Cutting through the years

I’m getting huge enjoyment out of my little haul of scruffy but playable 45s from the booter last weekend. Here’s another from the pile, and I plan to share more in the coming days. It’s a good job I found these because I’m finding it’s generally a vinyl desert out there in the wild currently. I’m empty handed today after my usual Friday pm trawl of the chazzas – again.

Here are two great sides of early Sixties Detroit from Lee Rogers. This record climbed to 17 in the Billboard R&B charts in early 1965 and was Lee’s only real hit.

To think, this 45 is just about 50 years old! It started life in a pressing plant somewhere in the US. Was it bought from a little corner record shop – possibly in a then vibrant Detroit – way back then, it’s sale contributing to the #17 chart position? Or did it languish unsold, and unloved for years in a warehouse somewhere?  Certainly, JA, whoever he or she may be, acquired it at some point and coveted it so much they marked their initials on it.  When, I wonder, did it make its way across the pond to the UK? And how long had it been hiding in the dealer’s box I pulled it out of in a field just outside Bath? Things like this always go through my mind when I find an old 45, especially an old Soul 45. 

Whatever its history it has obviously been around the block a bit, and graced a few turntables I would think. Nevertheless the recording is a loud one and the sound of early Detroit still cuts through the general wear and tear, and the years. 

Lee Rogers – I Want You To Have Everything  1964

Lee Rogers – Our Love Is More  1964 

Skank Holiday

It seems my local pubs are featuring more and more ska and soul music on their music nights. I wonder is this a trend across the country? Next month a local rugby club is putting on a weekend ska festival and this weekend one of my locals had a ska weekend. Friday night featured  Ska Train, a mobile disco that seems to be going from strength to strength. They play roughly 50/50 vinyl and CD, mostly the more well known sounds. They are booked solid for the rest of the year apparently. (I had attended their gig at my local of locals the previous week). On Saturday it was live ska from local band The Great Eskape. This one I did attend, and very good they were. Last night I was there again for a vinyl fest from My Friend Jack (who is, in fact, Sean).  More ska, and plenty of top notch soul too.  Today we (Mrs Darce arrived back from her travels in the early hours) did our normal Bank Holiday thing, i.e. not a lot. A lie in and then some general pottering in the garden. The soundtrack to this general pottering (at least some of it) was..more ska! Lauren on BBC 6Music played about 30 minutes of back to back ska and reggae which she dubbed (ha!) her Skank Holiday mix. It has certainly been a Skank holiday for me.   

       

I have been rapidly approaching a crisis of confidence on the boot fair front. After a reasonable start to the season the last few weeks have been barren – I do get to them early nowadays too, but quite probably still not early enough. Or are rekkids drying up? Sunday's trawl restored some confidence, but only some. I bagged this little selection from a dealer who occasionally puts in an appearance at a boot fair. Boxes and boxes of singles at 50p with always a fair chance of picking up something worthwhile, accepting the fact that they may have some condition issues. But hey, they’re only 50p after all. Now if the private sellers could just oblige by bringing some records along too everything will be OK again.

In this little haul there are actually four reggae singles. Here’s one of them.

Derrick Morgan – Blood Shot Eyes  1975   

DD

The kitchen decorating goes on. The cabinets need to coats of paint. It feel a bit like painting the Forth road bridge. On top of that Mrs Darce is currently on her annual jaunt to Turkey with her bestest friend to see her friend’s mother. This means I have to do other things like cook,  food shop, wash and iron clothes. At this time I realise just how much time these basic tasks take up, and how much I appreciate Mrs Darce.

So, little or no time for blogging.

Here’s a quicky. The Canyon label’s last ever release - #54 – in 1970. I have just bought this and when I put it on the deck earlier today I would bet it was the first time it had ever been played. It looks absolutely mint. Appearances can be deceiving though. On close inspection there are some bubbles and general rubbish in the pressing, a common problem with US vinyl in the early 70s. So, although I am sure it is the first time it has graced a turntable, this 45 does have some play issues – the nasty thwop thwop near the end of the B side for example. Never mind.

