Mickey Finn

Yes indeed - so many good tunes on there, including this, originally from an otherwise mediocre album if I remember correctly:

Probably not this but it was an honourable effort to restore dignity to this lady after having been shamelessly ripped off by Black Box:

Sticking with Motown, we move forward to 1984 for what was the second solo LP of Bobby King, who had previously recorded for Warners in 1981. Bobby's solo albums contrast strongly with his more rootsy r&b style duets with Terry Evans and in his work with Ry Cooder. On his Motown set, Bobby is produced by Steve Barri and Brian Potter, who together with Dennis Lambert was famous for their work with the Four Tops on ABC, among other acts. The album itself is a mix of styles indicative of the confusion of Motown during this period - a scattergun aimed at various charts and not quite making it at the time, despite all that state of the art 80s polish. However, a few years later Ralph Tee put together a brilliant compilation "Motown Trackin'" of 70s and 80s album cuts which featured this mid-tempo shuffler: And more recently interest began to revive in the more dancefloor oriented "Lovequake": and there's a good duet with Alfie Silas on the kind of song Dionne Warwick would have been very comfortable with: The album opens with an uptempo Leon Ware song "Show me the magic", which also appears on Leon's "Undercover" LP from 1987. Overall, there's enough here to justify a reissue, and a proper crisp remastering would do justice to the production which, when coupled with decent songs, makes for a very worthwhile effort that holds up well after all these years.

From the "California Sunset" LP:

I stumbled on this recently and had to buy it. The rest of the album isn't really up to much - after the fourth track it goes into high energy overdrive, including an out-of-its-breath version of "Open the door to your heart" Looks like the cover art photos were taken in Whitby... Chuck Jackson and Johnny Bristol Another artist I don't think was mentioned above is Billy Griffin:

Hi Tim, yes, totally agree with you there, it was a bit of a toss up, "Almighty Fire" winning because I've heard some jocks (e.g. Paul Clifford) playing out tracks from "Sweet Passion" recently. But pretty much anything produced by Lamont would be worth a reissue, as with the Laurence Hilton-Jacobs set mentioned above. Big Break Records did a very nice job on the Lamont-produced 1975 Originals album, "California Sunset". Seems to be out of print now, but there's still some copies cheap on Discogs.

There's a clutch of albums from the tail end of Aretha Franklin's run on Atlantic that have never seen the light of day on legally issued compact disc. She owns the rights to them, and has reportedly been holding out for a fat fee that is beyond the willingness of any potential partners, so far. This is a great shame because this is a period during which she was still able to climb incredible heights with her voice whilst trying out new styles. I don't think she ever matched those heights following her debut for Arista in 1980, where she does a storming version of Otis's "Can't turn you loose". But if we skip over the patchy collaboration she did with Van McCoy in 1979 ("La diva") and land back in 1978, we find her second collaboration with Curtis Mayfield, "Almighty Fire". Legend has it that the working relationship between these two was difficult, but maybe that accounts for the success of the collaboration. Similar stories circulate of her working with Luther Vandross a few years later, and for me those albums with Luther are her last consistently good ones. Released at the height of the disco boom, the lack of commercial success for "Almighty Fire" is probably unsurprising, but there's more than a few solid tracks on this LP, and it would be worth hearing them in their remastered glory. The following year she released an album with Van McCoy. Nile Rodgers tells of how he and Bernard Edwards turned down her request to produce her album, as he knew what sort of reaction there would be to the producers who "discofied Aretha". Van McCoy maybe should have followed that example, but he seems to have been someone unable to turn down anything - perhaps contributing to his desperately premature passing shortly after recording was completed on that project. But Aretha knew what she wanted and seems to have got it. Maybe a more stubborn producer like Curtis or Luther would have produced better results, like on "Almighty Fire".

Thanks for the info re Mick Talbot. And I totally agree re Mick O'Donnell's show - essential listening. And Mick is on here flying the flag for new music as well as digging up endless amounts of rare, obscure but very high quality oldies

On a similar tip, for anyone who missed it, is this quite recent and excellent compilation by the late Bob Abrahamian:

Thanks for the info re Mr Weller - glad he's still pushing the boundaries. What's Mick Talbot up to these days? For new stuff on here ajb has been performing heroic work on the thread "EMS Appreciation Society" and there are a few others like Mark Randle regularly on the case. But it would be good to see it more widely spread, perhaps by genre, format, country of origin or whatever. There is interest on here for it, but I suspect it's muted because most assume that anything beyond 1975 puts you on thin ice. Time to live dangerously!

Excellent mix, really enjoyed this. Good to be reminded of Ron Trent especially, but plenty more to work on ...

Good to see this venue in action again was last there in 2009

I remember Rod Allsworth and Jimmy Scriv double decking at Morecambe 2 years ago playing that Moments tune - had the floor packed. And the Barbara Lynn track would be great to hear played out ... looks like a lot of good events happening down south apart from that Slipknot tent special

How does anyone manage a toilet break with tune after tune like that?? Looks like an event I'll have to watch out for Thanks for posting.

