Roburt

Not only were there numerous local soul singers playing the club circuit, but lots of visiting acts would come down (mainly over the winter period) ... Guess the book only really deals with the local scene (clubs / acts) & not the visitors ... but here's a club ad from 65 ...

This new book looks really interesting .... the Florida & Miami soul scenes back in the 60's / 70's was a really fascinating & diverse entity ... don't know if this book truly captures the full picture but I hope it does ...

The Small Faces back when they played mainly soul numbers in London clubs ...

The Marquee back then ....

A top London soul club back then ...

NOW SOLD OUT (on-line at least, some individual stores will probably still have copies).

Another from Joyce Bond ...

Some of the acts only stayed on the UK soul scene for a short period, folk like Jimmy Cliff & Joyce Bond soon returned to their reggae roots. Not before they'd cut some decent tracks though ...

I know we've had loads of books about the 60's mod scene, even more about the NS scene that touch on what went on here in the 60's and club specific books (Twisted Wheel, Mojo) BUT is there a comprehensive book that deals with the UK Soul Club / Live Acts Scene in the 60's ?? One that mentions the legendary venues in London, Portsmouth, Windsor, Dunstable, Boston, Newcastle and more (Wigan Casino was already going strong as a venue for live soul acts to perform back in the 60's). ALSO, I'd like one that also included info on the live acts that played these places -- The regular US visitors (Edwin Starr, Jnr Walker, Ike & Tina Turner, Ben E King, Oscar Toney Jnr, etc) The US acts that settled here (P P Arnold, J J Jackson, Rosetta Hightower, Sonny Child (aka R B Greaves), Johnny Johnson, the Drifters, the Velours / Fantastics, Gypsies / Flirtations, etc). The US folk that came over as servicemen, started to perform & sometimes stayed on (Geno Washington, Herbie Goins, Ronnie Jones, etc.). The US groups that came over here to find they had to perform as another act (Diplomats / Sam, Erv & Thom, Invitations, Topics, Internationals / Persuaders, etc). The Caribbean immigrants who performed here (Jimmy James, Jimmy Cliff, Joyce Bond, Jackie Edwards, Diane Ferraz, Carl Douglas, Clem Curtis, etc). The UK guys / groups who performed here on the soul club circuit (Alan Bown, Georgie Fame, Julian Covey, Linda Lewis, Chris Farlowe, Zoot Money, Ferris Wheel, Rod Stewart, Brian Auger, Julie Driscoll, Action, etc). If no one tackles these topics & turns the info into book form, we''ll lose much of the detail needed to capture just what went on back then ...

'Greg in New Jersey' is now 'Greg in Palm Springs' .... moved to the sun a couple of weeks back.

The recentish thread But Was It 'A Big Thing' After All ? dealt with this subject (the many different versions of the song).

Kegsy, you can't possibly recall who was there at the time, what they knew & which track was which ... you were always off your head back then.

More info on the actual incident at the hotel (which isn't covered fully accurately in the film) was detailed in the 1968 published book The Algiers Hotel Incident (JOHN HERSEY). He interviewed folk actually involved that night (including Dramatics members), and took details from TV and newspaper coverage, etc. He states that the Dramatics had finished their spot on the show @ the Fox Theatre before heading out to the motel. They had performed the following on the show ... GROOVIN, I WANT A LOVE I CAN SEE, INKY DINKY WANG DANG DO, BINGO, SOMEWHERE & ALL BECAUSE OF YOU (Sport 45 cut).

Rick, studio time is like airplane seats or cruise ship cabins. If the studio / seat / cabin remains empty, that resource is lost forever (i.e it can't be sold). So airplane seats / ship cabins are discounted at the last minute to ensure they're occupied. Same with recording studios. Either a known client would be offered a discount to use unbooked studio slots OR more usually they would be allowed use of the studio without any upfront payment. A bill would be produced by the studio and sent to the client (many times, the master tapes produced at the session remaining with the studio till the bill was paid). So the producers of Darryl's session (Ray Dahrouge & Billy Terrell) must have agreed a deal with the studio, produced the tracks and then shopped them around a few New York labels. Scepter / Wand picked them up for release and would have paid an 'advance' to secure the tracks. This money would then have been used by Ray / Billy to pay the studio. If sales of the 45 didn't cover the cost of the cash advance paid out, then that would be the last cash the producers / artist would get (& so far, the artist wouldn't have received a cent ... though ... having a 45 out would have meant more & better live show bookings).

