Beating Rhythm Fanzine 1999 Review

Beating Rhythm Fanzine Review Feat Clips of Jan 97 Issue

site note originally up in 1999

Beating Rhythm - Edited by Pete Smith who should need no introduction to regular soul fans on net and was one of the main contributers to the rare online soul scene getting to where its at today.

The mag itself is "one of the worlds most erratic fanzines (thats erratic not errotic)" - thats his own words not mine, due to its release schedule. But it is well worth the wait. Past issues have been crammed full of usefull and interesting stuff. CD + vinyl reviews, old rare press clips and adverts. And with his vast knowledge on soul things a lot of the facts and info if not all can be taken as gospel. A lot of articles on this site were from this mag such as film and cd, vinyl reviews etc plus a lot of info and lists,so highly recommended this one, I would subscribe to it if I could, but its a bit like hunting a certain rare sound you dont know when it turn up , but when it does it be worth the wait.

The next issue is due out shortly and contains articles on The Astors, History Of Northern Soul, cd and record reviews, loads of rare label scans, new guide to soul surfing, worst

50 Northern records of all time...etc etc sounds good so email Pete for details and costs at

{pete.smith4@virgin.net}

Here's a few clips to give you a taste of the pie:

Note: these articles are taken from the Jan 97 issue hence a bit dated but should give an idea of expertise expected.

Vinyl reviews

Before I begin this small UK 45's reviews section (Glen Walton has done the main part elsewhere), I've just remembered that I promised to uncover a couple of things from previous issues, so here goes.

The Jackie Edwards Band - "Jerkin' Time" from a few issues back was from a Trojan LP called Millie And Her Boyfriends by Mille Small. It was supposed to be a duet with Jackie Edwards called, I think, Never Again, but for some reason the vocal was left off, leaving a cracking Northern instrumental. It also came out as a B side on Island, but I 've lost the info on that one.

The lovely "Give Him Up" by Sonya Kaye & The Ebonies (last issue) is actually "Give Him Up" by First Generation on the reggae label High Note and is the B side of "She Want It" by Dave Barker. You find a lot of soul on the flip sides of reggae singles.

Also Steve Aldo - "These Same Old Things" is Bobby Shafto -" The Same Old Room " on Parlophone, though I think I may have uncovered that before. This is a cracking little UK dancer and I sold it to Mick Smith so it might start appearing on a few people's wants lists.

Speaking of cover-up' s.....

JUDY JACOBS - "DANGER TO MY HEART "(UK c/u )

This is the most recent British thing I 've discoverd and after an initial "Erm, it's okay I guess" response from my inner self, I now think it's bloody brilliant and would definitely go - or have gone. The intro is very much like Peggy March - If You Loved Me or Shirley Abicair on Piccadilly, with what sounds like a zither or a strange electric keyboard hammering on one note while the bass guitar picks a tune, then in comes the sweet voiced "Judy'' and the beat really begins to become insistent. Now, after a verse or so you can feel that you're being set up for a drum roll and then all hell will break loose, with chimes and trumpets and God knows what - but it doesn't! It just stays 4-4 and builds very slowly, until three quarters of the way through when we get the instrumental break, where, bizarrely, the beat stops and there's 10 seconds of jazzy playing. However, out of the instrmnental the big build up really starts with a thudding drum adding to the proceedings and a little bit of jazz trumpet making itself heard also. The song is minimal "He's a stranger in town" seems to be the gist of if but whatever, this is a smashing little record, absoulty unknown and by the most unlikely artist(s) you'll ever imagine - clue: it's not listed as a girl singer and one of those which is going to make a lot of impact over the next couple of years. Was I wrong about Ketty Lester? **** (Check this out on one of the tapes)

MARIAN ANGEL - A LITTLE BIT OF SUNSHINE (CBS 202391)

