Look at Gwen Owens’ catalog of
originally issued 45s and they span soul’s golden decade almost
precisely. Gwen’s singing extended beyond that though, singing in
the group Hot later in the 70s and having one more single released in
her name in 1979, whilst still a member of Hot. Her 60s recordings
were mostly cut in Detroit, where she grew up; and her 70s output was
mostly recorded in Muscle Shoals. In the 70s and into the 80s she
continued in the music business as a session and backing singer, for
some big names too. Into this century she was singing with a gospel
group The Melodious Hearts.
Gwen is
still very much alive. I can say that with confidence as I have found
her, very much current, Instagram account. She occasionally puts up
pictures of her old publicity shots, including one she described as
her very first one. She was, and I have no doubt still is, a very
attractive lady. On the internet it seems her birth date is most
often quoted as June 19th, 1953 but I’m not sure that
can be true. That would have made her 11 when she recorded her first
single. But elsewhere I have seen someone quoting an article from the
Michigan Chronicle dated June 19th , 1965 (coincidentally
her birthday) where it refers to her two 1964 released 45s and states
that she was just graduating from Pershing HS in Detroit, which would
have most likely made her 16 or 17 when she first recorded.
Her 1967 45
- Just Say You’re Wanted And Needed - is a very rare record
that commands very high prices on the Northern scene. It is a belter.
even allowing for the somewhat out of tune horns. Looking at
Gripsweat it seems only five copies have gone through Ebay in the
last 12 years or so, and if one in decent condition came up for sale
now I’m betting it would sell for $5k+.
This Josie
release of hers is not a rare or in demand record, but it is a good
one. I had heard the B side - It Ain’t Hardly Over - years
ago and had it mentally filed as one to get at the right price. Now I
have finally secured a copy it is the A side that is really grabbing
me.
Here’s a bit of a curiosity. A funky
record from 1977 celebrating Jimmy Carter making it to The White House.
The funk is
tight, and the horns have some definite similarities with the horn
arrangements that can be found on mid70s Parliament releases. No
surprise at all as it happens – Walter Foster had links to the JBs,
and Fred Wesley is credited as producer and arranger on this record.
Walter had just a handful of 45s released over period of more than 20
years. This was his second release, some twelve years after his debut on Loma. That 45 was produced by James Brown, and I would
think it is entirely possible Fred Wesley featured in the backing
group.
Have a
contemporary funk group ever made a record singing the praises of the
orange one, I wonder? I don’t know of one and I suspect the odds
are vanishingly small.
The next three records in this year’s
Advent-ure are all late entrants, they dropped through the mailbox
only a few days ago.
Lou Johnson must have liked a bit of yomping – and the circus. In a short period of time in
the 60s he had records released on Hilltop, Big Hill - and BigTop.
All were distributed by Bell. These labels were all run by the music
publishing company Hill & Range which was run out of the Brill
Building in New York, home to more than a few significant songwriters
such Bacharach & David, Leiber & Stoller, Goffin & King.
And Jeff Barry & Ellie Greenwich. Importantly (for them), Hill &
Range had control over the recording output of Elvis Presley in the
50s and 60s.
In fact Lou
Johnson had the only documented 45 issued on Hilltop - It Ain’t
No Use, arranged by Burt Bacharach, a truly great record which is
actually worthy of it’s own label! I have a copy of it and I must
give it it’s own post here sometime. It bears a catalog number
(551) in the same 55* range as Big Hill. 45Cat actually conflates the
two labels. There were a few labels named Hilltop in the US in the
early 60s so I’m guessing they changed the label name to Big Hill
to avoid any possible copyright challenges. Lou also had the only
releases (three) on Big Hill before he moved over to Hill &
Range’s main imprint – BigTop. Possibly they were planning to
focus the different labels on different musical genres but then
thought better of it.
My copy of
this 45 sits in it’s nice original Bell sleeve, and is a promo as
stated on the label. It was common for promos to have, as well,
either a white background colour and/or a printed star on the label
to denote the A side. No such thing here. Radio DJs, or distributors
maybe, would often also mark the A side with a big felt tip pen star
or some such mark. In the case of my copy there is just an A written
on one side and B on the other in red felt tip, which makes it very
hard to see and a bit pointless. The DJ would have needed to know
what he was doing.
And what is
in the grooves? This from the 3rd April 1965 edition of
the US music paper Record World; straightforward and on point,
life was so simple then:
Following on from yesterday’s post New
Orleans gets another mention today. But, again, the music is not really
New Orleans in style.
The Barons
were a New Orleans group (this is the one only release of theirs that
gave them two RRs), but although some of their releases had a funky
edge I wouldn’t say they had the classic sound of that NOLA
syncopation. This group were certainly active between 1967 and 1973/4, and were credited as backing vocalists on some singles that may have been released as early as 1964. Their currency as a group then pretty much mirrored the span of the soul’s “golden decade” (
roughly 1964-1974). Their discography shows a few singles released later in the 70s but I
believe those were all recorded no later than 1974.
There is no
definitive statement that I can find about where this track was
recorded. The group certainly recorded a number of their later tracks
at the Malaco studio in Jackson, MS, and although Super Dome was a
New Orleans label Malaco it is possibly where this one was laid down.
