Mickey Finn

One of the top albums of the year - fantastic value, and as always excellent liner notes

Recently LA-based Blixa Sounds reissued 4 of Linda Clifford's Curtom albums. I was eager to get my hands on the Isaac Hayes-produced I'm Yours album from 1980, featuring "Shoot your best shot". Pleased to say that the quality is good in all respects and I'll be acquiring the other titles in the weeks to come. https://www.soultracks.com/story-linda-clifford-collections

Another one of those accidental finds on You Tube: anyone know anything about this group? Not "Philly Soul" at all, but some UK recorded blue-eyed variety. According to Discogs they recorded 4 singles, and from a couple of sources it seems former Radio Luxembourg dj Mark Wesley was involved in the production side. It seems they later recorded with Ian Levine: https://www.discogs.com/Various-36-Unreleased-Gems-Rare-Classics/release/2881578

Something else just out is this three-on-one compilation of Whispers albums, covering their early days with Solar/SoulTrain (mid to late 70s), including the Philly-produced opener: https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/the-whispers-one-for-the-money-open-up-your-love-headlights-3-classic-albums-on-2-cds/

Wanted to post something that is technically a new release of sorts, even if of old material, so why not start a new thread devoted to reissues, compilations and the like. Stumbled on this which seems to have come out just last month from a reissue specialist that seems to have had little connection with soul music but has got the rights of Edwin Starr's work with Peter Stringfellow's Hippodrome Records. Not entirely the complete collection as the 12" mix of "It ain't fair" is not included, but otherwise everything seems to be in order: https://www.angelair.co.uk/?tcp_product=edwin-starr-soul-singer

I'm very happy with the reissues side of things, but totally agree on the subject of remixes. Vinyl only policy at events is partly to blame for this though, since djs otherwise keen to play more modern stuff will be put off playing anything digital. That handy 7 or 12 purposefully released on vinyl to get djs on board will therefore be even more handy as evidence that the dj is "keeping up", even as the quality threshold sinks further. Maybe punters can take some of the blame here too, if they are dancing only to the familiar tunes, whether original or "given a twist". But considering the amount of complaints on here about wannabe djs and by-the-numbers playlists, it is contradictory to insist that djs abide by the rules applied to genuine collectors. The two activities are distinct, even if there is bound to be overlap between them.

You sure it wasn't for NOT playing the Snake? 🐍 Some years back at one of the Soul in the Dales events at Settle I was chatting to Sean Milward who was deejaying when a lady came up and asked "Have you got any Whitesnake?" Dunno if Sean knew what she was talking about

Liverpool and Bridlington also clashed, but perhaps being on different coasts helps. Brid was certainly packed, with a 2500 capacity sellout. If the attrition is having an effect it's most likely on the smaller events.

Weekenders also bring in a few from Europe! ...but enough to make up for the attrition? Probably not.

Very informative article 👍 Brenda and the Tabulations' "One girl too late" on Epic and the work he did with the Choice Four on RCA are also highlights for me.

This provides a good summary of Gil Heron's Scottish sporting career: https://scottishleisurehistory.wordpress.com/2015/08/11/the-story-of-gil-heron-the-first-black-professional-footballer-in-scotland/

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/jun/18/dr-dre-marvin-gaye-biopic-rights

Got a notification from Amazon about Lamont's new album. Also included, and giving some idea of how clever marketing people see Lamont's album pitching: Various Artists, "Smooth Rock" 4CDs, 80 soft rock, MOR and yacht rock classics Graham Nash, "Over the years" Various Artists, "Revamp: Reimagining the Songs of Elton John and Bernie Taupin" (featuring Miley Cyrus, Sam Smith, Queens of the Stone Age...) Phosphenes, "Find us where we're hiding" (nope, me neither). Click on the link to Lamont's album and underneath the main item there's an entire row of albums by Cliffy, including "Soulicious". Below that, a row of albums bought by customers who also bought Lamont's album, including "Smooth Rock" and the Graham Nash album, alongside the Temptations' "Masterpiece", Marcus Miller's new album and a Barry White collection.

She also went through a phase of adding an 'e' at the end of Warwick (during her stint on Warner Bros) - silent as far as I know. Seems it was a numerology thing, 8 letters better than 7. Also Jean Carn became Carne.