This is a Brit girl singer who had a fair Northern thumper entitled Tomorrow's Fool on Columbia or Parophone (God my memory!), anyway, this is a later disc whicl will certainly appeal to the army of 60's UK girls fans although it's certainly not to everyone' s taste. Nice big orchestral intro with multitudes of shimmering strings, and a great beat ballad first verse with a trumpet answering Marion's vocal, but sadly at the end of the verse Marian tries to become an opera singer and warbles the words where she should have shouted them. Full orchestra comes in for the chorus, the vocal becomes double tracked, then it calms down a little and goes back to beat ballad, and so on and goes back to Beat Ballad, setting the format for the rest of the record. A few years back I'd have raved over this, but in all truth it's a nice little pop/beat ballad ruined by over orchestration and double tracked vocals. The flip side, All The Time In The World (sadly not the Stevie Kimble beauty) is uptempo and sounds like it should have been recorded by Tom Jones!

**GENE PITNEY - LAST CHANCE TO TURN AROUND (Stateside SS420)

Look, stop laughing, this is a fantastic record! Okay, it's not but neither was anything by Slade and they were all great. I'll get me coat! No, honestly, this is just about the most dramatic record you'll ever hear, what an intro, it sounds as if a train is coming through your living room wall, the drumming sounds exactly like a locomotive doing 100mph, then all of a sudden, in comes everyone else in New York on accompanying instruments, and Gene's all too distinctive voice pleads with his girl, then decides to forget and take the "Iast exit to Brooklyn, last chance to turn around". Now, this was probably arranged by Jimmy Radcliffe, so the question I pose is; did Jim do a version, if he did, did it get a release? What a sound! I tell you, if this wasn't by Gene Pitney, who has a voice unlike anyone else on earth (meaning cover-up's are useless) it'd be a big sound. It's cool, really.

***TOM & MICK - SOMEBODY'S TAKEN MARIA AWAY ( Olqa 014 )

This must be the f irst time anything on this label's been mentioned in this mag, I can only think of one other record from this source and that's Yesterday flas Gone by Lena Junoff which is fairly well known. This is a Swedish recording from the bizarre Sonet label, and boy, is this gonna be hard to describe. First; somebody crashes their hands down onto a piano keyboard while someone else blasts away one note on a trumpet. This lasts for 2 seconds.Then the vocalists come straight in with the title, while Animal from the Muppets hits the drums and symbols causing irreparable damage, meanwhile someone's blasting the horns like nobody's business, oh and there's a steal from Keith West's Teenage Opera record "She won' t come back no more, oh no no no". Sounds good? No. But it gets better. The verses are quite restrained, with only Tom (or is it Mick) singing and Mick joining in to harmonise on the last line, but then here we go again, that chorus is very very powerful with a pounding piano, loads of brass, wailing girls, the lot mate. This Chris Andrews production has about as much to do with soul as John Major has to do with charisma, but what a mental stomping record. I personally absolutely love this, but that's just me. I actually picked this up blind about 5 years ago because I liked the label, played it and thought ''Er, no way", so I sold it in with a job lot. Last week I found the exact same copy, still with my writing on the sleeve, in a record shop about 15 miles from here! By the way, this is on a few of my tapes as Tommy & Tony, slightly better than the real artists but only just. *** (Actually this isn't a Chris Anfres production)

BARBARA MASON - AIN'T GOT NOBODY (Direction 3382)

Okay, onto a real soul record this time, this is the flip of Oh How It Hurts which I knew was a ballad but thought I'd pick up for 20p or whatever just because it was a demo. But wow, check out that flip, presumably from the same label as her other goodies such as Bobby Is My Baby, this is classic stuff. Drum roll, horn rift, a tune very similar to Patti Austin's I've Given You All Of My Love, oh, and this little fingersnapper has the same burping sax in the background that adorns her other dancers. Big production, lovely girlie backing singers, a swinging little record that must surely/is surely getting some action, a very worthy addition to your UK collection.