A pretty
detailed account of their career can be found at the The Home Of The Groove. This was one of the soul/R&B/funk music related sites I used to
visit a lot. Dan Phillips hasn't maintained the site for some years and I can’t believe The Barons article was written nearly
twenty years ago now. It was important I think that such research and
on line documentation of the music of the 60s was done back then, as
now so many of the artists and people involved will no longer be with
us and their history may otherwise have died with them.
The A side
of this record – Some Kind Of Fool - is a great number with
a funky feel, but it’s the other side that really does it for me (I
do like my B sides). I’m So Lonely is sweet and deep, and a
gem. I notice a rogue apostrophe crept into the title on the label,
unless it is deliberate and is trying to convey the message of being
“soooo” lonely?
I was alerted to this 45 during my deep
dive last year into the history of Quinvy recording studio. This 45
was recorded there in the last days of the studio, probably in 1972.
It is a fine slice of southern soul.
Jimmy
Jules, whose real name was Charley C. Julien, was born in New
Orleans. He had a total of six 45s released spanning a long period
(1961-1977). Before that he was a member of bands going back into the
50s too I think. Under different group guises he also released three
albums between 1977 and 1980. As well as singing I believe he also
played saxophone, trumpet, and keyboards. He also wrote a number of
songs that were recorded by other artists including a couple by a
young Johnnie Taylor, and apparently backed artists such as Marvin
Gaye and Otis Redding in the 60s. In the late 60s he also started his
own label – Jim Gem. The first single on that label was written by
Charley but the credited singer is a Charley Wynn. Sir Shambling
doesn’t believe this singer could be Charley Julien, but I think it
is a possibility. Although the Jim Gem label has a Colorado address
the Charley Wynn 45 had a “Cosimo Code” which means it was likely
recorded in New Orleans.
Just about
as much information as I can find on Jimmy/Charley’s recording
career can be found buried in part 11 of an exhaustive history ofNorala/Quinvy studios. This history was written some years ago. After
some dedicated googling I have found that Charley passed away in
September 2021. His obituary says that Charley was father to no less
than thirteen children, some of which may well have been adopted.
All
together it seems Charley led a very full life.
Behind Door 8 I shared some gospel soul.
Here is some more. It is more overtly gospel, and the soul is definitely
present in Alicia Myers voice; in the final analysis though it can be
labelled a disco or, to be more precise, boogie banger.
I picked up
a 12” of this a few years ago, but it was not in the best condition
(one of, thankfully, only a handful of disappointing ebay experiences
I’ve had). I was punching the air when I found this 45 in a local
charity shop a few weeks ago. It was a branch of a local chain of charity shops and this particular branch mostly sells furniture, but it has quite a bit of vinyl
too and I’m guessing it’s the branch they send the vinyl to when
it hasn’t sold in their other shops. The final resting place, next
stop the tip. Records are 20p each.
Alicia
Myers was originally a member of One Way, a disco group who made some
fine records in the late 70s and early 80s. She went solo in 1980.
This track was written by Kevin McCord who was also a member of One Way so it was still something of a family affair. Originally released in 1982 in the US it was her biggest hit,
although I wasn’t aware of it back then. It was reissued as a B side in
1984 in the US and the UK.
Most of the records in this year’s
Advent-ure were doorstep finds, so to speak. This one, though, I
found (along with a few other little ones with the big hole) in a
record shop in Ludlow, of all places.
Syl Johnson
could have been Al Green, that is to say the hit machine for Hi in
the first half of the 70s. He had been invited down to Willie
Mitchell’s Royal Studio before Willie signed Al, and he recorded
some tracks with the Hi rhythm section, including the hit single
Dresses Too Short. But Syl returned to Chicago – for the
time being – and then Willie discovered Al Green. By the time Syl
did join the Hi stable in 1971, after the Chicago Twinight label
folded, the Al Green horse had already bolted into the charts. (Syl’s
decision at the time wasn’t all bad because before he finally
joined Hi he recorded and released the album Is It Because I’m
Black – a stone cold classic in anybody’s book). At Hi Syl
was forever in the shadow of Al Green (in fact all the singers –
including Ann Peebles – were in that shadow, with the lion’s
share of promotional push constantly going Al Green’s way).
Syl Johnson
recorded four albums for Hi. The first three, issued between 1973 and
1975 are quality affairs and I’ve always had a real soft spot for
them. In 1976 Syl had had enough of being in the shadows at Hi and
effectively went on strike. This lasted until late in 1977 when this
45, and one other was issued. With That Wiggle Syl revisited
two of his tracks that had been cut about a decade before –
Different Strokes and Soul Strokes. The Disco boom was
into it’s stride by then though and these 45s, not being in that
bag, sunk without trace. Syl would leave Hi a couple of years later,
his contract not renewed.
The Metros were another short lived
group, lasting little more than a year. They racked up three
single releases in that time (a few tracks that were evidently left
in the can – for decades - have subsequently appeared on a couple
of 45s), and one album. That they managed an album release must have been due to the fact that, unusually for a new group coming out of seemingly nowhere, they had been signed to a major label – RCA. Their second
45 Since I Found My Baby, actually a B side, was massive on
the Northern Soul scene having the perfect our to the floor beat, and
you wouldn’t get much change out of £300 for a tip top copy. If you want that track on original 1967 vinyl then you can pick up a copy of the album, because it is included, at a more reasonable price.
