| Chuck Jackson - Tribute To Rhythm And Blues Vol. 1 + 2 2 Wand LP:tä Wand 673 ja Wand 676 (vuodelta 1966) samalla CD:llä. Yhteensä 22 biisiä |
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Ace Records 2005 | CD | 17.00 € |
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| Ovations - Featuring Louis Williams - Goldwax Recordings 26 biisiä |
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Ace Records 2005 | CD | 18.00 € |
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| Ray Charles - Friendship Mukana mm Johnny Cash, BJ Thomas, Hank Williams Jr, Willie Nelson jne |
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Sony Music 2005 | CD | 12.00 € |
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| Sam Cooke - Best Of Sam Cooke 15 tracks |
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Sony Bmg 2005 | CD | 10.00 € |
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| VA: - ACE 30th Birthday Celebration: Soul & Funk 20 tracks very good and cheap soul & funk compilation |
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Ace Records 2005 | CD | 9.00 € |
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| VA: - Does Anybody Know I'm Here ? Vietnam Through The Eyes Of Black America 1962-1972 |
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Ace Records 2005 | CD | 18.00 € |
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| VA: - For Connoisseurs Only: Kent- Modern Soul Collectables Vol. 2 To be fair, I'm not doing it under any duress; orders don't come down to Ace Towers from Ted's Rutland hill-fort that the peasants are demanding another Kent/Mod CD. Neither does Ace have a team of ruthlessly efficient accountants, imploring me to maximise the company's assets and whip up the productivity levels by squeezing the last remotely usable soul side out of the catalogues. The fact is I just keep finding goodies I've not come across before and get the urge to share them with like-minded soul music desperadoes. It's been at least four LPs and six CDs worth of 60s black music issued from this amazing body of work since that day in Ted's Ladbroke Grove record emporium; and still the compilations come. What can you do when there are singles like Leon Peterson's slightly hippy, but totally soulful, uptempo and hip My Bag, lying around on rarely seen chunks of vinyl. Or when you find a weird United 45 by Trini Lopez, of all people, in a record box at a soul do, play it and dig it immediately (if not sooner)? Obviously, you start up another potential CD list and check out what else is around. Well there were those multi-track tapes by the great Jimmy Robins that had a gutsy Bobby Bland-inspired That Someone Don't Know It on them, and when Arthur Wright sent over the original Four Tees master, there was a beautiful ballad by someone called Wayne Boykin on it. I seem to remember the flip of the Johnny Williams single we used on an earlier CD was so good we couldn't quite work out which side to use; let's put Don't Cha Ever Forget It on here then. Unbelievably there was a Mary Love track called Dance Children Dance that we've never used anywhere. I seem to remember it was too raucous for her solo CD, but we're doing raucous here. We've got Willie Hutch's storming I Can't Get Enough and that unissued Terry & The Tyrants' track Say It Baby, which moves like Marvin's Baby Don't You Do It. So they're too manic to dance to! What does that matter: the buyers will be playing them in the privacy of their own homes, and these are liberal times. Strewth, I've never put Jimmy Bee's stomperoonie Wanting You out since the second Kent LP, back in the day; what a klutz! And there can't be one of Jackie Day's six great sides she cut for Modern not on a CD yet; hang on where's What Kind Of Man Are You? Doh! So, slapping myself severely on the wrist and paying for several costly briefings with a Ms Whiplash from a nearby therapy centre, I put together this rather splendid, if somewhat tardy, CD. I also found a terrific Billy Watkins, Jackie Wilson-sounding, song called Love Line in the tape vaults, along with really good unissued gems from Arthur Adams and Joe Haywood. Add to that some great overlooked flips of singles we know and love, and several obscure but top notch releases that have fallen between stylistic stools in the past, and it's one heck of an album. I might even have overdone it and found enough to be halfway on to Vol 3; luckily the therapy centre says I can come back again if the guilt gets too much. By Ady Croasdell (Ace Records) |
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Ace Records 2005 | CD | 17.00 € |
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| VA: - Gaz's Rockin' Blues 28 tracks |
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Ace Records 2005 | CD | 17.00 € |
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| VA: - Get In The Groove 18 tracks |
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Norton Records 2005 | CD | 17.00 € |
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| VA: - Greetings From Philly |
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Sony Bmg Music 2005 | CD | 9.00 € |
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| VA: - GWP NYC-TCB When I visited Gerard W Purcell's New York offices above his Paparazzi restaurant around 1990, I wasn't really sure why I'd gone there. Though I rated his GWP label highly, there weren't any big Northern Soul sounds or rarities on it and though Debbie Taylor's 'Don't Let It End' is one of my all time favourite soul songs, it wasn't going to move box-loads of CDs. I knew there was some link with the fabulous 60s soul of Detroit's Pied Piper Productions, that we had already released on the "Rare Collectable & Soulful" CDs, but apart from shared publishing, it was hard to figure out the exact nature of the relationship. Gerry Purcell himself was amicable enough, though he didn't seem to know much about the nitty gritty of the recordings that I revered so much. His main interest was in a series of London-recorded pieces of orchestral music, based upon the signs of the zodiac; fascinating, but of zero musical interest to me. He spoke with affection about England and Ireland, but most of the time I was distracted, looking over his shoulders at some large, old green filing cabinets that just oozed possibilities. Despite us getting on well, Jerry had better things to do than to let a bizarre Brit rummage through his documents and I left his office thanking him kindly but not really knowing if I'd wasted my time or not. However, from little seeds some years later Ace was contacted by GWP who was looking for a European deal on his R&B recordings; this time it was arranged that I could get to see the master tapes. My curiosity and optimism was rekindled. By now the offices had been moved into Gerry's home in Bayside, NY where I renewed acquaintance with him and was introduced to his musical right-hand man and the person in charge of his soul recordings, Ed Bland. Ed and I got on well once we had swapped some music talk and it became apparent that apart from representing GWP's interests, he wanted to see the music given a new lease of life to people who cared about it. The tapes looked terrific. Lots of ¬º", ¬?" and 1" masters in great condition. Nearly all of the ones we knew about were there and there were plenty more besides. We arranged to get them copied. Now; "was there any other material or information around that would help us when we compiled the CD?" Ed took me into a dingy basement room where some reassuringly familiar dark green filing cabinets lived. "Have a look in those, there might be some things of interest." The drawers related to Millbridge and other publishing companies that GWP owned and were crammed with sheet music and reference copies of records for each of the published songs. Not only was there at least one vinyl copy (usually several) of each song published, if GWP also published the flip, there would be a separate file with copies for that too. Records like September Jones 'I'm Coming Home' / 'No More Love' would have at least two copies; in this case six. Even better there were acetates (multiple copies of some) of some of the unissued Pied Piper recordings that we had already licensed from RCA, such as Willie Kendrick's 'She'll Be Leaving You' and Lorraine Chandler's 'You Only Live Twice'. But even betterer, some of the acetates were of songs I'd never heard before. Larry Banks' manic original of 'Ooh It Hurts Me' and some storming Nancy Wilcox RCA reference dubs, impressed me immediately. The avaricious record collector in me (coupled with the musicologist's caution of course), couldn't let these Aladdin's cave musical jewels go back into dormancy for another thirty years. I pointed out to Jerry, after running it by Ed, that there were more copies of each song than were required for reference purposes. The discs would be better appreciated across the Atlantic where they would soar into DJ's collections like released Phoenixes. Luckily Jerry had pity and a big heart and told me to take what I wanted; I even had to press dollars into his hand to keep my conscience clean. Some years later a series of events (which I'll relate to you in GWP Volume 2), made it clear that I had taken the right moral path and I can still sleep easily at nights. Sadly Jerry passed away a few months after this meeting, but Ed Bland fought Ace's corner in purchasing the label from Jerry's son Eric Purcell and five years on (fifteen from the first) we are the proud owner of these great soul recordings. The original GWP label recordings were made in 1969, mostly arranged by Ed Bland and produced by the great George Kerr. Debbie Taylor, the Hesitations and the Persians were the main acts, all of whom recorded some sublime 60s soul sounds, just as that Renaissance-like decade was drawing to a close. These recordings were fully produced with New York's top R&B session musicians and with songs from George Kerr, Ray Dahrouge and Billy Terrell, the already established classy soul singers gave some great performances. The Hesitations' 'Is This The Way To Treat A Girl', Debbie Taylor's 'Let's Prove Them Wrong' and the Persians' 'I Don't Know How' are as good as it got in that period. A huge bonus has been finding unreleased tracks - like Debbie Taylor's stunning ballad 'All That I Have' and the Hesitations original version of the Moments' early 70s hit 'Gotta Find A Way'. GWP also produced for other labels and Alice Clark's 'Heaven's Will' is another excellent and very moving, deep soul ballad. Little Rose Little and Betty Barney's recordings for the label are on the grittier side of soul but it is the earlier pre-GWP label productions that a lot of Kent fans will be bowled over by. Larry Banks' prot?©g?©s the Devonnes sing a captivating version of Terri Bryant's Verve single '(You'd Better) Straighten Up And Fly Right'; the unknown Bobby Penn contributes a great original dancer called 'No Defense' and the Shaladons, who never had a record released, show the Hesitations (who cut it on an LP) how Larry Banks' 'Without Your Love' should really sound. There's a brand new and oh too rare, Jaibi recording; previously unreleased southern soul from Benny Gordon; a mid-tempo, Detroit sounding number from Lily Fields and Frankie Newsome's Chicago R&B hit 'My Lucky Day'. Ed Bland and Ray Dahrouge contributed stories and information to unravel this mysterious chapter of the Big Apple's soul story and the photos of the acts are especially fabulous; check out Debbie and Lily's glamour shots and the Persians funky headgear. The moral of the story then is: follow all leads; don't be too shy; never give up and you'll end up with a CD or two's worth of righteous soul sounds. |
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Ace Records 2005 | CD | 17.00 € |
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| VA: - Heavy Soul - Old Town & Barry's Deep Down & Dirty Sides Though this CD hails from the same stable and labels as our recent "Old Town & Barry Soul Survey" CDKEND 244, it is a very different animal, as the first track clearly shows. Thelma Jones was featured on two tracks on the uptempo CD, both slick uptown productions. Here she opens at an almost funereal pace, demonstrating her accomplished, gospel trained vocals on the excellent ballad I Won't Give Up My Man. From the sparsely instrumented opening bars, the arrangement adds apposite strings and a crisp horn section, reminiscent of Otis' version of A Change Is Gonna Come. As compiler and sleevenote writer John Ridley states "several [Old Town / Barry] releases had more than a touch of Memphis about them." Similar Southern-influenced ballads include Bobby and Betty Lou's fine duet on their self-penned Sugar and Donald Height's Tribute To Sam. Old Town already had a long and successful track record in producing and selling blues records by artists such as Bob Gaddy, Larry Dale and Roscoe Gordon, so their updating of the genre with some soul music thrown in was a natural progression. Roscoe himself attempted this with his wife Barbara on two singles and we have featured the superb It Ain't Right here. Lester.Young was very bluesy in his approach to writing, singing and playing the guitar and this is shown on four fine sides. Stop is a stunning ballad that belies its New York studios origin, while I Love My Baby is a previously unissued master tape that will please both blues and soul fans. Though Thelma Jones had the biggest number of singles releases on the labels, jazz singer Irene Reid got to make an album for Barry. Label owner Hy Weiss tried to take her career down a soul path and he succeeded in producing some great songs, but without much commercial success. Just Loving You is a lovely ballad and still retains much of Irene's jazz heritage, whereas 'Dirty Old Man' is a fully-fledged funky black American slab of dance music. There are plenty of uptempo moments on the CD; it isn't all doom and gloom. Jesse Gee's first featured number starts off as a slow blues rap but then accelerates into a nitty gritty mover called She's A Woman. He uses a similar technique on the even low, down and dirtier Don't Mess With My Money. Like most sizeable indies in the 60s, Old Town picked up masters from around the country and the Nashville-produced I'm Sorry For You, by Frank Howard & The Commanders, is a soul group ballad with some heavily-featured lead guitar work. This could conceivably have been performed by one Jimi Hendrix, a friend and colleague of the songwriter Billy Cox: the two were reputedly hanging out together in the Music City at this time. The labels were running down by the 70s, though another Old Town series was started in 1969. Bobby Long & the Dealers' Heartbreak Avenue was a highlight of this period, melding Southern soul and what could imaginatively be described as country rock. In the 70s producer and journeyman singer/songwriter Dickie Williams came up with a gospel inspired I'll Be Standing By for the label, and chanteuse Peggy Scott delivered his beautiful Making Love To My Mind. Hy Weiss was a hard-bitten record man who trusted to his instincts and was quite prepared to be unconventional if the situation called for it. There were therefore some very interesting releases on his labels, none more so than John Standberry Jr's Marie. A Greek chorus-like, wailing intro slips into a guitar lead paean to his beautiful Marie that is totally original and quite breath-taking; particularly in its final emotional crescendo. Unlike our "Old Town & Barry Soul Survey", which was a re-make of an earlier, long deleted Kent CD, this compilation comprises 24 fresh soulful nuggets awaiting your voracious appetites. By Ady Croasdell (Ace Records) |
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Ace Records 2005 | CD | 18.00 € |
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| VA: - Jack Nitzsche Story 1963-78 - Hearing Is Believing 26 biisiä mm Jack Nitzsche, Frankie Laine, Round Robin, Paris Sisters.. |
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Ace Records 2005 | CD | 17.00 € |
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| VA: - Mirwood Soul Story 24 tracks |
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Ace Records 2005 | CD | 17.00 € |
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| VA: - More Perfect Harmony - Sweet Soul Groups 1967-1975 The general popularity of 60s and early 70s ‘Group Soul’ seems to continue to be on the rise, an increasingly collectable commodity in recent years. This is due in no small part to the swell of interest among doo wop collectors in the past 10-15 years. The line between the very best doo wop cuts and the very best soul harmony sides is not a very long one. Thus it was perhaps inevitable that those collectors who either have every important group record from the 1950s and early 60s – or can’t afford to invest in the ones they don’t have – would eventually unite them with those of us who have long extended a similar level of appreciation in the other direction. Kent’s “In Perfect Harmony” series was introduced to cater to both camps, with a mixture of tried and trusted soul favourites – by some of the genre’s most outstanding groups – and previously unissued gems from group soul’s golden decade (approximately 1966-1976, in your compiler’s opinion). Its aims, as a series, are to show that these kind of records were both pan-American and multi-racial in their execution and that, as always, soul – and in this case, sweet soul - is not really about where you’re from or what colour you are. This is especially true of our all-new Volume Two. Within its hour and a bit’s playing time, we feature blue-eyed soulsters from Nashville in the Magnificent 7, the mixed race Soulville All-Stars from Pittsburgh, PA (who also played their own instruments, as well as singing as pretty as you like) and the pride of New York’s latin soul community, brother Joe Bataan. We also have the best in African American vocal groups – of both sexes - from cities as far apart as Memphis and Detroit, Los Angeles and New York, New Jersey and Chicago. All, we’re happy to say, fully dedicated to bringing you MORE PERFECT HARMONY in the sweetest and loveliest way. Aside from the obvious fact that we are joyfully privileged to bring you hitherto unreleased gems from the vaults of Stax, Twinight and Westbound Records, I’m personally delighted - as series compiler - that so many of our inclusions have never previously been reissued, in any shape or form. There’s something great going on here, almost everywhere you point the CD player’s laser, be it the sultry Island Soul of Foxy’s I Like The Way You Love Me, the endearingly low-budget lilt in Lee Williams and The Cymbals’ Northern favourite A Girl From A Country Town, the relentless beauty of the Climates sublime Memphis masterpiece No You For Me or the overwhelmingly intense Chi-town classic Someone Else’s Arms by Channel 3 – at least twenty times better than its much acclaimed Northern flip The Sweetest Thing (something on which annotator John Ridley and compiler yours truly both agree!). These are just a few of the many delights in store for you in “More Perfect Harmony” – a CD with a heartbeat that is summed up by Joe Bataan’s exquisite version of the Exits’ essential Under The Streetlamp. Doo wop and group soul devotees alike can both agree that, where this kind of music’s concerned, the “Street”s the same, only the “Lamp” has been changed to protect the heritage! By Tony Rounce (Ace Records) |
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Ace Records 2005 | CD | 17.00 € |
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| VA: - My Goodness, Yes ! 20 tracks |
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Sundazed Music 2005 | CD | 20.00 € |
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| VA: - Northern Soul's Classiest Rarities 2 24 tracks |
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Ace Records 2005 | CD | 18.00 € |
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| VA: - Old Town & Barry Soul Survey 26 biisiä |
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Ace Records 2005 | CD | 18.00 € |
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| VA: - Return Of Mod Jazz 24 tracks |
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Ace Records 2005 | CD | 17.00 € |
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| VA: - Soulful Thangs 22 tracks |
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Latin Soul 2005 | CD | 19.00 € |
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| VA: - This Is Northern Soul 2CD - The Motown Sound Vol. 1 |
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Universal Music 2005 | CD | 13.00 € |
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| Andre Williams - Red Beans And Biscuits 16 biisiä vuosilta 1966-70, joista 8 ennenjulkaisemattomia |
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Soul-Tay-Shus Records 2004 | CD | 15.00 € |
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| Bobby Moore & The Rhythm Aces - Go Ahead And Burn 24 biisiä vuosilta 1966-1970 |
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RPM 2004 | CD | 18.00 € |
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| Carol Anderson - Sad Girl 17 tracks. The Legacy Of Detroit's lost soul sister. |
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Grapevine Records 2004 | CD | 19.00 € |
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| Gladys Knight - Beats Of My Heart |
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Charly Records 2004 | CD | 9.00 € |
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| James Carr - My Soul Is Satisfied All good things do eventually come to an end, and so it is that this month we conclude our James Carr reissue programme, with a sixth and final CD. "My Soul Is Satisfied" rounds up all the remaining studio masters of James - those still in existence, at least - in a package that upholds its title in every way. As A&R supervisor for the project I take no small degree of delight in the fact that, with this release, at least one version of every traceable James Carr studio recording is now available on an Ace or Kent CD - delight that's shared by all of my colleagues here at Ace Towers, of course. "My Soul Is Satisfied" covers virtually the entire span of James Carr's recording career, from 1967 to 2000, in a manner that befits the revered status of late great soulman. It features unissued and hard-to-find material from every stage of his career, including some of the best recordings you may have yet to hear. It's taken over a year to check and double check all the original Goldwax tapes in our vaults, and to organise the licensing-in of the repertoire James cut for Atlantic, River City and SoulTrax. The end result was more than worth the time it took to pull it all together. In the course of an hour and a bit we hear James at his mid-60s 'original Goldwax' peak, with stunning alternate recordings, takes and mixes of some of his classic Goldwax 45s and album cuts. We hear him duetting with criminally under-recorded Goldwax thrush Barbara Perry and having a successful bash at interpreting Bacharach & David and Holland-Dozier-Holland. As we move through the CD we take in both sides of James' sole Atlantic 45 and all three of his mid 70s recordings for River City (only two of which were originally issued) - the sum total of James' issued output between 1971 and 1991, in fact. The remainder of the CD consists primarily of recordings that James cut with his mentor and original producer Quinton Claunch as the 20th century drew to a close and that were mostly originally issued on a SoulTrax CD that mixed them with previously issued SoulTrax sides. Recorded with a real Memphis rhythm section and featuring James in superb voice, these are as much a treat for the ears as are the selections from a quarter of a century earlier. We're also privileged to include what seems to be the last recording James ever made, his demo of A Woman's Got The Power. Quinton Claunch told me that James wasn't feeling too well on the day of the session, but that he agreed to lay a guide vocal of the basic rhythm track with a view to going back and putting down a better one when his voice was in better shape. Sadly that never happened, but as you'll hear, there's nothing wrong with the basic, one take, job he did here. One or two of the sources are sadly not of the standard that we would routinely entertain on an Ace or Kent CD, but I figured that James' fans would rather endure a bit of lo-fi here and there than to be deprived of a precious unissued performance. Thus the guys downstairs at Sound Mastering - who made everything sound as good as you'll ever hear it, anyway - were asked to relax their super-high audio standards, where necessary, in the name of satisfying the James completist (aren't we all that?). Most of the tracks sound colossally brilliant, of course - and would probably have done so if James had recorded them from inside a cardboard box. Fittingly the CD concludes with the only three recordings of James Carr, gospel singer. These were originally released on a now-deleted Jubilee Hummingbirds CD back in the early 1990s, and it's a fair bet that a lot of James' fans will not even be aware that they exist. Prior to becoming the great southern soul stylist that he unquestionably was, the young James (and his early Goldwax label mate O V Wright) had been a member of the Hummingbirds in the early 1960s, so these three sensational sides were something of a homecoming for him. I'm certain you'll agree that, collectively, they provide a wholly appropriate way to close this very special CD. And if all this good stuff wasn't already enough, we are delighted that - in addition to all the unissued sides and alternate takes of familiar tracks - we can also bring you a cover shot of James, taken in Memphis by Tav Falco in the second half of the 1970s, that has never been published before. We're always getting asked if there is any more James Carr material in the can. Sadly, after this release, the answer seems to be a firm and fast 'no'. Of course we'd release James Carr CD's 24-7-365 if we could, but save for one or two more (very similar) alternate takes of existing masters there'd nothing new to fill 'em up with. If this CD really does close the door on James Carr's studio recordings, then it closes it in the most soul-satisfying way possible. By Tony Rounce (ACE RECORDS) |
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Ace Records 2004 | CD | 17.00 € |
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| Kenny Lynch - Nothing But The Real Thing-Best Of 60-69 |
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RPM 2004 | CD | 19.00 € |
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| Knight Brothers - Temptation 24 tracks |
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Shout Records 2004 | CD | 18.00 € |
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| Sven Zetterberg - Moving In The Right Direction |
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Last Buzz Records 2004 | CD | 17.00 € |
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| VA: - Diggin' Gold - A Galaxy Of West Coast Blues 25 tracks Galaxy records R&B + Soul |
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Ace Records 2004 | CD | 17.00 € |
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| VA: - Double Shot Of Soul 26 biisiä |
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Kent 2004 | CD | 18.00 € |
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| VA: - Get Your Lie Straight - A Glaxy Of Funky Soul 22 biisiä |
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Ace Records 2004 | CD | 18.00 € |
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| VA: - Hood Dreams Vol. 1 - What Chance Has A Man 21 tracks |
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FTR Records 2004 | CD | 19.00 € |
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| VA: - Richard Rodgers' No Strings - An After Theatre Version Broadway Musical Hit - Chris Connor, Bobby Short, Lavern Baker, Herbie Mann |
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Collectables 2004 | CD | 15.00 € |
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| VA: - We'll Play The Blues For You 18 biisiä Staxin soulia - mm ALbert King, Little Sonny, John Lee Hooker, Rufus Thomas, Mable John jne |
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Stax Records 2004 | CD | 12.00 € |
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| Andre Williams - Holland Shuffle 11 biisiä live Hollannista 2001 |
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Norton Records 2003 | CD | 17.00 € |
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| Booker T. & The MGs - Stax Instrumentals + The Mar-Keys |
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Universal 2003 | CD | 12.00 € |
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| Ike & Tina Turner - Sing The Blues 18 biisiä pariskunnan 1969 albumeilta "The Hunter" ja "Outta Session" |
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Acrobat Records 2003 | CD | 13.00 € |
