Mickey Finn

Excellent shout! There's plenty of space for a few more comps like this, and not just for Mercury. There's still quite a few Epic singles that haven't ever made it, for example (e.g. Brenda and the Tabulations). Eddie Floyd made a couple of singles on Mercury, and this b side alone is screaming for some kind of revival and reissue:

The hypocrisy of the enforcement of laws governing payola was a particular beef of Carl Davis, who got caught up in the US Justice Dept sweep of mainly black music-focused labels in the mid-70s.

Totally agree - the sound of summer. It was one of the few new tracks that appeared on his "Original Musiquarium" double LP in 1982, alongside this, which I think deserves better recognition: So much good stuff in this thread. The "Down to Earth" album right up to "Songs in the Key of Life" is pretty much drop the needle wherever quality. Afterwards the greatness was more sporadic but with catalogue like this, he'd already claimed his place.

This is just so classy...

Which is why I asked the questions above - Stevie's own version on the "Hotter than July" album is strong, but hearing Tammi Terrell's version just blew me away, and to think it had been stuck in a vault for all those years ... but I haven't made up my mind on a nomination just yet

What a worthwhile project - good luck to you with this Before making any nominations, are we to choose any or all of the following: (a) Songs performed by Stevie (b) Songs written and performed by Stevie (c) Songs written by Stevie and performed by others

You're nicked, you slag!

Great story, thanks for posting. Terri Walker has released at least 3 solo albums of varying quality, was half of the "Lady" group that released a retro soul album a few years back: She has been on countless records alongside and backing others. This is probably my favourite of her most recent releases:

The text above mentions the 1966 tour in passing, only to say that he was already a veteran of "gruelling tours" and so impressed Derek Brandon with the professional way he handled things as an artist in his own right. Also mentions Robinson as part of Dr John's European tour band in 1986.

I think you're sort of right about what it represents, but the damage goes back further than Cowell. It's the finance guys chasing the bucks with the latest thing - Cowell is just a more recent version, to be replaced by even newer, more plasticky versions no doubt. The Art of Noise was clever stuff and very avant garde at the time, but it didn't really last more than one LP, and the George Duke track above is a perfect illustration of why - there's really not much more you can do with that style. He did plenty of slick commercially targeted productions during the 80s, beginning with the Blackbyrds who weren't so impressed (ironically for the same reasons), but "Broken glass" seemed to stick out in Duke's memory as one of the worst examples of the formula dictating the content.

George Duke's stint at Elektra was not a happy one. His second, self-titled LP for the label in 1985 was made under some pressure to make something "like" the Art of Noise - and this was the result:

Wah Wah Watson from 1976:

For me the Ritchie Family was pretty ok until Richie Rome dropped out of the production team and Jacques Morali took over, turning them into eurodisco dross, until Jacques Fred Petrus came to the rescue with the "I'll do my best" LP in 1982. Then Gavin Christopher produced their final LP "All night all right" the following year. And speaking of which, there's vocoder on the title track:

Ian Levine got in on the act:

According to a French blog in 1975 a series of comps called "Keep the Faith" was released on UK Joy Records: Would be interesting to know who was behind this - the whole series was focused on mid to late 60s soul. https://soul-quinquin.eklablog.com/various-artists-keep-the-faith-vol-1-joy-records-joys-223-uk-a119343050

And it was even written by Doc McCoy!

Ok, back on track: 5 years ago on this forum links to an interview with David Nathan were posted: Might be worth contacting David Nathan for more info on these - maybe get them posted back up. Meanwhile, the most recent thing I've been able to dig up after a not very exhaustive search is the news that in 2015 John Abbey was appointed CEO of Connor Ray Music, based in Houston, Texas: https://www.bmansbluesreport.com/2015/01/connor-ray-music-label-announces-ceo.html https://www.connorraymusic.com The article even provides an email address for John. Perhaps an exclusive Soul Source interview could be arranged... Nice to see he's still working with Trudy Lynn.

Earth Wind and Fire "Let's groove" - a big hit that Maurice subsequently didn't rate alongside earlier and later work:

Neil Young's "Trans" album came out in 1982, whereas Herbie Hancock's "I thought it was you" came from the "Sunlight" LP in 1978. So maybe Neil Young used it earlier, and that's maybe the one case where the vocoder served to improve the final result as I've never liked his voice. But that's another story. As for Herbie, it's the instrumental break in "You bet your love" that seals the track for me. I think the first time I heard the vocoder was John Miles on his hit "Slow down", where there's an instrumental break in which he's using it to perform a solo. That record fit the "disco" category and so sneaked into charts and playlists that were otherwise dominated by proper soul and funk acts. Phil Collins uses it quite effectively as backing on John Martyn's "Amsterdam" from the 1981 album "Glorious fool". As you can see I'm having trouble locating the vocoder in soul - Lalo Schifrin's "Nobody home" from 1978 also comes to mind, but as with Herbie this is "soul" used very loosely. I think Wah Wah Watson was using it in his 1976 album "Elementary" ... nope, still struggling. And I never got Zapp, but they came later. Thumbs up for Dayton - that's a big personal favourite. And Marvin.

Alexis Korner had an early Saturday evening blues and soul show on Radio 1 for a while during the late 70s. Used to open with a sax-led instrumental of Rufus & Chaka's "Tell me something good". Somebody's put up a recording of one of these - eclectic sounds:

She was brilliant also as Kizzy in Roots - as were so many great actors in that series. Speaking of which - Ben Vereen:

Ketty Lester (who was a regular on Little House on the Prairie!):

I've done my musical travels a bit and started with disco/funk, moving through Beatles and UK 60s blues scene to prog rock to jazz rock until the circle closed when I rediscovered JF and then soul in all its wonderful forms. Robbie V *did* dabble in "obscure" with his little label collection feature on his Sound of Sunday Night show on Radio 1, and Davis is clear about that being an influence on him. I think you're right about his position, whether he understands it or not. To me that feels more like a teenage thing to focus on rarity over quality, but then again for those of us still hungry for new sounds (of any era) then it's not such a leap from being excited to find something brand new (at least to me) and then being even more excited because either no one else has discovered it or no one else has it. But here I part company with the coveruppers and elitists who want to keep it closed. It's so much more satisfying to be able to share the knowledge instead of bottling it up. While we're on the subject of prog rock, Yes drummer Alan White made a solo LP in 1975 "Ramshackled", on which is found this unlikely tune: I believe the vocalist is Alan Marshall, who later did some recordings with UK group Gonzalez on Capitol, and before that was a member of mod group The Loose Ends during the 60s.

Difficult to find anything on this particular Charles Johnson. According to allmusic.com he started his own production company and record label "Funkcave" in the 90s, and there have been a few releases by younger performers, including this: