Happy Birthdays

A birthday always heralds a cake at the office. Today none of my colleagues were celebrating a birthday but the company laid on donuts for all of us anyway.

Lots of donuts as it turned out, more than enough to go round.

I had two, and celebrated two birthdays close to my heart:

Feel It is six today J J J J J J

And that means Candi Staton is celebrating her birthday too.

Exactly four years ago I made a wish that some tracks that Candi had possibly  recorded at Fame only to remain in the can would one day get a release. Last year those wonderful people at Honest Jon’s made my wish come true and released the double CD “Evidence: The Complete Fame Record Masters” which contains most of those tracks! Even though the CD contains some of the tracks that appeared on their 2004 CD of Candi’s Fame output it is well worth picking up. As a Candi completist I have, of course, made my investment.

It means I now have just about all of Candi’s secular recordings. It must be time to start hunting for traces of some more unreleased gems, then.   

I did find this on YouTube recently though, a song I had not heard Candi sing before. Dig the yellow trouser suit!

Happy Birthday Candi J    

Clubbing

I caught up with the recent Disco related documentaries on BBC4 this week. Enjoyable stuff on the whole. One was a repeat and dated back to 2006 I think,  and it was interesting to see how much Giorgio Moroder had aged in these last few years!

When did Disco start and when did it end exactly?

It’s strange to think that we conceivably have Hitler to thank for the origins of the Discotheque.  In 40s occupied France the Nazis banned live jazz bands in Paris and as a result illicit underground clubs sprang up playing recorded music in what became known as Discotheques.

In my formative years (= mid teens = c1973/74) I went to my first clubs. That’s how they were generally known then. The first I can remember were those at the local rugby club. I have never been a rugby player, they just had great club nights - where what was already known then as a “mobile disco” would spin the holy vinyl although you wouldn’t then have said you were going to the “disco”. When a short time later I went “down town” it would be to a night club.     

Then along came Disco….. it all went overground on a grand scale…. Saturday Night Fever…. Disco Duck… Rod Stewart and the Stones jump on the bandwagon…   aaaaggghhh! …….. Disco Sucks and the ritual demolition of thousands of disco records (no doubt many extended 12” mixes included) in Chicago in 1979..…

….. and it all went underground again and we went to plain old (night) clubs once again.

Of course some of us had been going to plain old clubs listening and dancing to fantastic grooves – soul, funk, reggae, and “disco” – all along, and continued to do so.  

At the time I resented the Chicago disco demolition as I loved (and played as a DJ) a lot of records that could be described in its widest sense as disco. But now, looking back, I can support what they did. OK, the people who did it had their own agenda that went beyond the music, but from a purely musical point of view “Disco” had been massively over commercialised and had become a monster. I, for one, was happy for it to go underground again, without possibly completely realising it at the time.

Recently ”Aerodrome” has been dropped from the dictionary as it fallen into disuse as a word. If you search Wikipedia for Discotheque this is what you get.

  

Here is a sound from my early rugby clubs days. The origins of Disco? Just great club music I would say.

Act One – Tom The Peeper   1974

On a more soulful tip I’ve always liked the B side too…

Act One – Goodbye Love (We’re Through)  1974  

Ace Records' Ady Croasdell, who issued Act One's one and only LP on CD a few years ago, wrote:

"Researching the group has been tough, as the main man - producer, writer and general svengali, Raeford Gerald - died several years ago. Old contracts have thrown up several group members names and changes within the line-up, but speculation is inevitable as several questions remain unanswered. Unfortunately no photos of any of the groups line-ups could be found. "

Say what?!

The boot fair season is almost upon us once again. A regular haunt of mine fires into action again tomorrow. That will no doubt herald the return of winter weather!

At least a couple of boot fairs in my parish have in fact kept going throughout the winter. Unfortunately they charge £1 for parking so it puts me off going too frequently, that and the freezing mornings, where I find the fingers just can’t perform the riffle!

I did go to one of these last weekend, though, and it had the feel of a new season about it. The unseasonably warm weather had obviously encouraged plenty of sellers (and buyers). There were quite a few boxes of records to go through too and I secured a few good purchases. For much of the time I was rubbing shoulders with a particular fellow digger, and someone I had come across before. She is a digger with a difference – she is buying vinyl so she can make cake stands! That’s a pretty cool idea I think.

All albums were 50p and singles were 25p which was good, and here is one of the purchases.   

Where do I start with this one? It’s a bit of an oddball.