Complicated question Rick. On many independently financed sessions (where the producer/ artist hired the studio at a hourly rate), the songs would be fully developed & the act rehearsed on them before the session began. This, of course, speeded up the cutting process & would allow say 3/4 tracks to be done in a 4 hr booking slot. As most know, studios didn't keep regular hours, many sessions would run over & so incur extra costs but the usual practise (with studio based musicians) was for them to be paid 'union rate' (a set fee per hour for their work). So if a session ran to 6hrs instead of the planned 4, then the costs would increase by 50% (studio & engineers time also being charged at an hourly rate). Lots of times, if strings were needed, members of a local orchestra (Detroit) or music students from a local college would be fetched in to add their parts (the advantage of using students was that many times they'd work for a free meal or whatever). You could hire the studio alone & bring along your own musicians (then you paid them whatever you could get away with & didn't have to pay 'union rates') or you could use the studio's resident players (if they had such a team). Most times though, a studio based musician playing most days of the week only made enough to pay his bills and didn't get anywhere near rich even if he was a master of his instrument. If you were a studio's star act, then you could do pretty much anything you wanted (but of course, the fees involved were still charged back to your account with the label). So Carla Thomas @ Stax, Al Green @ Hi / Royal, James Carr @ American or the Tops/ Tempts @ Motown would pretty much have free run of the studio. Many stupid situations (with regard to billing) came about. For instance, Lou Ragland would always play on his own sessions. So he was paid as a musician on the day with the costs being charged back to his account as the artist (if the resulting record release didn't cover it's cutting / production costs, then he ended up still owing the studio). I also recently interviewed Darryl Stewart about his studio sessions & wrote an article about his career. He's a snippet of that ......... In preparation for a studio session of his own, Darryl accompanied Billy & Ray when they went along to Debbie Taylor's recording sessions at RCA's studio. George Kerr was the producer (and also helped on background vocals) with Debbie handling her duties with ease. Darryl thought the studio itself was spectacular and was amazed at the talent she displayed. His talented production team weren't going to let the Paramount setback ruin their plans and so they organised an independent recording session for Darryl themselves. This took place at New York's Record Plant studio where “Name It and Claim It” (written by Ray & Billy) plus “Cross My Heart” (written by Ray) were recorded. Tony Camillo was the arranger on the session, with Tony Bongiovi handling the engineering side of things. The background singers on “Name It & Claim It” were Ray, Billy and a really good 3 strong girl group. Darryl recalls the Record Plant having two nice sized rooms with glass separating them from the engineering rooms. Various instruments were set out in each room; a grand piano, drums, xylophone plus a few others. He got to meet Maxine Brown at the studio, which impressed him (also Richard Tee who was one of the musicians utilised on his tracks). His session featured around 20 participants, these included violinists, percussion players, a horn section and more (just about all being contracted studio musicians). The rhythm tracks were laid down first; drums, guitars, bass, came next; then his vocals followed by the background vocals. He remembers it taking just two sessions to complete both tracks (the first one lasting about 4 hours). His lead vocals were swiftly completed, he nailed “Cross My Heart” in two takes, with “Name It ..” requiring four in all. He only needed to turn up near the end of the second recording session as his efforts had been completed during the first session. At the 2nd session, the 'sweeteners' (as they were called) were added to finish off the tracks. He then participated in the process of arriving at the final mixes for both tracks. Darryl couldn't quite believe the final sound that had been achieved that day. The resulting two tracks were then shopped around some New York labels, with Florence Greenberg at Scepter / Wand picking them up for release on 45. Hope the above helps. An ad for studio hire in LA in 1973 ... $30 an hour (without musician's costs) seems quite cheap ...

MORE INFO off the list ............ OCTOBER 16 ROYAL STUDIO CHARLIE RICH One Session >> most probably resulted in > HI 2116 CHARLIE RICH Love Is After Me / Pass On By ........ and entries such as this ........ NOVEMBER 16 ROYAL STUDIO SESSION LEADER: W. MITCHELL artist: GUY THAT TRAVELS WITH THE PLATTERS One Session . . . . . . . . . wonder who the heck that was ??

A long term project by the Soul Detective (Red Kelly) on-line here ......... https://souldetective.com/ 1966 Memphis studio session info on this page ........ https://souldetective.com/reggie1966.html Some of the sessions listed resulted in these (non - Hi releases ) ........ STUDIO LABEL & 45 No. SESSION DATES ARTIST TITLE AMERICAN YOUNGSTOWN 609 JUNE 10 / 11 ROOSEVELT GRIER High Society Woman / Deputy Dog SUN CADET 72620 AUG 31 & SEPT 5 BARBARA & THE BROWNS I Don't Want To Have To Wait / Plenty Of Room ROYAL FURY then Capitol WILLIE HIGHTOWER If I Had A Hammer / So Tired (Of Running Away) ROYAL MUSICOR 1221 OCT 21 PORGY & THE MONARCHS My Heart Cries For You / Think Twice ROYAL FURY 5004 NOVEMBER 24 WILLIE HIGHTOWER I Love You (Yes I Do) / Let's Walk Together ROYAL GOLDWAX 317 NOVEMBER 27 JAMES CARR The Dark End Of The Street /Lovable Girl Nashville CAMEO 453 DECEMBER 7 BOBBY MARCHAN Meet Me In Church / Hooked ROYAL ROULETTE 4719 DECEMBER 8 CAROL FRAN So Close / Out Of Sight Out Of Mind

Another of their tracks, this one also escaped on 45 ...