This was
their debut 45, released in the fall of 1966. It sounds earlier to
me, with a distinct doo-wop style backing, and an early 60s feel to
the guitar. Great record, another B side, and very affordable compared to their NS monster.
Here is another singer where the usual
Googling yields very little information. This 45 appears to be the
only record Russ Lewis released as an artist. He hailed from St.
Louis according to the usual go to sites. The short lived Sharp label
was based in Chicago and was started by Bill “Bunky” Sheppard a
mover and shaker on the Chicago doo-wop and soul scene in the 60s. So
it is reasonable to assume this track was recorded in Chicago. Into
the 70s it would appear Russ concentrated on writing and production
as his name is credited on a number of obscure small label releases
including the Gold Future label which was based in Sunset Hills, St.
Louis County, MO and was, in fact, his own label. T Washington also
appears as an arranger on more than one of these 45s and I believe
this is Tom “Tom Tom 84” Washington, a respected arranger who also
started out in Chicago and was a main arranger for Brunswick Records
in the 60s. It’s possible they met up when Gene Chandler recorded
Groovy Situation, a song that Russ wrote and Tom Tom arranged.
Russ was also listed as president of a music publishing company
called Best Bet Music, addressed in Kirkwood, MO and active in the
70s at least. According to Discogs he was dabbling in the music
business whilst at the same time holding down a day job as a mail
carrier in Kirkwood.
The accepted A side
of this 45, Brand New Recipe, is a good up beat number with some cool
organ fills, but again, it’s the moody, bluesy B side that I’m
sold on. It features some nice horns too.
A full on day today so no real time to
craft many words around today’s post.
The
Charmels had a brief run of four singles on Volt between 1966 and
1968, under the wing of Isaac Hayes. Some of the group had previously
been members of The Dixiebelles, and then The Tonettes who had two of
the earliest releases on Volt sandwiching Volt 102 which just
happened to be Booker T & The MGs Green Onions. (I’ll
take this opportunity to say RIP Steve Cropper).
Bought the tree today (you know – that
one), the deccys were going up in our local watering hole near the
farm shop where the transaction took place, and the Christmas tunes
were being played (you know the ones). It’s far enough into
December now to be able to embrace the season and all its trappings.
So I’m
feeling good and today’s song makes me feel even better.
I always
remember The McCrarys for their 1982 song Love On A Summer Night,
which I think Robbie Vincent was partial to playing on his radio
show. That was a feel good record, and so is this one. Listening to
it you can’t help but feel uplifted. The lyrics can be taken equally as a gospel song or a secular one - take your pick. The group were rooted in gospel and it’s no real surprise to discover they founded The
McCrary Foundation in 2014, a non-profit organisation aimed at helping
those in need through the healing powers of music.
I’m feeling mellow today or, maybe more
accurately, jaded after a rather boozy night with Mrs Darce’s
family. The recycling boxes are full and we sent our daughter home
with more empties. A sign of an enjoyable – and long – evening.
Consequently this post will be brief.
Let’s
return to the sixties for a beautiful slice of soul from Fred Hughes
hiding on the B side of his third 45, released in the summer of 1965.
It was also the B side of his subsequent release.
Fred’s
recording career followed the same pattern as so many soul singers
who started out in the sixties: a string of singles (eleven in all in
Fred’s case) released on a number of different labels (and also one
album release which was a collection of his later singles with a few
covers thrown in to get the running time up). His final single was
released in early 1971 following which no more was heard from him,
and nothing about his later life seems to be documented.
A micro pub close to me has a "bring your
own" vinyl night every now and then. I have been a regular attendee
this last year. The DJ seems quite taken by the little selection box
of singles I take along, especially the 60s soul, and has been known
to take a picture for future reference of a few of the ones he is
unfamiliar with. As any good DJ should. he takes some of his own to
play too in case there are insufficient BYOs, which is usually the
case. We have very similar tastes although he is 10 – 15 younger
than me so if he plays anything from the 90s or more recent I usually
don’t know it so if I like it I, in turn, take a picture of it for
my future reference. So it was a couple of months ago when he played
a Cathy Dennis single. She was new to me but I was quite taken. I
wasn’t paying much attention to music in the late 80s and 90s. I
didn’t much care for what was being pumped out on the radio and
none of it really encouraged me to dig deeper. Family duties were
very much uppermost in my mind back then.
Anyway, the
Cathy Dennis single left enough of an impression on me that over the
next few weeks I immersed myself in her back catalogue. Her output is
generally very much of its time, mostly upbeat dance pop confections
aimed at the clubs (and maybe MTV?) which I have seen described as “synth pop”
and “euro house”. It’s not music I would normally seek out, and
no doubt there were any number of artists and producers pumping out
similar tunes at the time, but for some reason I can’t begin to
understand or explain I find her music quite uplifting. I like her
voice and, watching some of her videos on You Tube, I like her style - ahem, I may be a little bit smitten! In short order I have acquired four of her singles, they're cheap as chips.