Dionne Warwick reportedly prefers her surname pronounced as War-wick. Dee Dee had other ideas:

Names associated with HB Barnum include OC Smith, Lou Rawls, Freda Payne, Spanky Wilson, Johnny Bristol, O'Jays, 100 Proof Aged in Soul, Nancy Wilson, Jr Walker, Jackson 5, Al Wilson, Smokey Robinson, Buddy Miles, Edna Wright, Gladys Knight, Irma Thomas, James Brown ... as well as a lot of performers not in any way associated with soul. Looks like the resume of a professional freelance musician and arranger who has the versatility to cover a wide spectrum from soul to pop, not unlike Quincy Jones (who produced Lesley Gore), and who was reliable and trusted by various contractors. The OC Smith association spans the 60s to his 1982 "Love changes" classic LP, for example. On the subject of what this forum is about, there's a definite northern slant here, but there's nothing on the home page at the moment that says it is specifically northern. "Soul alive since 1997" would suggest that northern was one of various sub-genres or groupings within the soul spectrum. I know what to expect here and I'm happy with it, because in practice it seems that most posters enjoy soul music, which was a major part of the northern scene anyway. And I enjoy learning about that scene's history. That history includes debates like this thread re Dora Hall, who on most other soul forums would appear only because of her association with HB Barnum, if at all.

Very sad indeed - 65 isn't much of an age to go these days. Got to laugh at these journos using their keyboard as a long stick with anything going near the dreaded disco, as opposed to "real" music. Miles Davis's 70s groups had some big r&b hitters - Mtume, Lucas, Michael Henderson, and guitarist Pete Cosey who was part of the Chess set up during the 60s, including the Electric Mud Band. Reggie Lucas had his own website which is still up and running. However his one blog entry is worth posting here to give some insight into the man as well as reflecting on the relentless reduction of music education in UK state schools and what this is likely to mean for creativity in future: MUSINGS INSPIRED BY BY JOANNE LIPMAN’S ARTICLE IN THE NY TIMES SUNDAY REVIEW OPINION SECTION “Is Music the Key to Success”, in Sunday’s NY Times 10/13/2013, explores provocative, intriguing territory. The question “about serious musical training that seems to correlate with outsize success in other fields” is anecdotally and intuitively obvious to me; it does. The article begs further exploration of the question it posits. There are many fascinating links between musical training and ability and personal achievement. Miles Davis, Tony Bennett, Donna Summers, Bob Dylan, and John Mellencamp are all legendary musicians with extraordinary secondary talents as painters, for instance. Personally, I have seen countless instances where highly gifted musicians made seemingly effortless transitions from music to successful careers in a wide array of professions. The consideration of all musical training and ability as a predictor of achievement in life would broaden the scope and importance of the study this article almost demands be made. The entire spectrum of musical creativity needs to be included; all genres, as well as the role of improvisation, composition and performance should be considered. The tenacity and dedication required to acquire skill and recognition in music serves those who have attained them well in many other pursuits in life; these are transferable qualities. Success in music has never been a cakewalk. The competitive, transitory nature of careers in music has often discouraged many talented individuals from traveling down this path. The ritual of parents and teachers admonishing aspiring young musicians to develop “something to fall back on”, a safer professional skill, is as much with us today as it has ever been. The most musically talented young people among us face the same agonizing, complex career decisions as their peers. The exceptional difficulty of music at all levels , however, makes musicians particularly excellent candidates for the rigors of many other fields. This suggests that the acknowledgement and encouragement of musical ability be a universal principle in our society. This could result in both better music and a more harmonious, productive society. The misguided and unfortunate tendency of government at all levels to severely reduce or even eliminate funding for music and art programs in public school systems has been a tragic miscalculation. As this article points out, it cannot be ignored that highly significant numbers of our best and brightest have musical training and advanced abilities at both the developmental and professional stages of their personal histories. Music aptitude and training should stand alongside language and math skills in our early childhood and secondary educational institutions. Hopefully, the author of this article and other scholars and social scientists will explore these ideas more fully and bring scientific validation to the instincts and experiential notions that so many of us already have.

