Timillustrator

Looks good, not too pricey either: www.amazon.co.uk/Without-Fortune-Motown-Records-Cleveland/dp/1883283841

He was a product of his time and forged an enormously successful label against massive odds. If you look at the mid sixties output of a lot of Motown artists though, he reflected one thread of thinking - a lot of them were pushed towards recording "standards" in the belief that "pop" music only had a short life and the best way to ensure people would have a long term career was to make them into all round entertainers and establish them in the more lucrative and adult cabaret circuit. So you can understand that when people like Marvin and Stevie were leaning towards the opposite a few years later and started experimenting and becoming more progressive he wasn't massively in favour. You can see the same thinking in a lot of people at the same time though the Beach Boys were torn apart by Brian Wilson going into full experimental psychedelia and Mike Love wanting to stick with "the formula". A lot of British artists were given the Mickie Most treatment (Jeff Beck, Terry Reid, The Yardbirds) to try and produce pop hits when the artists themselves wanted to go psychedelic or hard rock route resulting in tension and sometimes pop singles and rock albums. The tension between going avant-garde and pop hits was exactly the same in Motown.

52 now. But at this rate - 3 every day, they'll only get to £3,898 of the £6,500 goal

Looking hopeful, they're nearly a third of the way there. At this rate they'll do it.

It's here? Already got 7 backers, still a long way to go though! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wigancasino/last-night-at-wigan-casino-0?ref=nav_search&result=project&term=last night at wigan

It certainly looks more realistic - he's reduced the total by about £4,000; but it still needs twice the backers he had last time though. £20 for a book ain't bad either.

A lot of people overestimate Kickstarter, if you just look at the number of failures on there. I think there's a specific combination of cult appeal and an age demographic that is likely to use Kickstarter before it gains critical mass. That plus the need to massively plug it once it's launched. Best of luck to him though!

Quite good programme on Sky Arts last night about the rise of cassette, CD, MP3 formats. Was anyone else suckered in by the changing formats? I know I was - started buying more cassettes late 80's for convenience so I could listen in the car then moved pretty much exclusively over to CD's in the early 90's. A friend of mine (as was mentioned in the programme being quite common) got rid of his entire record collection and bought the lot again on CD, at first he sold off his albums but when it got down to about the last 50 he gave them to me, still got them, but at that time (late 90's) you literally couldn't give LP's away. https://tv24.co.uk/b/qrb8s0-j87

Thought it was a pretty good list though, not totally obvious. Nice the see rare earth in there too - largely forgotten.

Here it was

He's good, there was a thread about him on here a few years back, I'll see if I can find it.

Nu Soul / Rare Soul / Latin Soul / Philly Soul. Maybe promoters should be rationed to just 3 or 4 types each? 😁

I sympathise but the phrase Northern Soul does now cover quite a broad spectrum. Depending on the venue it's not unusual to get maybe one DJ who does an hour of modern and crossover. There's something to do with geography too - round Birmingham and the Black Country it's pretty standard, up Nottingham and the East Midlands it tends to be a bit more pure "Northern", further south there's a bit more early R&B. As Len says you have to do your own research and DJs like birds tend to flock together so once you know a few names you can sort of tell what is going to be the style.

Hopefully, I am a bit dubious still. People are already putting on events for the 25th June but although the headline is "All legal limits on social contact will be removed" and "Nightclubs will be allowed to reopen" it's still No earlier than and if you read the small print there could still be limits in terms of mask wearing and temperature checks etc. I hope that's not the case but some people are talking like it's all over already.

Very true, if the study shows it's safe though it may be that smaller clubs can operate at capacity with some testing/temperatures/evidence of vaccination. I've seen a few events in the last year at 50% or less capacity, all seated, table service etc. but can't imagine they'd get much out of it above covering costs.

Yeah I saw that, very interesting 1,300 people! Only 1/10th of the venue's capacity though. This kind of study is essential if some of the big venue events will go ahead this year.

No. 14 already! By my reckoning I've missed 11, not that I was counting, until now.

This is the one nighter for 2021:

True enough, a bit of "natural wastage" wouldn't be a bad thing. The main problem round my way would be when there were up to half a dozen events on the same night within 20 miles, you have to pick one but when you got there it was half empty; don't think that'll happen now, not for a few months anyway.

So what's the betting that 200 odd events will now all be scheduled for the weekend of the 25th/26th June!?😆

Good point, I have no idea what influence Japan has on soul record collecting? Any Idea? I've seen Japanese collectors pay insane money for other music memorabilia, like $1,000 for T Shirts and stuff.

It's difficult to try and apply economic laws to it because the size of the market is difficult to predict. From purely personal knowledge the majority of DJ's are 50+, possibly 10-20% under 50 and less than 10% under 30. A lot of demand is driven by DJ's wanting to play records out. Collectors who don't DJ are more difficult to age profile because they are invisible but from my occasional foray to record fairs I'd say the vast majority are 50+ and all the collecting groups on Facebook I am in I'd say the average age is 60. So if you fast forward 30 years, the 20 year olds are now 50 and have the money and time to collect what they couldn't before but the market could be 90% smaller, so even though there's still demand there could be 10X the supply. That's presuming we're not all living to well over 100 and still, by some miracle drug, dancing into our 80's and still collecting.

Absolutely, the current market is boosted by people having money, time and thanks to technology the ability to buy, sell and value records with a high degree of accuracy. It is definitely a collectors market rather than an investors one but as the collectors decline so will the value - simple economics, the demand is driven by relatively rich informed collectors. At the moment it is not an investors market like stamps and coins are.

Yep, similar thing happened with some jazz records a few years ago. As collectors snap up everything the prices rise, when it's all gone and those collectors start to die off the price falls. I am amazed at how quickly the values of 80's and 90's American hardcore punk records is rising, similar thing - fairly new market and suddenly people have money to but stuff they couldn't afford when they were younger. Some of it is quite staggering; not up to soul records prices by any means but very sharp increases for rare, obscure stuff.

Hi Len, All good thanks and hanging in there (just) but I really do think the end is in sight. Hope you're all OK. I think you are both right - some people will give up altogether either because they've just changed their mind, moved away, retired or are just wary of going out again. Others will have had a good rest and re-emerge with new enthusiasm and there will be some new faces who've 'discovered' soul through lockdown, livestreams, Facebook etc. I think the only thing that is certain is that there will not be the same old people at venues there were before (or the same venues ) The same is probably true of business, I know a few people (my accountant for one) who've just decided now is a good time to pack it in and retire, others haven't survived financially but equally a lot will have been made redundant and will be setting up on their own for the first time.