Cathy’s
chart star shone particularly brightly between 1989 and 1994. The
single Touch Me (All Night Long) was her biggest hit peaking at #5 in the UK
charts in 1991. It is in fact a remake of Tuch Me, which was
written by Patrick Adams and Greg Carmichael (names of note on the
Disco scene in the 70s and early 80s) and released by Fonda Rae in
1984. I prefer Cathy’s version.
Cathy has gone on to be a very successful, and prolific, songwriter: Britney Spears' Toxic, and Kylie Minogue's Can't Get You Out Of My Head being just two notable examples. (Who knew? Not me, every day's a school day!)
Timeshift
backwards a couple of years from 1967 and today’s somewhat “under
the radar” soul singer’s recording career could be said to have
mirrored exactly that of Bill Brandon who featured in yesterday’s
post. Putting aside a group appearance on a 1959 doo-wop 45 Chuck
Bernard put out singles on a few different labels for about eleven
years between 1965 and 1975. Despite making some excellent records
only one of them could be said to have been a hit - this one, Funny
Changes. The R&B
Beat column in the New Year’s
Day 1966 edition of the US music paper Record World said
it had gone Top 10 in the Chicago radio station WVON’s chart (45cat
had it’s release date as Feb 1966 but based on this comment I
plumped for a revision to Dec 1965). Chuck hailed from St. Louis but
much, if not all, of
his recording career was spent in Chicago. It was, of course, one of
the key cities for soul music in the 60s and 70s.
It’s
only in the last year or two I have become aware of Chuck Bernard.
This is the third
45 of his I now have and there are a few more on my wants list now; I
really like his voice. Once
again I think Sir Shambling is the only font of knowledge on Chuck. I
have searched in vain for more information on his life. Who
knows? Maybe, like Bill Brandon, Chuck Bernard went on to become a
truck driver after he stopped recording. There
are at least a couple of Chuck
Bernard’s of about the right age listed as currently, or recently,
residing in the Chicago area so one of those might be him.
This
single would make it into the
national R&B charts in early 1966
and it’s easy to see why. It
would have sounded great coming out of a radio speaker, and must have
been a dancer’s delight too. It also has an excellent, slower, B
side.
Some
of last year’s Advent-ure was spent hanging around in Muscle
Shoals, and I featured a 45 (Don Varner) on Quin Ivy’s South Camp
label then. We’re back at the South Camp today.
This was Bill Brandon’s first
appearance on wax. You may know the song Self Preservation as
Percy Sledge recorded it during his career, but
it was originally recorded by Bill in 1967 at Quin Ivy’s studio in Sheffield, Alabama.
Bill
Brandon did not hit the big time like Percy Sledge but had a number
of singles and one album released during a recording career that
lasted eleven years. most, if not all, of his recordings were laid down in Alabama, the State of his birth. It is reported that he did not leave the music
business until around 1987, presumably he was still making singing
appearances until then. Subsequently he took up truck driving.
He had a great voice and has
always been well respected on the soul scene, although not a lot has
been written about him. I wasn’t clear whether he was still alive,
and the trouble is that the sort of sites – e.g. Sir Shambling,
Discogs – that you can rely on for some information on lesser known
artists are not always kept up to date. Anyway, after some searching
I found that, unfortunately, Bill Brandon is no longer with us
having passed in 2015 at an altogether too young 72. You can find his
obituary here.
Checking
45cat for Zeke Strong and Carl Underwood I counted no less than six distinct releases of this song - Every Woman Has The Right... . The earliest dates to 1961. The most recent is possibly this one,
which, purely by the Kujinga label design and colour, I’m guessing was released maybe in the late 60s or early 70s. (It was certainly released later than 1965 because Operation Bootstrap which is credited on the label was not started until very late in 1965. You can read more about Operation Bootstrap here. Many businesses were started under the Operation Bootstrap umbrella and it is noted that at least one fashion business had a Swahili name. The label name here - Kujinga - is very close in spelling to the Swahili word kujenga, which means to build (the game name Jenga is derived from this word). Kujinga itself is a word in Kimbundu, a Bantu language spoken in Angola, which means to turn or spin. Either meaning - build or spin - could make sense as the label name).
Zeke recorded this song (presumably with him providing the male vocal) with female vocals
provided by, in turn, Geneva, Wanda Richardson, Dealia Copeland,
Juanita Strong, and Patricia Brew. And there was also this release
where Carl Underwood is credited on vocals alongside Dealia Copeland.
The versions (all slightly different I believe) were released on a
bunch of different labels all started by Zeke himself – Swingin’,
Prowlin’, Safe!, Progress, Merging, and Kujinga.
All I can say is Zeke Strong really
liked this song!
Here's a cool cat. He can do The Jerk and The Twine. Join in with Jack-A-Rue.
I knew of Jackey Beavers , but had
never researched him before. In fact when I first came across his
name I thought he was a female artist, and continued to think that
for some years until I finally listened to some of his records. He was
born in Cartersville, Georgia as Robert Lewis Beavers. His recording
career started in 1959 as part of the duo Johnny & Jackey –
Johnny being Johnny Bristol. With Bristol and Harvey Fuqua he
co-wrote Diana Ross & The Supremes hit Someday We’ll Be
Together.
Jack-A-Rue
was his first solo record, released in 1965. He went on to have a
considerable number of singles released over the next ten years. Two
of these are particular favourites on the Northern Soul scene,
including his last secular release Trying To Get Back To
You,which
came out on the Dade label.