Two top tunes from the group ....

John Wilson (of S,S&W) has been in touch to inform me that Scott Lockett of Cleveland group Glass Tear has unfortunately passed away. John also tells me that Scott had been the keyboard player in Sly, Slick & Wicked's backing band (he'd also helped out John's parents in their later years after John had left Cleveland). . . Another sad loss for soul music.

Some of the bits produced on Jackie over recent years .... https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/music/searching-for-jackie-shane-rbs-lost-transgender-superstar/article35057998/ https://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/d3p7jv/this-is-2020-vision-straight-up https://thevinylfactory.com/news/jackie-shane-transgender-soul-singer-numero-group/ He also had a chapter all about himself in a book about gay life in Toronto back in the day (see extract below .... https://queermusicheritage.com/drag-shane.html

As David said, Jackie Shane is about to become the next old soul star that Numero shine the light on via their new release (2 x LP, 2 x CD + digi package). Jackie burst onto the US scene in the early 60's and recorded from 62 plus toured a lot. He started out in Nashville (his home town) but moved about quite a bit. He soon hooked up with the Frank Motley Band. At one stage the ensemble was up in Boston and cut tracks for Skippy White (1964), but they soon relocated to Toronto in Canada. Jackie settled down there, played lots of gigs in the city (& in Montreal), came out & recorded some more. His last recordings seem to have been for Paragon around 1970 and after that he drifted into obscurity. He eventually moved back to Nashville and became something of a recluse. But is old records were well resepected & so folk kept trying to track him down. This eventually led to him being rediscovered in Nashville where he has been interviewed as part of the Numero project. So he's about to be re-introduced to music fans, not before time too.

His BMI entry ...........

A post on Southern Soul today ......... In the mid-1960s the music director of a SF Bay Area college radio station wanted a copy of every current release and just about hustled them all. They mostly ended up in his home closet and ten years later by fluke many fell my way.They've been dispersed, alas, good Lord what a trove, but one that I actually squeezed some money out of was the delightful disc in the subject header (£2445 IIRC...). So the other day I was explaining to my banker lady that I'd led a shiftless dissolute life of wheeling and dealing in the realm of collectibles and mentioned the GoGate disc as an example of an infrequent jackpot, due to the weird world of the subgenre phenomenon known as Northern Soul.SMALL WORLD-She: I think I know them. Me: like, uh huh sure. I had one of 4 known copies. The label had two releases and afaik next to nothing is known...She said she'd ask.I dropped by the bank subsequently, and her older sister was indeed friends with them. They don't even own a copy, and the guy who had one and asked for it to be autographed at their high school reunion would not sell it to them. I can't be objective about the musical quality but hey despite it being a NS Holy Grail it's far from junk, IMO. I was, in the branch lobby, let in on some tidbits: recorded in LA, the Trent Sisters had one song initially ready to record, not, LOL "A Letter a Day"--which was hurriedly composed in a motel room by the Trents to serve as the lowly B flip and recorded the next day.Anyway, a Trent or two is quite willing to be interviewed regarding her or their all-too-brief professional music career and I'd be pleased to arrange for pro and am journalists to get in touch.https://youtu.be/24fTwPVOGSQJim in Sili (con) Valley -- Jim Pollock SO .... don't get in touch if you're actually after a copy of the original 45 .... BUT if you're interested in doing an article on them ... by all means, get in touch. Rene Hall worked (as arranger) on both Gogate 45's; it would be interesting to learn how a guy who worked with so many great top artists for major labels ended up doing the Gogate sessions as this was obviously a tiny indie outfit. The ladies also say they wrote the song whereas the 45's label credits a La-Monte Howard & Shermonte Music (neither still registered @ BMI), so I'd guess he had something to do with the label and nicked the song credits. However, he's also credited as a song writer on Rene Hall sessions for Keymen (Fuller Bros) and Soul Clock (Connie Tanzell) ... both of those songs were joint comps with a Fuller brother ... so maybe he did do some songwriting work. These other sessions date from 67 & 68, so no doubt that's when (or close to when) Gogate was in operation.

Info on him ... https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/article/13047917/jesse-boyces-remarkable-career-starts-at-muscle-shoals