These tracks are both from Doris Duke’s revered I’m A Loser album I believe. I was familiar with the B side, but not The Feeling Is Right. I love this. The simple piano motif and the strings make the arrangement just irresistible.  

Doris Duke – The Feeling Is Right 1970

Note: you might not want to listen to the B side straightaway, it might spoil your Friday night. Deep almost to the point of mournful.  But it is great anyway, so set aside some other time.

Doris Duke – He’s Gone 1970

The female Orange Tip

I wrote the bulk of this last weekend and had planned to post it then but didn’t quite get around to it, and now another week has flown by and it’s Friday again (how did that happen?!). So, better late than never (you will have to remember how good the weather was before Easter)…

Friday came and went without me managing to post this as my regular 45 double header. It’s been a busy week what with work, decorating the kitchen… and chasing butterflies…

When I was about 10 I developed an interest in butterflies (and moths). Together with a childhood friend we used to collect them. Initially that is, we soon felt guilty about that and from then on just spotted them and recorded our sightings. Over the years I have retained the interest to a greater or lesser extent and always keep an eye out for them when I’m out and about. (Mrs Darce sometimes refers to me as Christopher Robin as when we are out on a country walk I am inclined to suddenly go diving off down a path or into the undergrowth following some unidentified winged thing (not with net in hand though). Last year I (re)joined Butterfly Conservation – probably spurred on by a relatively good ‘butterfly year’ - and recently they sent through some sighting recording sheets. As a result I have resolved to formally record my sightings this year and started this week on my daily lunchtime walk that gets me out of the office. I picked a good week to start, the weather has been glorious and the butterflies have responded and seem to be about in good numbers already.

One of the species that is on the wing in early spring is the Orange Tip, so called because, although classed as a “White”, the male has a large orange splash on the tips of its fore-wings. At least the male does. As is often the case in the insect world the male is much more colourful than the female. The female lacks the orange splash and is fairly non-descript in appearance. As a result at any distance it can be easily mistaken for one of the other Whites - the very common Small White for example. I can’t believe, after all these years, this fact has only just fully registered with me: piqued, no doubt, by the desire to accurately record my sightings I had a Christopher Robin moment this week as I pursued a butterfly that I thought was a bit too small and fluttery to be a Small White. It finally came to rest and on close inspection it turned out to be a female Orange Tip.

This difference in appearance of the male and female Orange Tip made me think of the A and B sides of a record. You can’t have one without the other. It’s the A side that grabs all the attention and the B side is just lurking there, often completely overlooked.     

The analogy in some ways is particularly true of a 45 that has been on my turntable quite often in the last few weeks. Unusually, it features different artists on the A and B sides, one is female, the other male. In this instance though, it is the female - Claudia Whitten – who could be said to be the attention grabber as she is featured on the A side. The B side artist – Ned Towns – is the nurturer though as he is the producer of both sides. This 45’s currency on release (date unknown but probably late 60s/early 70s) would probably only have been a few weeks, which is about as long as the average butterfly can expect to spend on the wing.     

Claudia Whitten – Give Me All The LoveYou’ve Got  19??

I am once again indebted to Sir Shambling for alerting me to this record. This was Claudia Whitten’s only outing on wax as far as is known, and her inclusion at Deep Soul Heaven, and a mention and inclusion on an Oxford American magazine CD compilation back in 2009, the only references I can find to her on the internet. The B side of this 45 is even more obscure inasmuch as the link to it below is probably the first time it has appeared online. Ned Towns himself is somewhat more well known. He has been in the music business for many years and as far as I know is still active (and on You Tube). He had a release on Atlantic in the mid 60s How Can You Baby Sit A Man which is now another record on my want list. The wonderfully named Skillet Records is his own label and he continues to use it for his own occasional releases. The label of this 45 shows a Little Rock address, and Ned hails from Lost Lake. Two more names to conjure with.   