It was, in fact, Dade’s final release, in
1975. Dade was
a Miami
label. It is purely by coincidence that
I have discovered this is not where the parallels with yesterday’s
artist end. Jackey spent some
years at John Richbourg’s Sound Stage 7 label as both a producer
and recording artist, and he wrote at least one song for Ella
Washington (It Must Be Love).Like Ella he left a soul
music career behind in the 70s and turned to the church, and was
ordained as a Minister.
I
find many artists from the golden age of soul went on to lead
interesting lives outside of the music industry. In Jackey’s case
in later life (Wikipedia tells me) he was Executive Assistant to the
Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Corrections for
three years; and an aide to Tom Murphy, Speaker of the
Georgia House of Representatives, for seven years. Jackey is no longer with us, having passed in 2008 aged 71. He is buried in Cartersville, the town he was born in.
I urge you to pay particular attention
to the backing singers on this one (unfortunately I have no idea who
they are). They are having a great time and I think they really make
this track.
So
here we are at the start of another Feel It Advent-ure.
Where has that year gone? Well, I
know where some of it has gone – in the endless search of the new
(to me) vinyl fix. All the records I’m going to feature in this
year’s unfolding Advent-ure were acquired this year; mostly
doorstep finds (so to speak), but charity shops, car boots, and
record fairs were also visited - of course! As is the norm, most of
what you will hear will be soul, but I will probably deviate away
from that genre and throw in the occasional curve ball now and then.
I decided to acquire a few long
time wants this year, which has involved paying a bit more than I
normally do for dusty old singles. In a few cases, including the
record featured today, they were not dusty at all but shiny and
beautifully preserved, and probably only played once before, if at
all. It always amazes me how you can still find records approaching
60 years old that are still, effectively, brand new. I I bought this
one from John Manship, for many years a renowned record dealer,
Northern Soul aficionado, and DJ. John has over 100,000 records
listed for sale on Discogs (and has apparently recently acquired
another avalanche of records – about another 100,000 I believe).
His prices for rare soul are
typically eye watering – if you sort discogs inventory of a record
by price if JM has a copy you will almost always find it at the
bottom of the list i.e. the most expensive. Mitigating that somewhat
is the fact that if the record is described as “Mint-” it is
usually exactly that, a pristine copy that has quite possibly only
never seen the light of day once i.e. when it was first imported into
the UK by John himself from some dead stock warehouse or other in the
USA decades ago, or twice i.e. it travelled from dead stock into a
collection and then from there into JM’s warehouse. Anyway, JM has
had two “half price” sales this year, which has enabled me to
pick up a few records from him at acceptable prices (even at 50% off
only just acceptable to me though, in most cases). Today’s record
is one of those purchases.
Behind
Door 1 of this year’s adventure is a gloriously dramatic slab of
soul from Ella Washington. This is a Florida record. Ella was born in
Miami, Clarence Reid (credited “Reed”) penned the song, Little
Beaver arranged it, and it was initially released on the newly
created local label Octavia, started by Fort Lauderdale DJ Larry
Hargrove and named after, and with a little help from, his mother
Octavia Roberts; both hailed form Tallahassee. (There was longevity
in the family, I have read both of their obituaries and they were
both in their nineties when they passed – Larry in 2022 and Octavia
in 2000). I am guessing the record was cut at Criteria studios in
Miami, it is certainly not a lo-fi recording.
An instrumental with the same (very
similar) title appeared on the B side of Ella’s debut 45 –
Nightmare. It was then released – with words – in late 1966 as
the B side of her second single on Octavia. It made plenty of noise
locally and Larry, thinking he had a potential big hit on his hands,
settled on Atlantic, on the advice of Stax’s Jim Stewart, for a
national release (with a very small rewording of the title). Atlantic
didn’t get behind it though and it the single went nowhere. This
was the last release Ella was to have on Octavia. She clearly had a
quality voice and Jerry Wexler alerted WLAC DJ John Richbourg to her
talents. He took her onboard, recorded her in Muscle Shoals and
Nashville, and she would have a string of top quality singles, and
one album, released between late ‘67 and early ‘72 on JR’s
Sound Stage 7 label. Only one was a sizeable hit though – He
Called Me Baby.
Ella left the music industry in 1973,
becoming a “born again” Christian and, eventually, a pastor. She
has released a few gospel records since her Sound Stage 7 days. As
far as I know she still resides in the Miami area.
I
am assuming that the majority of people who read this blog are over
the age of about 55. That being the case my question to you is what
were you doing 50 years ago yesterday?
If you were a diary writer and you
have kept your diaries, as diary writers are wont to do I suspect,
then you could dig out your 1975 documentation and answer the
question pretty accurately. I was never a good diary writer but I can
say with almost complete certainty one of the things I did on the 7th
November 1975, and I did it again yesterday!