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| Impressions - Definitive Impressions Part 2 28 emotional highlights from the greatest soul group ever. by Ady Croasdell (Ace Records) This release speaks or sings for itself. Given the success and critical acclaim showered upon our best selling DEFINITIVE IMPRESSIONS, Kent CDKEND 923, we had a hard act to follow. However definitive that first volume may have been (it had all the biggest hits) there must have been a few tracks at the back of each Imps fan's minds that they would have loved to have seen on there. In my case You Ought To Be In Heaven, No One Else, This Must End and It's All Over were prime candidates and I could think of plenty of great LP tracks that I'd have loved to have had on one handy package. To be able to trawl through the 60s LPs of this magnificent group was a real pleasure and I got to discover tracks like A Woman Who Loves Me and That's What Love Will Do which I had previously skipped over. I'm Getting Ready, Let Me Tell The World and Love's A Comin' have long been stone favourites of mine and though the choices were totally personal I hope I've included the best of the rest-.-which in the Impressions' case is considerable. The raison d'?™tre of this release is listening pleasure, all the tracks have already been issued on Kent CDs so this is aimed at soul fans who need to hear more of arguably the greatest soul group ever, but don't need to have every track of every album. In 1965 EMI issued the Impressions "Big Sixteen" on HMV and followed it up four years later with a "Volume 2" on their Stateside label. With pleasing symmetry we've now repackaged our DEFINITIVE IMPRESSIONS CD with the same photo as that first LP and followed the second album cover on this volume. This is one Kent purchase you can leave on the car stereo, by the bottle of scotch next to the mini system - or try talking your local landlord into putting it on to the pub jukebox. It's designed for repeated listening rather than your music library. |
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Ace Records 2003 | CD | 17.00 € |
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| James Brown - I Got The Feelin' King albumin harvinainen japanipainos CD:nä ! |
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Polydor Japan 2003 | CD | 20.00 € |
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| Johnny Guitar Watson - A Real Mother For Ya Deluxe Expanded Edition |
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Castle Music 2003 | CD | 15.00 € |
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| Johnny Guitar Watson - Love Jones Deluxe expanded edition |
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Castle Music 2003 | CD | 13.00 € |
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| Mad Daddy - Wavy Gravy Radio Broadcasts 1958-1964 |
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Norton Records 2003 | CD | 17.00 € |
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| VA: - America's Most Wanted 21 Dancefloor Favourites from the home of soul. Malaco Soul Fugitives |
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Malaco 2003 | CD | 19.00 € |
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| VA: - Kent's Cellar Of Soul Back in the 60s when I'd just got to hear about Motown, Stax and Atlantic, there were people working in London record companies who had long since discovered those sources of great music and were moving on and looking at labels such as Goldwax, Dial, Minit and Money. They had made it to their positions of musical power through a combination of knowledge, enthusiasm and luck-.-all stemming from their love of the new black American music that was reaching their ears through their privileged jobs. Support came from the information flow from like-minded collectors across the country and from journalists of the calibre of Dave Godin at Blues & Soul and Norman Jopling at Record Mirror. Music lovers like Derek Everett at Stateside, Trevor Churchill at Bell, Guy Stevens at Sue, Alan Warner at UA and John Abbey at Action were trying to get hits for their companies but undoubtedly their private passion would have influenced several of the releases. I sometimes wonder when confronted with a particularly "out of left field" UK release, whether the missionary zeal of the hirelings was used to impress or appease fellow collectors and did their comfy jobs ever go on the line to get a particular favourite on to the pressing plant machines? These thoughts are particularly appropriate for Kent's latest CD release as 23 of the 26 US 45s featured on it were also issued here in the UK and I doubt if one of them ever charted. Several of those I'm sure would have given the label managers anxious moments when the sales figures were discussed with their bosses. So it is as a tribute to the early soul collecting pioneers that we've compiled KENT'S CELLAR OF SOUL, named in fact after the ground breaking LPs that co-compiler Trevor Churchill issued for Bell in the 60s. A most dramatic of intros heralds Rodger Collins' 1967 mover She's Looking Good-.-it's earthy, obvious and straight to the lower body, music that has the power of life flowing through it. Moses & Joshua's My Elusive Dreams and Homer Banks' A Lot Of Love are hewn from the same tree-.-they have a tough approach like a lot of Southern Soul songs but in truth are more typical, mainstream soul of the late 60s. The next batch of three songs, the Spellbinders' Chain Reaction, Bettye Swann's Make Me Yours and the Intruders' Cowboys To Girls are more sophisticated in their productions with Van McCoy, Arthur Wright and Gamble & Huff at the controls. Indeed the latter two were R&B #1s on the Billboard charts, but that would not have given them any extra chance of making the UK charts in those days. Ironically the Spellbinders' song had two UK releases, showing how it was the power of the record buying dancers that often dictated which releases came out over here. Trevor Churchill had extra scope for obscure releases with his BELL'S CELLAR OF SOUL series of LPs. Esoteric tracks could be sneaked in and there was probably less pressure from above over LP sales. That's how Brooks O'Dell's You Better Make Up Your Mind came out over here-.