Ned Towns – I Just Can’t Let You Go  19?? 

(The Skillet label is one of those that is very difficult to take a picture of).

       

Late night double

I nearly missed a Friday there!

A quick late night double for you. It could probably benefit from a clean but I haven’t had time.  

I wasn’t familiar with Bobby Wade before I stumbled across this 45. I found a fairly comprehensive resume of his career here.

The De Luxe label has one of those designs that seems to be out of time, sort of impossible to date by looking at it. (The Ronn and Paula labels are similar in that regard I always think). De Luxe came into being around 1944 and it seems its design hardly changed throughout its existence. This 45 was actually released in 1970 I believe.   

Bobby started singing in the Fifties with a Jazz combo and that early schooling is apparent on this single, especially on his interpretation of Funny How Time Slips Away, and” firme rola” is the operative term for the A side I think….

Bobby Wade – Blind Over You 1970

Bobby Wade – Funny How Time Slips Away 1970

Lucky double dip

So, I thought could I just pick out a 45 at random that was a strong double sider?

This was first pick!

As I was saving the mp3s I realised I already had one of these sides in mp3 format. I checked and lo and behold I had already featured "Show Place" back in the 2012 Advent-ure.

And then it was a Lucky Dip too! 

My money will be going on a horse in tomorrow's Grand National that has any connection to Otis, clay, or the titles of these two great tracks.  

Otis Clay - That's How It Is  1967

Otis Clay - Show Place  1967

A vortex of uncertainty

A good trawl of the internet for more information on this recently acquired 45 has turned up a number of uncertainties.

Let’s start with the credited singer “Eddie Billups”. It seems that, in fact, the singer is Shorty Billups. So Shorty and Eddie are one and the same, and “Shorty” was a nickname? Well, no, it seems that Shorty and Eddie were brothers but Shorty chose to take his brother’s name on a number of recordings. If I have understood it correctly that’s the size of it if you take John Ridley’s liner notes for a CD of Peachtree recordings as the definitive take on the Billups question that has puzzled many a soul aficionado (and why wouldn’t you?) . Except that I find it odd that in I Won’t Be Around the singer actually refers to “himself” as Eddie.     

Shorty is still very much alive and touring. No mean feat when you consider he is now 82 years old. At least that’s what his simply put together internet site states (a birth date of 1932 in Connecticut). Elsewhere it is more commonly stated that he was born in Boston in 1941. So maybe Shorty was born in '32 and Eddie in '41? But the quoted day - Feb. 1st - is the same in both cases. So, who is singing on this 45? Uncertainty is creeping up on me again! 

The two songs on this 45 were initially released in 1967 on the small Brume record label, and around that time I understand they were picked up and nationally released on the Josie label. It is more difficult to date this particular 45 on the wonderfully name HELPP (Help Everyone Live Peacefully Profitably) label. A best estimate is 1972 based on what I have been able to find concerning a few other releases on the label.

Looking at the address on the label of this 45 it seems the HELPP label was based in New York. Although on other releases a Chattanooga address is given, and the co-writer on this track - Ed Bibbins - was Chattanooga based according to Red Kelly.

So as this 45 revolves on the turntable, in turn plenty of factual uncertainties revolve around it. There is, however, no uncertainty in the fact that the A side I Won’t Be Around is as fine a soul sound as you would want to hear, and that it has the feel of a 1967 recording. The only shame is it fades too quickly. I wonder if this was the same on the original Brume issue? 

Eddie Billups – I Won’t Be Around  1967

Before you play the B side here (page down a bit) is a health warning, Pete Nickols review of the track that was included in the CD Lost Deep Soul Treasures Vol 4. Maybe not the track to play if you are having a Friday night party. It is certainly memorable, and I find it compulsive listening even though I’m not sure I like it. There, another uncertainty!

Eddie Billups – Hard Headed Woman  1967