**CHARLES MANN - I CAN FEEL IT ( Probe 006-9577 Germany)

Now you'll have to excuse my ignorance on the subject of 70's soul, but I'd have thought that you connoisseurs of that particular style of music would be well into this little number as it's prime mid-70's Mecca material, if I had to pick out. it's main feature it would be the very heavy bass drum sound which powers it along. I don't understand this kind of music at all so to my ears it has nil appeal, but if you like the uptempo 70's soul sound, may as well check this one out. Not sure if it got a UK release, this ones on German Probe. By the way, i t was produced by Dave Crawford who's name crops up on many soul sides .

CD REVIEWS

OUT ON THE FLOOR TONIGHT (GSCD 107)

At first glance I thought this was a reissue of an old GM/SS title, Out On The Floor, but no, this is Out On The Floor Tonight. The concept is a little different too - the first CD conatined 24 or so classics, I mean extremely well established sounds, hear them at every oldies night you go to kind of classics like Queen Of Fools, The Snake, What's Wrong With Me Baby and so on.

This compilation, doesn't really include any early classics but concentrates on the mid to late 70's biggies. There are also a handful of UK releases thrown in including Kiki Dee's On A Magic Carpet Ride which to these ears is beginning to sound quite nice (after 18 years of it sounding like shit).Other UK's come from John E. Paul, great at the time but sounding like like something from another planet now, can you imagine them laying this at Albrighton or some other 'soul connoisseurs' venue? Ditto Five And A Penny's awful version of Dana Valery and Tony Blackburn's shocking cover of I'll Do Anything. John Drevar's Expression still sounds okay I suppose, as do The Flirtations and Timebox, but the best of the UK recordings is Dusty Springfield's What's It Gonna Be which sounds as authentic as anything else here. But it's not just the UK recordings that provide the shockers here: Otis Leavill's Boomerang sounds like a Gene Chandler/Major Lance recording but is hideous, and is apparently a Twisted Wheel classic, Jeez! One of Levine's old biggies, The Petals - You Can't Close The Windows To Your Heart is bad beyond description, Susan Farrar's The Big Hurt was big for literally two weeks at Wigan before it was pressed then thankfully we never had to suffer it again, and as for Keith, Brian Hyland, Eddie Garrigan and so on, they're records of their own era and just don't fit in today. Strangely enough, Many's The Slip by The Present, although being a semi-psychedelic record, still sounds good but that's probably because of the memories it inspires rather than the quality of the record. Worst of the lot, and perhaps the worst record ever to appear on a GM/SS CD is undoubtedly Marc Copage's Who Can I Turn To, a dire recording by a 6 year old TV star who sounds like he was having his foreskin chopped off while recording this turd. Far and away the best track is He Loves Me by The Chalfontes which is a Detroit sounding dancer I've loved for years but never seems to be remembered with any fondness by anyone else. Oh, and whoever mastered this needs a severe beating around the head with a 3 week old pork chop because, okay, occasionally it's acceptable to miss the first split second of an intro to a track, but there are something like 15 seconds cut from the intro of Jeanette Harper's Put Me In Your Pocket - a small mercy, some may say, but there's just no excuse for it, it actually begins more or less on the vocal when there's a perfectly good and quite exciting intro to the original recording. Remember when they cut off the intro to John & The Weirdest - Can't Get Over These Memories? Why do people have to tamper with things?Let's face it, this is a real mish-mash of sounds and styles and it doesn't come off, and when the likes of Kiki Dee are your saving grace, well perhaps it's time for a bit of a rethink in the quality control department. Having said that, there are probably many, many people who bought the K-Tel Soul Survivors package which was ten times worse than this, so I may be putting on a soul snob hat here to look 'cool' - so, let's end by saying that there's probably something for everybody here, but not too much for me personally.