-its black, orchestral drama would have surely been too subtle for teenagers brought up on Memphis and Motown dance classics. I can guarantee that it would have gone over my head, had I heard it back then. Whereas Jerryo's Karate Boogaloo was right up my intellectual alley, plenty of "sock it to me"s and "oom gow-wow"s along with sexy girls in the background and a beat that really does grab the feet. The other burning musical question in the 60s apart from "Can white men play the blues?" was "Can an instrumental be soulful?" This CD features two great examples of the soul instrumental genre, the Packers' Hole In The Wall and Beau Dollar & The Coins' Soul Serenade. The Packers were probably one of the greatest groupings of soul instrumentalists ever, heralding from Memphis, rather than the LA of the record's release, and the music was very much in the infectious Ramsey Lewis' mid-60s style that just oozed soul. The funky background crowd noises all added to the general hip feel. Beau Dollar's single may have been produced and inspired by a white Cincinnati guitar hero, but the guys got the feel of King Curtis' 1964 hit Soul Serenade just right for its 1966 soul loving audience. So much so that it became the theme tune for the UK's main black music radio show. Other highlights on the CD include Tina Britt's splendidly vivacious The Real Thing-.-very much of its time, but a delight to listen to now nonetheless. The melodic, gentle side of Chicago soul is shown by the Steelers, whose Get It From The Bottom was massive in the Windy City but probably appealed only to die-hards in the UK's smoggy and foggy ones. Similarly classy in the vocal department is the Detroit soul of the Falcons' (I'm A Fool) I Must Love You. White singer Bob Brady could certainly deliver a good Smokey Robinson-style vocal on Everybody's Going To The Love-In, a much better choice of material for him than trying to find out if he could sing the blues. And it has a period piece title to boot! Danny White gives us the greatest Memphis soul recording to come out of New York and the Dreamlovers show us what big Philly pop-soul harmonies are all about. All the tracks are very strong soul numbers, only space precludes me from mentioning them all. We've even thrown in a couple of smoochers at the end to help you really re-live those halcyon days when it was all so new and uncharted. Ady Croasdell (Ace Records) |
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Ace Records 2003 | CD | 18.00 € |
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| VA: - LA's Silver Soul: Lee Silver's Symphonic Productions Stunningly good but rare West Coast 60s & 70s harmonic soul-.-from an unheralded producer whose time has come at last. By Ady Croasdell (Ace Records) I'll tell you how good this CD is. I'm listening right through it for a final check on how it sounds technically, I'm up to track 18 and loving it, and I've just realised there's still four or five of my favourites to come. Unfortunately it ain't always that way. After you've played a compilation several times, in the course of getting it ready for production, ear-hole fatigue usually sets in. Even tracks that are well worthy of inclusion can drag a bit after the eighth run through, but not on this one Baby. It helps that Lee Silver's work is almost as big a pleasant surprise to me as it probably is to you. As recently as less than two years ago I didn't expect the man who had been responsible for writing the Royal Teens Short Shorts (covered over here by none less than Freddie and The Dreamers) to have produced a string of sublime soul singles throughout the 60s & 70s. It mainly came about through Lee's management of, and friendship with, the Pentagons. After their first doo wop hit To Be Loved, the group cut two great early soul singles for Jamie, one for Philips under the alias of the Chesterfields and then broke up into two groupings. Lead singer Joe Jones aka Joey Jones aka Joe C Jones went solo and then returned to Lee's stable in the late 60s as the Jones Brothers with his half-brother and ex-Pentagon Otis Munson. The rest of the group under the guidance of original group member Ken Goodloe formed a new outfit, which was known variously as the Corduroys, Themes, 21st Century and Soul Patrol. It was this conglomeration that was responsible for a very large proportion of Lee's soul music output, contributing 11 of the 24 tracks here. Apart from occasional great lead vocals, Ken Goodloe wrote most of his groups' material in association with his brother Ted or Bill James-.-he sometimes called himself B Goode on the credits. That was how he described himself on the mysterious Pentagons' double-sider, Gonna Wait For You / Forever Yours. The first side moves at a great pace and features the group at its finest in harmonies and traded lead vocals, while the beautiful ballad flip of Forever Yours harks back to their successful vocal group days with a beautiful soul song. To make it more intriguing it seems that it wasn't the Pentagons classic line up at all, more the Goodloe brothers grouping-.-it was apparently first issued as by the Corduroys. As the Themes that group reached the highest peaks for me with one Minit 45, Bent Out Of Shape / No Explanation Needed and two terrific unreleased tracks, Do Yourself A Favor / Reminds Me Of You held in the can for more than thirty years. Having said that, all the 21st Century tracks are good-.-the previously unreleased Search The World Over being a particularly wonderful ballad which exemplifies Lee's symphonic approach to producing and his ear for a great song. The Jones Brothers have the biggest number of individual credits on the CD with six songs. My favourites are the big ballad sound of That's All Over Baby and their so soulful take on Good Old Days which utilises the same backing track as Nathan Williams' ultra rare (and equally good) Lime recording 'What Price'. Apart from Nathan Williams' 45 there was also a one-off single from Minnie Jones & The Minuettes whose version of Shadow Of A Memory on Sugar Records is highly rated by DJs and collectors and adds a female touch to an otherwise male dominated CD. However the third major grouping in Lee's stable also featured females. The Primers aka the Vines consisted of three guys and two girls from San Diego, and though they only came out with two released singles, their How Does It Grab You on Hale Records has proved to be one of the biggest Northern Soul vinyl discoveries of recent years. They also cut a follow up called It's Laid On You which is pretty damned hot too and we hope to include that on a later CD of Lee's material. Lee's music has been one of the delightful surprises of the last few years for me and I'm sure Kent fans will be thrilled too. The fact that he's such a thoroughly nice chap too has been a bonus for me and the many soul fans who have been contacting him to pass on their praise and to see whether he has any old Hale singles lying about anywhere. He doesn't, but you can get all that great music on this little s(S?)ilver disc. |