I have a handful of Nina Simone records, and I like her and respect her as an artist. From her initial love of classical piano, her involvement in the civil rights movement in the Sixties, and her often uncompromising live performances, Nina always came across as a very serious woman. So to find this album entitled “Nina’s Back” with a cover shot of …er… Nina’s back (at least I assume it is Nina on the cover) is a bit of a surprise. Then we have the small detail of the release number of this album. It was originally issued in the US on VPI in 1985. My copy is a UK release from 1989 on the Jungle label with the release number Freud 28. Why? Well, why not, I suppose.

Now to turn to what’s in the grooves. I was hoping against hope that, although recorded in the 80s, the unmistakable 80s production sound might be absent from this record. It was a vain hope.  The album is split into a “party side” and a “mellow side”. I thought I would play the mellow side first as I think of Nina as more suited to mellow songs. In truth I couldn’t get through it. I needle dropped, and wherever I did I found twee and vapid, 80s style arrangements and Nina, to my ears at least, not sounding good at all. So to the party side. I can’t imagine how Nina was coaxed into the studio to perform songs set to an 80s dancefloor backdrop. The mix is pretty strange too, with Nina and her piano way back in the mix – perhaps the engineers were trying to hide her thin vocals.

But nevertheless the album does have a few redeeming features. The background vocals are provided by The Waters, and they are invariably excellent. Then there are the last two tracks on side one which I actually really like. I was going to feature “Touching And Caring” which is one of those songs that immediately gets into a groove and just bowls along until finally it breaks down into a gloriously loose vampy long outro. But you can find that for yourself on YouTube, unlike the track I am going to feature which is the closer to side 1. “You Must Have Another Lover” is something to get you dancing around the kitchen table on a Friday night. Nina Simone like you have never heard her before I suggest.       

Nina Simone - You Must Have Another Lover  1985

Jigsaws and geography

This record has been in the collection for a few years now and I have been meaning to feature it for some time. While I was dragging my feet Sir Shambling has recently nipped in and added CarolynVeal to his Deep Soul Heaven hall of fame (you and me both Ana!).

I bought the record off the ‘bay and it was the almost home made look to this 45 that initially attracted me to it. I love the way the track information has been typewritten, carefully cut out, and then glued onto the white label. (Incidentally – typewriters! Remember them?). This copy was described as having come from an ex-record executive’s collection. I wonder, did they receive the record like this? Or did it maybe come as a plain white label together with some promotional blurb from which they cut out the title and artist info? Or did somebody else stick the information on at a later date? Whatever the circumstances, I cannot remember seeing a demo record presented in this way before. Demos of Phil-LA-Of-Soul 45s followed the usual industry practice of sporting full logo and credits but had a white background colour (presumably primarily to make it easier for disc jockeys to read). So this must have been an advance advance copy! The Phil-LA-Of-Soul label is probably my favourite of all designs so it would have been nice to have this 45 with the proper label, but it’s just as good having it in this form, which must be very unusual, and I think looks rather wonderful in its own right.

When I initially acquired this 45 I tried to find out some background on Carolyn Veal. I didn’t manage to turn up anything. Then, a few weeks ago, as I said, John Ridley added Carolyn Veal, and her seemingly only 45, to his peerless site.  John evidently hadn’t been able to turn up anything on Carolyn either but mused that the track had possibly been cut in Florida.

This sparked me into another web trawl in search of more information on Carolyn or this record, and this time I found something.  This track has been on YouTube now for some time and recent comments are interesting:

1. Carolyn Veal herself appears to have left a comment.

2. Another commenter mentions that it was a hit in the Netherlands in late '70. (Although I don’t think it was released on Phil LA until 1972, but read on). 

3. Somebody else mentions that the track will always be number one in the Caribbean community (or something like that), and somebody else again then refers to a 45 by Carole Veal that went for a tidy sum on ebay a few months ago. That is really interesting: it was released on the Ditanfra label with Miss Veal credited as song writer. The label says “Recorded in V.I.". VI turns out to be the Virgin Islands I think as I have seen a couple of albums also released on Ditanfra which are calypso or soul/funk style and also purport to be from the Virgin Islands. So it would appear that Carolyn recorded the song in the Virgin Islands (where she was resident?) with the help of Florida based Tom Markham, who then leased the song to Philly based Phil-LA-Of-Soul. There was certainly precedent for a Florida link for the label with the likes of Helene Smith and Little Beaver having had releases on the imprint. Almost certainly the Ditanfra release was first so that could fit in with the comment that it had graced the Dutch airwaves in late ‘70.