In 1975 I was still at school, the 7th
November 1975, like yesterday, was a Friday, so, unless I was ill, I
can conjure up how the day would have panned out. Breakfast, quite
possibly Shredded Wheat (I have always been a fan, and that was
breakfast yesterday). Grab the bike out of the garage and cycle/walk
to school, meeting up with a couple of friends along the way. I don’t
know which lessons I had that day but they would have included some,
though probably not all, of: Pure Maths, Statistics, Economics, and
Geography, those being the ‘A’ levels I took, and I was in the
Upper Sixth that year. Lunchtime (at least!) would have almost
undoubtedly been spent in the Sixth Form common room (unless it
happened to be the day the floor in the terrapin structure
collapsed!) and involved playing darts, cards, and records. Great
times. I would have had sandwiches for lunch, probably cheese and
pickle, made by mum (yesterday I had sausage sandwiches for lunch
made by my wife). Sometime in the afternoon I would have ambled back
home with my friends (we tended to chat a lot so pushed our bikes a
fair amount when we were together). In the evening mum would quite
possibly have served up fishfingers, chips, and peas as fish on
Friday was very much still a thing (yesterday I had mushroom
wellington, made by my wife, leftover from a little dinner party she
had with some friends the night before). After that I probably
strolled up to the Green Dragon to meet friends and drink Courage
Best. (Although, thinking about it, I may have been shelf stacking
and dealing with the “offy” empties at the Co-op in the early
evening). There is a certain amount of conjecture in all of this of
course, but if I had kept a diary I’m betting its narrative for the
day wouldn’t have been far off this.
I can say with some
certainty though there is one thing I did
on 7th November 1975, and that is read the
Black Wax List #66. You can see in the picture I wrote the date in
the top right corner. Exactly when I read it on that day I’m not
sure, that would depend on whether or not the postie delivered it
before I went to school. But I know I loved a list and I would have
given an initial read as soon as I opened it.
Black Wax was a record shop in
Streatham back in the day and sent out regular mail order lists. The
first one of theirs I received was #57. I didn’t write a date on
that one but it was probably sent out sometime in February 1975 (I
think possibly I only wrote the receipt date of the list on the ones
I ordered from). A fact I don’t think I knew at the time was that
Black Wax was run by Tony Cummings, a respected soul music
journalist who started and edited Black Music magazine in the
early seventies. From 1974 on I had a copy of Black Music
magazine delivered regularly by the local newsagent (I can’t
imagine they delivered many, if any, other copies to the area). BlackWax obviously had a prominent advert in the magazine.
I still love lists and I have kept all
the mail order lists I received back then (of course I have!), and so
it was I found myself reading Black Wax List #66 exactly 50 years
since I had first received and read it. You may be wondering what
prompted me to do this? Well it was not an initially intentional
anniversary act. The folder with all these old lists was to hand
because I had, earlier in the week, had occasion to refer to another
old list. Flicking through I noticed the date on this particular list
and thought, well, I must read it to celebrate its anniversary! (The
folder was relatively to hand because I had wiped the dust off it and
given the lists a bit of of a going over, including this one, a
couple of years ago and I intend to feature some more in subsequent
posts).
In fact I did more than read it
yesterday, I performed what amounts to a deep dive into it. An extra
deep dive. It runs to 14 pages. The first three pages cover postage
rates (11p to post a single 45), some other general information, and
two pages and a bit pages of new releases – Donna Summer Love To
Love You Baby (65p) was #1 in
their Disco Chart. The subsequent 11 pages were dedicated to their
“amazing “January Sale In November””. They were clearing
oldies to make way for new stock
(lots of which were probably going to be oldies too!).
Just over 700 singles were listed (some
feat of typing) at 30p each
or 4 for £1.
So, what did I discover?
As I said I had looked at these lists
a couple of years ago with a view to finding out, with the benefit of
hindsight, how many bargains were on them. There were many, and I
documented them. Back when these lists were issued there was, of
course, no internet, Spotify, or the like and there was a lot of
great ‘black’ music from the golden decade lying around in
warehouses undiscovered, even though Northern Soul DJs were making
inroads into that. Looking at Black Wax Lists #66 and #67 I made a
list of 29 records in the 4 for £1 section that now have a Discogs
median price of more than £50. To put that into perspective those 29
records would have set me back £7.25 in 1975, money I didn’t have
then of course, never mind that the buying process was little more
than sticking a pin on a page. In today’s money accounting for
inflation that equates to around £77. The actual total of today’s
median Discogs sold prices of these records is over £4000. In fact
it’s reasonable to assume the majority records on these lists would
have yielded some appreciation in value from the 2025 equivalent
selling price of £2.68.
My deeper dive into this list
yesterday was to see if at the time I ordered any records from it,
and also to see how many 45s that appeared on the list I now own,
mostly following my re-found obsession this century with little black
round things with a big hole.
Deciphering little marks and squiggles
I made on the list at the time I think I can identify three 45s still
in my collection (I say still, but in reality if it is soul or
funk I have never unloaded anything). Maybe I ordered more, but these
were the only ones still in stock. The three are Betty Davis Git
In There, Funk Inc. Dirty Red, and Ruth Brown Try Me
And See. Betty Davis I knew of at the time, the others were very
probably blind buys, so pot luck.
Now to the records on this list that I
have subsequently bought over the years (mostly, no doubt, for more
than the equivalent of 25p in 1975). I counted 70. So I now own about
10% of the records that appeared on this list. I think that’s quite
a lot!