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Ace Records 2003 | CD | 17.00 € |
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| VA: - Laurie Records Story Vol. 1 29 biisiä New Yorkista, Laurie Records Doo Wop 1958-1967 |
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Ace Records 2003 | CD | 17.00 € |
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| VA: - Masterpieces Of Modern Soul To the uninitiated I won't go into the full explanation of Modern Soul, there are more than enough words in the sleevenotes. Suffice it to say that it is primarily danceable 70s soul music with a solid, as opposed to a funky beat. Having said that, the Modern Soul crowd has a very liberal view on what is danceable and having emerged at least partly as an antidote to the 100mph Northern Soul stompers, are willing to wander on to the dancefloor to the most laid-back of tunes. In fact the intimacy of many of their venues and the occasional lack of floor space often sees discerning soul fans grooving to their favourites on linoleum, sticky carpet or even table tops. The quality of the song and the singer's performance are given higher priority than the correctness of the rhythm, while clever dance moves are considered less important than say flowery bowling shirts or an encyclopaedic knowledge of Tyrone Davis' recording career. One of the most typical Modern Soul tracks on this CD would be Ted Taylor's recently discovered master tape Fair Warning. Ted was a southern USA style, emotional soul singer with an accomplished roster of recordings. The song was provided by some of Leon Haywood's admired writing team, has a memorable melody, apt lyrics and moves at an easy mid tempo pace for 30+ year-olders. It has a full production with string and horn sections and a few funky guitar licks thrown in at the change of tempo breaks. Some discerning Modern Soul DJs have been given advance copies of the track to insinuate it into the subconscious of their unquestioning followers (joke!), so as this is the only form in which it is available to the public, sales are assured and I could shut up now. But checking my word count and the rest of the music on the CD, I won't. Similarly soulful 70s offerings include tracks by Millie Jackson, Jacqueline Jones, the Four Tees (no relation to the 6TS) and Garland Green. Even more laid-back crossover numbers abound in Sam Nesbit's rare and expensive Chase Those Clouds Away and the Millionaires' great soul group sound I'm The One Who Loves You. Several of the items will appeal to Northern fans too, especially the Houston Outlaws' vinyl rarity Ain't No Telling: a hugely tuneful and attractive song. The opening track, previously unissued, will excite all kinds of soul fans, as Debra Johnson's To Get Love You've Got To Give Love is danceable, soulful and features the kind of classy Miles Grayson arrangement that made Lynn Varnado's Wash And Wear Love such a rare soul classic. This song also features the noteworthy lyric "I don't want to be just your appetiser: now your main course is someone else" (note to self, must approach KFC with view to licensing). Lynn's super rare single Second Hand Love is also featured and, like the Ronnie Walker and Pretenders tracks, is more old school 70s Northern than Modern but falls under the latter's big musical umbrella. Like most good Kent CDs, there are some pleasant surprises that many might have missed. I was particularly chuffed with the Jean Shy Fantasy track that I found lurking in my racks after collector Dave Welding reminded me of it. Similarly I hadn't realised how much I enjoyed the Renfro Records oddity Love Me Baby by Tender Loving Care until I'd listened through the finished master a couple of times. Some of the tracks have been out in one form or another but probably have been missed by most Modern Soul devotees. It's not too likely that soul fans would have added the double LP, BGP CD of jazz brother Idris Muhammad just to get the soulful I'm A Believer on to their sound system. Similarly many will have missed out on the early 80s soul of Gil Billingsley as it was featured on a primarily 60s Kent Detroit soul CD. Al Christian's Chant single version of Bobby Wilburn's I'm A Lonely Man is quite different from the original, and as Steve "Guru" Guarnori pointed out to me, is not to be found on either of the Bill Haney Chant CDs on Kent. We've jumped at the chance to re-release Mary Love Comer's Modern Soul anthem Come Out Of The Sandbox simply because we could. It's not been out since Kent's Mary Love solo CD that combined her early Modern songs with the later Colove recordings. Listening to it again for this compilation, I was bemused as to why it had sold in relatively low numbers-.-it really is a good CD (hint, hint). Finally I was hit by a piece of glaringly obvious inspiration and managed to license a 2002 recording from Lou Pride to round of this disc. Bringin' Me Back Home is a great soul song for any decade and reflects well on the Modern Soul crowd who are constantly seeking out the best US soul tracks for their appreciation and enjoyment, whatever the date on the disc is. by Ady Croasdell (Ace Records) |
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Ace Records 2003 | CD | 17.00 € |
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| VA: - Pounds Of Soul 24 biisiä vuosilta 1967-1975 |
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Ace Records 2003 | CD | 18.00 € |
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| VA: - The Street Harmony Revue Vol. 1 23 tracks |
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Crystal Ball Records 2003 | CD | 18.00 € |