TRACK LISTING

OTIS LEAVILL - Boomerang/

PRESENT - Many's the slip/

JOHN E. PAUL - I wanna know/

KIKI DEE - On a magic carpet ride/

SANDY & THE PEBBLES - He's my kind of fellow/

SWEET - Broken heart attack/

DUSTY SPRINGFIELD - What's it gonna be/

JEANETTE HARPER - Put me in your pocket/

JAY & THE TECHNIQUES - Baby make your own sweet music/

JERRY BUTLER - One night affair/

PETALS - (You can't close) the windows of your heart/

BRIAN HYLAND - The joker went wild/

NAT WRIGHT - Mr. Love/

EDDIE GARRIGAN - I wish I was/

NICKY NEWARKERS - Woman/

ARNOLD BRYANT- House in order/

SUSAN FARRAR - The big hurt/

GROOVERS - He will break your heart/

LENNY (TONY BLACKBURN) GAMBLE - I'll do anything/

TIMEBOX - Girl don't make me wait/

FIVE AND A PENNY - You don't know where your interest lies/

JOHN DREVAR'S EXPRESSION - The closer she gets/

FLIRTATIONS - Little darlin'/

KEITH - Daylight saving time/

MARC COPAGE - Who can I turn to (questions and answers)

THE GOLDEN TORCH REVISITED (GSCD 92)

I think that the mood you're in affects CD reviews - one day you might love to hear a CD of oldies, next day you think "Oh no, how many times I have heard these before?" I'm afraid that today I'm suffering from the symptoms described in the latter scenario and I couldn't wait for this collection to end. Why? Because I first heard Mamie Galore, Lenis Guess, James Bounty et al nearly 25 years ago and I'm just bored with them. Having said that, they're still good, great records, but familiarity breeds contempt.

The highlight of this CD is actually an instrumental (hello Andy!), Frantic Escape by The Innocent Bystanders which has no melody at all but is Popcorn Wylie and his session men cooking up an absolute storm on this vibe-laden Detroit crasher. Juxtapose this with the other instrumental selection, Bob Wilson's Suzy's Serenade and you get a chalk and cheese situation where you can't believe something as dreadful as that could ever have been played. Ditto The Dramatics' hideous Inky Dinky Wang Dang Doo, a record everyone went crazy over in 72/73, but the actual record is even worse than it's title, what a mess. Those two plus The Exciters' Number One which is a nothing song, are the only duds on this CD, but I have to say that there are at least 7 previously released on CD tracks here, so check the listing carefully.

So apart from Frantic Escape, the other main highlights are Lou Johnson's perrenial Unsatisfied, a record which sounded dated from day one but one that contains a masterful vocal performance and is worth the price of the CD alone; Jimmy (James) Conwell with Too Much, a terrific dancer which has the same backing track as Len Jewel's Bettin' On Love and was pressed many years ago but in such bad quality that it was barely recognisable - here you get it in perfect sound quality. Oh and there's Luther Ingram's vocal version of Exus Trek which isn't a patch on the instrumental but for some crazy reason is preferred by a few people, trouble is it's not a very good song.

So basically, this is another superb release, it just caught me at the wrong time I'm afraid. Incidentally, check out the accompanying booklet, centre pages, there's a photo of people dancing at the King's Hall, Stoke at the Togetherness allnighter and bugger me, it's your truly, bottom right of the pic with the blue and purple checked shirt - but wait, I've never noticed that sodding bald patch coming before!

TRACK LISTING

LENIS GUESS - Just ask me/

VIBRATING VIBRATIONS - Surprise party for baby/

DEE DEE SHARP - What kind of lady/

PHILLIP MITCHELL - Free for all/

MAMIE GALORE -It ain't necessary/

PROPHETS - I got the fever/

VALENTINES - Breakaway/

BOB WILSON - Suzy's serenade/

DRAMATICS - Inky dinky wang dang doo/

SUPERIORS - What would I do/

LOU JOHNSON - Unsatisfied/

ROSCOE SHELTON - Running for my life/

TYMES - What would I do/

SEQUINS - A case of love/

ROYAL JOKERS - Love game a-z/

JIMMY CONWELL - Too much/

OVATIONS - They say/

LUTHER INGRAM - If it's all the same to you babe/

JEANETTE WHITE - Music/

DYNAMICS - Bingo/

INNOCENT BYSTANDERS - Frantic escape/

PARLIAMENTS - Don't be sore at me/

JAMES BOUNTY -Prove yourself a lady/

EXCITERS - Number one/

TONY MICHAELS - I love the life I live.