"Keep going on" by Gary Bartz feat. Tawatha appears on the Expansion Mtume-Lucas comp but this mainly instrumental is on the "Bartz" LP, also cheap as chips, and reissued on cd a few years back. Classy classy classy...

That comp steered me much deeper into their output than I had been previously. Everything seems to be available cheap as chips on vinyl or on cd reissue which makes for a very nice price/quality ratio. I'll never forget seeing Shaun Robbins pack the Blackpool Hilton lounge twice in the same weekend with that Sadane track. But Ralph Tee and Paul Clifford have been two of the biggest champions of this production team, representing what Ralph means by the whole luxury soul concept. This tune regularly gets described as the best Mtume-Lucas production that wasn't produced by the great men themselves - Michael Lovesmith gets the credit: Vinyl only for the album (easily her best for me - the others too eurodisco but all reissued), but this tune appears on another Expansion comp well worth acquiring:

Chris, I strongly recommend you get yourself a copy of this great compilation on Expansion: Most of the tracks featured here are on this, including this floor filling cracker:

"Give it on up" quite similar in style and arrangement to Stephanie's "Put your body in it" from the previous year ... and always good to hear Tawatha.

Ralph Tee played this yesterday on his monthly Solar show - brilliant arrangement:

Something from a rare black and white Thames TV show Benny Hill made in 1970, featuring Kiki Dee:

NY Times, May 22, 2018 Reggie Lucas, Versatile Guitarist and Producer, Dies at 65 By Jon Caramanica Reggie Lucas, a guitarist, songwriter and producer who was a member of Miles Davis’s electric band of the early and middle 1970s and who produced the majority of Madonna’s debut album, died on Saturday at a Manhattan hospital. He was 65. The cause was advanced heart failure, his daughter, Lisa Lucas, said. The versatile Mr. Lucas was present for some of the most divisive music of the 1970s and some of the most unifying music of the 1980s. He played on “On the Corner,” one of Mr. Davis’s most difficult and, in its day, critically derided albums. And he produced six of the eight songs on Madonna’s 1983 debut album, including the breakthrough hits “Lucky Star,” “Borderline” (which he also wrote) and “Burning Up.” Reginald Grant Lucas was born on Feb. 25, 1953, in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens, to Ronald and Annie (Parham) Lucas. His father was a physician, his mother a teacher and administrator in the New York City public school system. As a child he took piano lessons and, later, taught himself guitar. He attended the Bronx High School of Science, where he embraced the radical politics of the day, taking part in protests and writing articles in left-leaning student publications. He was featured in Robert Rossner’s book “The Year Without an Autumn: Portrait of a School in Crisis” (1969), which chronicled the 1968 New York City teacher strike and its fallout. Mr. Lucas met Nile Rodgers, the future disco and pop producer who went on to co-found the band Chic, at a Vietnam War protest in Union Square when the two were both New York City high school students. They became lifelong friends. After dropping out of Bronx Science, Mr. Lucas moved to Philadelphia, where he began playing in nightclubs and soon joined the band of the soul singer Billy Paul. By the time he was 18, he was accomplished enough to be invited to join Mr. Davis’s band. He stayed for around three years. His playing can be heard on “On the Corner” — the signature release of Mr. Davis’s fully freaky period, reflecting influences as diverse as Sly Stone and Karlheinz Stockhausen — and on the live albums “Agharta,” “Pangaea” and “Dark Magus.” “We were all writing and composing onstage — continuous collaborative compositions and improvisations,” Mr. Lucas said of his tenure with Mr. Davis in an interview for The Fader in 2016. Among his colleagues in Mr. Davis’s band was the percussionist James Mtume. The two joined Roberta Flack’s band in 1976 — the same year Mr. Lucas released “Survival Themes,” his only solo album — and went on to become an in-demand R&B songwriting and production team in the late 1970s. (Mr. Lucas was also, for a few years, a member of Mr. Mtume’s band, Mtume.) Mr. Lucas and Mr. Mtume specialized in a kind of regal disco-adjacent R&B, including hits for Phyllis Hyman (“You Know How to Love Me”) and Ms. Flack (“The Closer I Get to You”). In 1981, they won a Grammy Award for best R&B song for writing the Stephanie Mills hit “Never Knew Love Like This Before.” In 1982, Mr. Lucas began production work on the debut album of a then little-known singer, Madonna. Released in 1983, it would go on to be certified five times platinum and set the table for one of the most singular careers in modern pop. But he and Madonna had creative differences. “She had her way of wanting to do things,” he told J. Randy Taraborrelli, the author of “Madonna: An Intimate Biography” (2001). “And I understood that. So we had to have a meeting of the minds, from time to time.” (Some of the songs Mr. Lucas produced were remixed to Madonna’s tastes by Jellybean Benitez.) The album, Mr. Lucas told The Atlantic in a 2013 interview, was “a hybrid of her interests and mine”; Madonna was a nightclub denizen steeped in dance music and new wave, and Mr. Lucas was hired to bring R&B authority and texture. (Madonna’s early singles were marketed to black radio and played by influential R & B disc jockeys including Frankie Crocker.) He even used an introduction for “Borderline” similar to the one he had used on “Never Knew Love Like This Before.” Mr. Lucas did not work with Madonna again; it was Nile Rodgers, his childhood friend, who took over production duties on her follow-up album. The 1980s were a busy decade for Mr. Lucas. He released an album as part of an electro-funk trio, Sunfire, and he produced albums — some with Mr. Mtume, some on his own — for Lou Rawls, the Spinners, the Weather Girls, Rebbie Jackson and the Four Tops. He also opened a recording studio, Quantum Sound, in Jersey City. In 1991, Mr. Lucas suffered a severe heart attack, and he had consistent heart problems in the years since. He continued to work on music for personal projects and briefly taught music at Montclair State University in New Jersey. In addition to his daughter, he is survived by his mother, Annie Wolinsky; his wife, Leslie Lucas; his brother, Gregory; and a son, Julian. His first marriage ended in divorce.