Some examples:
The most expensive/desirable record
today that was on List #66 is Vivian Copeland Chaos In My Heart.
This one has a current Discogs median sold price of £600. It has
sold twice on Discogs this year, neither copy being in tip
top condition. Of course back in 1975 the listed copy (or copies) would have almost certainly been mint dead stock.
One I wish I owned, and maybe I’ll
splash the cash one day is Brothers Of Soul Candy / Dream.
Current Discogs median sold price of around £270. It was on
multiple lists in the cheap section back in 1975. Obviously dead
warehouse stock, probably mostly brought into the UK by John Anderson
of Soul Bowl fame. All of those have disappeared into collections
now. My pot luck back in 1975 didn’t extend to one of them
unfortunately.
Betty Davis Git In There. One I
bought from the list. Current Discogs median sold price £22. It has sold a few
times this year. A great slab of nasty funk from Miles’ ex.
Gene Chandler There Goes The Lover.
One of the 70 I have
subsequently bought, probably about eight years ago. Current Discogs
median sold price £12. A perennial favourite on the soul scene. A
gorgeous slice of Windy City soul.
So
this blog has been sort of active again this year, now and then,
after a fashion. Sporadically, shall we say. I’m still digging
through my boxes and still buying records, which in turn are throwing
up plenty of tracks which are worth sharing. Quite often, mostly in
the middle of the night or in the morning before I get up, I can
formulate a post in my head. I think to myself – yes that sounds
good – although sometimes, like a slippery eel, the words
subsequently escape me (rather like the memory of dreams do).
Usually, though, it is simply that somehow the actual physical act of
writing a few words and formulating a post is a step too far.
I’ve been asking myself why this feeling of mañana
surrounding this blog pervades nowadays.
I’m not sure I have an answer. I guess I started to miss a beat
here about six years ago, which coincided with me retiring from work.
In theory then I now have more time on my hands now so that shouldn’t
be the issue. But maybe it is. I think the act of publishing this
blog was a way of switching off from work, marry that to the fact I
have always worked better to a deadline (working meant less free time
which effectively limited the time I could dedicate to the blogging
lark). Now I’m retired there are holidays, days out, afternoon
visits to the pub, gardening, chasing butterflies around a field,
fishing, DIY (lots of that when our daughter bought a flat a few
years ago, and possibly more on the horizon soon as our son has
bought a small house); and this year a rekindled and growing
obsession with catching and recording moths (the collector instinct
again, I let them go of course). In between all that I could easily
choose to dedicate some time to writing a blog post but, crucially
perhaps, I can’t invent deadlines because all the time now is my
own and all those activities are enjoyable so I find there is nothing
to switch off from and writing this blog, certainly when I was
working, was I think a sort of escape mechanism.
The other thing I have noticed in retirement, and as I get older,
is my increasing desire to be outdoors, amongst nature. If the
weather’s good, which it certainly has been this year, that could
mean I’m simply lounging in the garden reading or listening to
music. (It’s a hard life! Whilst I’m sitting there sunning myself
I could write a blog, I hear you say? But actually for me that would
be impossible. I need to type on a laptop, or at a pinch on a tablet,
and reading the screen on such devices - at least the ones I own - is
impossible).
Perhaps all my musings on the subject is just a lot of hot air
though and it is simply that retirement is just one endless
mañana
moment! (Apologies, and sympathy, to all those that are slaving at
the coal face).
--------------
I have just read that Leslie Wilson passed away a few days ago. He
was a lead member, and singer, with The New Birth in the seventies. I
had a real soft spot for them back in the day. Their single It’s
Been A Long Time was one of the first few soul singles I owned, and I
have a couple of their albums. I saw someone describe them as Rotary
Connection meets Earth Wind & Fire which sums up their sound
pretty well I think. Their output has been plundered many times by
the hip-hop world and the samplers.
It’s Been A Long Time has
featured here before – back in 2008! – and I notice then I was
bleating on about not having posted for a while so
perhaps it has been forever
thus here! The
“while” was measured as only a couple of weeks back then though.
The state of this little backwater of the Internet can be
summed up by this record.
I
bagged it at a car boot earlier this year and was very happy to do
so. It is a great double sider and is in remarkably good condition
considering it was sleeveless, and, more to the point, is a year
older than me (actually, a few people say I am in remarkably good
condition for my age. but I couldn’t possibly comment!). The
circumstances of its discovery were satisfying too. I don’t
frequent boot sales nearly as much as I used to, but it became
obvious that the seller was something of a recent fixture as I became
surrounded by a few scavengers that were obviously regulars. I was
riffling through a couple of boxes of reggae singles, promising in
itself but they were mostly trashed. A couple of people at least had
already been through the box and a few singles had been pulled out
already. I also pulled out a couple of reggae things, and this one. I
knew it wasn’t reggae and in the back of my mind I had heard of the
artists and guessed (right) that it was early R&B. The asking
price for the reggae singles were typically £4 and north – because
it was reggae, no doubt, you don’t come across it often in the
wild, and the seller was clearly a fan – but I bagged this single
for a couple of quid, maybe because he knew it wasn’t reggae. I got
it home, cleaned it up, put it on the turntable, dropped the arm...
and punched the air in delight. I then proceeded to play it at least
three times in a row. And it was miles better than the two ‘blind’
reggae singles I bought.