Also Mother's Finest ... Meanwhile BBR have started putting together anthologies, such as Kleeer, GQ and more recently Donald Byrd. These are all great comps but ... considering that all these artists (minus Mother's Finest) have had extensive and recent back catalogue reissues already, I'm not sure this is a good thing, as it points to a slow down of new (=not already recently reissued) material coming out. Some of this stuff can be justified on the grounds that the earlier reissue, even if recent, is now fetching stupid money. For example, the Donald Byrd anthology features the complete second album he recorded with Isaac Hayes, which was earlier released on Wounded Bird and is now not so easy to find, going for prices in 3 figures. There was a similarly quick reissue of Twennynine's final album By Robinsongs, after it had been out on Wounded Bird, sold quickly and ended up unfindable. But more anthologies and less completist reissues suggests we might have reached a peak of some sort, as there seems to be more recycling than real digging going on. There will be good reasons for this (e.g., major labels not cooperating with the sourcing of Masters, copyright issues, etc.), but it's a shame nonetheless. I'm assuming that there is a time limit to all this, as a generation of people within the industry retires and as the market shrinks due to similar ageing process among punters. If anthologies and special edition sevens can keep the other work afloat financially, then good stuff but hopefully this will not take the place of unearthing new material for reissue or first time release. The Interstate releases are very good indeed, and here's hoping more are on the way. I'd appreciate more informative liner notes though ...

Now for a sharp turn in some other direction ... down it might be for some, but not for me. I have long been partial to a nice bit of well-orchestrated, beautifully arranged real musicianship as applied to disco, broadly defined. Vince Montana's work ranks among the very best. When the people at BBE put out the second volume of their Private Wax compilations I was knocked sideways by Lou Johnson's "Keep that fire burning", rightly championed by Mick O'Donnell, who ended up getting a lot of stick because it wasn't soul, supposedly. Well if you disagree with that view you're gonna love this nomination, which is to say, not. Chicago-based producer, arranger, writer and keyboardist Donald Burnside put together a very nice album of big production disco in 1979 for Mercury with Elaine and Ellen sharing lead vocals. The album is most famous for their version of the Bacharach/David classic "The Look of Love", which was more recently reissued as a re-edit by Dimitri from Paris on another BBE comp. But hidden among all the big orchestra BPMs is this very melancholic ballad which I reckon earns the album reissue status all on its own. Burnside went on to produce releases by First Class and Superior Movement, among others. Their work has been reissued. As for Elaine and Ellen, I know nothing, but any information of course much appreciated.

The Jones Girls did some wonderful backing vocals over the years - as on this beautiful melancholic track By Lamont Dozier:

This is the kind of forum where you can make claims like the above and feel pretty safe from having heavy objects lobbed at you by disgusted fans of Genesis, Led Zeppelin, King Crimson, Principal Edward's Magic Theatre, Status Quo, Wigan's Ovation ... Didn't know about the VF connection. I remember as a youngster reading Record Mirror, which I bought mainly for James Hamilton's roundup of club and disco tunes, and scratching my head at all the fuss in the letters page about Anderson and Wakeman being replaced by Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes of the Buggles. Who the blazes are these guys? But as we learned during the 80s, Trevor Horn certainly knew a few things about sound. And Jon Anderson's 1982 "Animation" LP was pretty good too.

Me neither, it's a long time since I was exploring that side of music. From memory they were part of an outgrowth of harder-edged North American blues rock groups that took some inspiration from Hendrix and Cream - Steppenwolf and Mountain spring to mind, and with Mountain there was significant overlap with Cream, as keyboardist Felix Pappalardi played on some later Cream tracks ("Badge", also featuring George Harrison and a sample of sorts of "Here comes the sun"), while Jack Bruce went off to form another power trio West Bruce and Laing with two ex-members of Mountain. The relative cosiness - as well as openness - of the emerging rock music scene during the 60s and 70s comes across very strongly in Robbie Robertson's recently published autobiography. Of course while there was a fair bit of musical experimentation it helped that there was an even bigger amount of substance experimentation. It's a miracle anyone from that era remembers anything.

Are you thinking of Vanilla Fudge? Ginger Baker was in Blind Faith before forming his Air Force with half of London's jazz scene. Appice did a long stint with Rod Stewart, and was in a power trio with Jeff Beck.

She was brilliant in Ian McShane's "Soul Survivors" tv drama/comedy.

There's a reason why some tunes are particularly popular. Maybe also explains why some are being picked up by advertisers. That Dee Dee Sharp track is a real banger (= I'm liking it a lot at the moment).

Spot on! Look forward to seeing you there Michael

Many thanks for posting these, more than a few newies for these ears. You could do a revival session with some of these at the Whitby July weekender

Been finding myself coming back to this album of late, and it's a prime candidate for long overdue reissue. Considering its release date (1986) and label, what could have been a very programmed, flat backing was instead suitably organic - real drums! - and of course with the songwriting craft of Prince Phillip Mitchell and the great man's vocals, you could hardly lose. A strong album from start to finish, but the closer really clinches it for me. It also appears on the Ichiban 1995 comp "Between the Grooves - Rhythm and Blues", which offers a decent selection of proper soul tracks from the label. Mitchell released a further album on Ichiban in 1991, "Loner".