I have passed on this info to the good Sir and in his reply he mentioned he would put out some more feelers with friends in Suriname. Of course, I thought! I was wondering how this record could have become a hit in Holland of all places, but Suriname used to be known as Dutch Guiana until it achieved independence from Holland in 1975. Positioned on the north coast of South America, Suriname has trading links with the Caribbean islands so this could explain how this 45 came to get exposure in Holland. But there's more. I followed my nose on Wikipedia and ended up at Negerhollands a Dutch-based creole language that was once spoken in the Danish West Indies, now known as...... the U.S. Virgin Islands. So there is a direct link between the Virgin Islands and Holland. Sorry if you knew all this geography and so forth, but I didn't! Anyway this can explain how this 45 came to get exposure in Holland. Of course that would suggest there is a Dutch press of this record in existence. Will one turn up?

Once John collates this new information and anything else he manages to find out from his own further investigations I am sure we can look forward to an even fuller picture on Deep Soul Heaven of this great piece of lost soul. 

Remember that difficult jigsaw that used to be kept under the tablecloth for weeks on end? Piece by piece we’ll get there.

CarolynVeal – Your Love Is Like A Chain Around My Heart  1972?

GG / B = AA

Gloria Gaynor – Searchin’ 1975

I am still getting round to playing records I bought at car boot sales last year. The particular batch I’ve been working through recently is a small crate full of mainly 80s pop 45s, with a few 70s thrown in as well. 80s pop isn’t really my scene but this lot of records came with a bunch of mint Depeche Mode singles – their first 27 singles to be precise – and the whole lot (about 150 singles) only cost £5.

Anyway in this bunch of records was Gloria Gaynor’s ’75 disco outing “Reach Out, I’ll Be There”, looking the worse for wear. I gave it a rub with the magic fluid, put it down on the turntable B side up – and discovered a mid tempo gem.  I can’t stop playing this record, it has a top notch arrangement with irresistible strings, understated horns, a simple xylophone(?) motif and Gloria Gaynor’s fine vocals drenched in heartache.

This sent me upstairs to dig out my other Gloria Gaynor 45s and proceed to play all the B sides, and I found it was well worth the effort. Gloria will maybe be forever known as a Disco Diva (and especially for "I Will Survive") but these sides prove that there was much more depth to her, and the arrangers she worked with.

Most of these B sides can be found on Side 2 of her first two albums” Never Can Say Goodbye” and “Experience” ("We Just Can't Make It" was only ever a B side). Side 1 of those albums featured her Disco hits and were segued to run continuously which was both a novelty and a hit with the club DJs in the, then, very much fledgling Disco scene. It was those tracks that gained all the attention and I doubt that many people turned over the singles or the albums to find out what lay lurking. A pity. Now, all these years later Gloria’s hits definitely sound of their time but I think it’s the B side of Gloria that has stood the test of time better.

Buy “Never Can Say Goodbye”.

Buy “Experience”. (The B side of this album contains "What'll I Do" which is another hidden gem).  

Gloria Gaynor – We Just Can’t Make It  1974

Gloria Gaynor – Real Good People  1975

Gloria Gaynor – I’m Still Yours  1975

Hoping to get back in the ......

It’s been a busy few weeks both at work and socially. There are signs that things may quieten down a bit on the life front soon and with that a more normal service can hopefully be resumed here.

In the meantime I’ve dug deep into one of my original Schweppes boxes for this 45 from the Rhythm Makers. Always a favourite of mine, it’s a hypnotic instrumental from 1975 performed by the band that would change their name to GQ and hit big with “Disco Nights (Rock Freak)” towards the end of the 70s. “Disco Nights” was in fact a reworking of “Soul On Your Side” which was the title track of the one and only LP the band released as the Rhythm Makers, which also featured “Zone”. I used to play “Disco Nights” a lot back in my DJing days and “Zone” would have got a few airings too. Back then I wasn’t aware of the “Soul On Your Side” album and, although it’s quite possible I read at the time about the GQ backstory in a copy of Blues & Soul, the link back to the Rhythm Makers certainly hadn’t stuck in my mind. Now, of course, we have the Internet. 

      

Rhythm Makers – Zone 1975

R.I.P. Jimmy Castor

JimmyCastor passed away earlier this week. I have a number of his records and his songs always put a smile on my face.

Here is probably my favourite from the "Bunch" who were known for weaving humour into their funky grooves. They got it spot on on both fronts with this one.

    

The JimmyCastor Bunch – Potential 1975

RIP Jimmy.

(I wonder, Will Jimmy’s first question in heaven be addressed to Ray Charles?).

PS: Just before I wrote this my daughter text to tell me she has heard Etta James has passed away. Not a good start to 2012.