Cliff recently recorded an album of soul songs, so with this "tribute" he gains entry. Dozier has form here, having also worked with Phil Collins on his "Inside Seduction" album from 1991, and Phil had a hit with "You can't hurry love". Just in case you missed it, Cliffy's soul album featured some very heavy hitters: From allmusic.com: Recorded in Memphis with Motown songwriting legend Lamont Dozier, Cliff Richard's first studio album since turning 70, Soulicious, may seem an unlikely new direction for a singer synonymous with old-fashioned rock & roll and schmaltzy Christmas ballads, but having previously released 1998's R&B-themed Real as I Wanna Be and singing duets with the likes of Janet Jackson and Dionne Warwick, it's not as radical a departure as you might think. Unfortunately, despite its credible behind the scenes team and an impressive guest list featuring some of the genre's greatest vocalists, the follow-up to his big-band effort, Bold as Brass, lacks the soul needed to justify its bombastic title. Indeed, having recruited the likes of Billy Paul, Candi Staton, and Percy Sledge, it's a shame that their legendary talents are wasted on karaoke renditions of Heatwave's "Always and Forever," Womack & Womack's "Teardrops," and James & Bobby Purify's "I'm Your Puppet," respectively, while it's hard to see where the likes of the driving pop/rock ballad "Saving a Life," the falsetto-led synth pop of "Every Piece of My Broken Heart," the completely unexpected Lady Gaga pastiche, "Don't Say You Love Me (It'll Ruin My Day)," and the acid house grooves on closer "Birds of a Feather" fit in with the soul music concept. However, there are several more encouraging results spread throughout these 15 tracks. The New Stylistics' collaboration "How We Get Down" echoes the smooth Philly soul of the original five-piece in their '70s heyday; "She Looked Good" is a toe-tapping slice of infectious, brass-fused, soul-pop featuring the uplifting harmonies of Dennis Edwards and the Temptations, while "Are U Feeling Me?" is a gentle, string-soaked ballad which recalls the glossy '80s soul of its featured vocalist, Deniece Williams. It's admirable that having entered his eighth decade, Richard is still willing to explore new avenues, but having assembled a roster of artists most soul aficionados could only dream of, Soulicious' lack of focus and disappointingly flat production means it's hard to shake the feeling that he's wasted his opportunity to add another string to his bow.