There was a time at this here “publication” when you would
have been aware of this fact within days, if not hours, of the event.
But here’s the thing – this all happened months ago.
I did, however, publicise this event fairly quickly on a, now
largely tumbleweed, record forum I still frequent; and I also put the
single in a box of random 45s that was taken, at the next
opportunity, to a local hostelry that puts on a monthly(ish) BYO
vinyl session, and got it played. But I didn’t post it here until
now, which is something of a puzzle. For that, I apologise. I know, I
must try harder. *
I intend to explore further (i.e. bore you) in a subsequent post
why it is I am not posting here more frequently nowadays – because
I certainly have no shortage of records to share – but, for now, I
will leave you with both sides of this rather excellent 45.
Gene Forrest and Eunice Russ Levy hailed from Texas and between
1954 (before the dawn of the Rock ‘n’ Roll era) and 1960 enjoyed
a string of charting single successes, and were very popular in the
US and the Caribbean. Popular in the UK too, enough for them to have
eight UK releases, of which this was the first in November 1956. The
copy of the single I found has long since lost its original
tri-centre (possibly removed by someone who wanted to put it in their
jukebox, but more likely by a DJ who was trying to intimate it was a
US release), nevertheless the grooves still maintain their magic.
Earlier this year I paid belated respects to someone I didn’t know
but felt like I did.
Today I need to do
the same.
On this day in 2022
Robert Keller died suddenly at the age of 67. It’s no age to die
really. To me and thousands of soul music lovers like me Robert
Keller was better known as Red Kelly. His “The B Side” blog was
one of the many focussed on classic soul music I avidly followed back in the Noughties, in the heyday of the format. Red went on to
launch other blogs and websites dedicated to soul music, particularly
Southern soul, and helped to bring some long forgotten and
underappreciated singers and musicians out of the shadows and in some
cases effectively bring them back to the stage. His research and
dedication to the cause was prodigious and is sorely missed. A friend
of his – John Broven – wrote an obituary for him which described his work in more detail, you can read it here (you will need to scroll
down a bit). Most, if not all, of his blogs and writings are still
available on the internet, as seems to be the case generally with
such things in the digital world nowadays.
Red had emailed me
just a few weeks before his death (we had conversed a bit over the
years via email but by no means regularly). Back in 2008 he had taken
up my cause to try and find out more information on Joni Wilson, who
recorded just one very obscure single on the Volt label. He emailed
me to say that at the Stax Museum’s wall of singles (an attempt to
display a copy of every Stax And Volt single released) there were
only eight missing, and Joni Wilson’s was one of them. As I was the
only person he knew that owned a copy he wondered if I might consider
donating my copy. As of last year, when I visited the Stax Museum, I
can confirm there is still a space where the Joni Wilson 45 could
sit. I am not ready to part with my copy yet, but it is something I
might do one day, and it would be partly in memory of Red. Recently I
have hatched another theory as to who Joni Wilson might have been and
it would have been great to have passed it by Red. I’m sure he
would have been interested, and with the contacts he had built up
doing his research projects he may have been able to run with it.
RIP Robert Keller
“Red Kelly” who passed away on July 14th 2022, age
only 67.
We all know where Steve Davis is this week – well, snooker fans do,
at least). The World Snooker Championship is in play in Sheffield and
that’s where Steve will be, commentating and providing analysis. I
know where Steve was on the first Saturday of this month - at my
local record fair, and I went to it quietly confident he would be
because he seems to be making a concerted effort to trim down his
record collection and is frequenting the fairs quite a bit lately.
That chimes well with me because he is continuing to offload a lot of
soul 45s (the background to this I expanded upon a bit in my February post).
So I went a bit mad
again and bought another 32 singles! Most of them came from the cheap
(£2.50) boxes, but I indulged in a few higher priced gems too. I
tell myself I am not likely to find this many of my go to type of
record – i.e. 60s/70s soul with a big hole in the middle – in one
place in the wild(ish) anywhere else in the UK so I better take the
opportunity and “fill me boots”!
I did apply some
quality control this time as the stack I originally pulled was
probably twice as high as the one you see in the picture, but I
religiously gave each one I didn’t know a needle drop on my
Soundburger look-alike. This contraption got a few appreciative
comments this time, strangely the first time I can remember that
happening when I have been using it at a fair.
So, to use a snooker
analogy, a think I amassed a nice break – plenty of reds (the cheap
ones) but a few colours too (the relatively expensive ones).
A red:
Recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound in 1978, the studio is know known as Cypress Moon and where, almost exactly a year ago, Mrs Darce and I were taking a stroll along the river .
Muscle Shoals was very much moving with the 1970s times with this one which has a distinctively funky feel.
Mostly vinyl, mostly a private pleasure - until now.
Music posted here I have bought and gained much pleasure from listening to down the years (or months, or days!). So in the spirit of an 'all back to mine' it's time to share it.
DISCLAIMER: If you hear something you like I urge you to seek it out and purchase it in your format of choice. Mp3s found here are posted for a limited time and are for illustrative and previewing purposes only. If you are the creator or copyright holder of any material posted and object to it's appearance on this blog then please email me at darcyfeelit (at) gmail.com and it will be removed forthwith.
