record Corp out of New York) in the mid 60's. She did loads of shows from the mid to late 60's at the top Miami 'black' clubs (such as the Hampton House). ..... by the late 60's, she seemed to be getting a bit more jazzy .... Later in life I think she got a degree, became a Doctor (not a medical one) and had a spell working on behalf of Liberia. She was still around (& singing) in Sept 2009 when she performed for the Historic Hampton House Community Trust, Inc. Can anyone fill in some of the gaps on her career / life ??

Mine would have to come from his 1970's output for Spec-O-Life Productions ..... ... sumat by Lenny Williams (ABC), New Birth, Mighty Clouds of Joy, Lamont Dozier or Alton McLain & Destiny. JUST so many classy 1970's modern soul tracks .... too hard to pin it down to just one cut !!

... AND OF COURSE ... the tracks on the UK Pop Charts back then bore little relationship to what was actually selling in large numbers in the small specialist (local) record shops that most soul fans bought their 45's in. ... PLUS .... as soul 45's were still largely 'underground', it could take weeks for a punter to find out what a song was called, who recorded it & what label it was on ...so soul 45's tended to sell over an extended period. Back when I was 'wet behind the ears', I spent days trying to buy a track that I thought was called "Sugar for my honey's lunch" till I found out it was by the 4 Tops. So even the national pop charts were 'way off the mark' when it came to the actual total number of each 45 sold back then.

To amass 1500 60's soul tracks on CD, you would only need to buy around 75 comp CD's (@ 20 tracks per CD) ... .. with the cheap price of lots of NS comp CD's these days, that would cost you around £350 (much less if lots of those CD's were 2nd hand). So lets not jump to conclusions about tracks being ripped onto CD-R for radio play.

......... However they got onto the 'pirates' playlists .. .... I (& numerous other) listeners to their wirelesses back in the mid 60's still got to hear good soul tracks over the airways. What the pirates played certainly influenced my 45 buying habits back then -- Roscoe in particular played loads of what was then (to me) obscure stuff. Those pirate stn plays certainly had an effect on what I got to hear played out in York's mod / soul clubs back in 65/66/67. I'm sure loads more pop rubbish was on the airwaives back then due to 'backhanders' than soul stuff.

Stephen, one track that would be good for you to play on your show is the original incarnation of the song "Higher & Higher". Before Carl Smith 'borrowed' it & took it across Chicago to Brunswick for Jackie Wilson to turn into a hit .... ... it had been recorded at Chess by the Dells. As JW's version was instantly a hit, the Dells did very little with their 'original', apart from it going onto their next LP (I have it on that OVO LP). It is easily sourced on CD as it has been included on 3 or 4 different CD releases of the Dells Chess stuff ........ Here's one CD (a box set @ less than £10) it is available on (& as a bonus you can sound-check their version before buying) ... ... https://www.amazon.co...tt_mus_ep_dpi_2 ... or you can just buy that one track (as an mp3) for 69p.

Denbo, the most relevant words in my statement above are .... cheap copies ... .... and I'm a Yorkshireman, so cheap really does mean cheap. Luckily for me, you can pick up Donnie's 1970's 45's for next to nothing in the right places .... and ... .. I can always look closely at a normal OBB 45 label / run out groove area & then check other copies to see if there is a variance. AND I may make clocks out of a few of the 45's I get that actually do have OBB on the A side (the Avco label should look quite good behind clock hands).