What Are The Top 10 Most Expensive Uk Releases From T' 70's-80's?

[Ian Dewhirst]

Florence was still incharge at Scepter in 72 though....these record exec types - honestly I sometimes wonder if they'd agree on what day of the week it was on Friday

There's a huge competition to locate the UK's most intelligent dog. Eventually it boils down to three dog owners and their dogs. The dog owners are an architect, a maths professor and a record company A&R man.

The dogs are each given a pile of dog biscuits and the winner will be decided by the amount of intelligence and creativity the dogs can display by each manipulating their respective piles of dog biscuits.

The architect's dog starts first and builds an exact scale model of the Taj Mahal with his biscuits.

The maths professor's dog goes next and manipulates his biscuits into the exact equation for the Pythagoras theorum.

The A&R man's dog goes last and grinds his biscuits into a powder, snorts it all, f*cks the other 2 dogs and leaves early.

Ian D

Edited July 20, 2012 by Ian Dewhirst

[Steve G]

Oh god I see you've started on your planned holiday reading already......

[Soulman]

There's a huge competition to locate the UK's most intelligent dog. Eventually it boils down to three dog owners and their dogs. The dog owners are an architect, a maths professor and a record company A&R man.

The dogs are each given a pile of dog biscuits and the winner will be decided by the amount of intelligence and creativity the dogs can display by each manipulating their respective piles of dog biscuits.

The architect's dog starts first and builds an exact scale model of the Taj Mahal with his biscuits.

The maths professor's dog goes next and manipulates his biscuits into the exact equation for the Pythagoras theorum.

The A&R man's dog goes last and grinds his biscuits into a powder, snorts it all, f*cks the other 2 dogs and leaves early.

Ian D

Ian,

Please be careful with comments such as this. I'm sure the moderators won't accept such doggist posts.

Its a wuff world out there.

Steve

[Ian Dewhirst]

Oh god I see you've started on your planned holiday reading already......

Actually, I'm off with an injured foot. Somehow I knackered my left foot again so I've got to rest it for a few days. However, I'm actually planning to go through my shelves this weekend and pull out some interesting UK 70's and 80's releases.

One thing I'm finding out is that a LOT of 70's and 80's releases are rarer than people may think. I've had 125 U.S. 70's and 80's promos pulled from Discogs because no one's loaded them yet - I'll often use the issue listing and use the comment section to explain the differences between the issue and the promo. But Discogs (quite rightly) insist that the promo needs a seperate entry. I don't have time to do that, so I'm actually accumulating a big pile of unlisted stuff including the stuff that there's no entries for.

I think that there's a LOT of 70's and 80's singles which are rare on 7" - especially when albums and 12"'s were the most commercial formats. Also a lot of the 7" mixes were different to the album and 12" versions. Sometimes the 7" is massively different to the other versions and much much rarer 'cos no one was really buying 7"'s at the time.

Anyway, if I find anything interesting I'll whack 'em on here and get the thread back on track LOL.....

Ian D

[Steve G]

Yes we have veered off topic, but all very interesting nonetheless.

Roburt you have a PM...

I tell you one that should be hard at this point is a 7 of Frankie Knuckles "It's hard sometimes" - 300 pressed and yet you can still find them about in hairy old club DJ boxes etc....oops that's 90s ....sorry!

Steve

[Ian Dewhirst]

Yes we have veered off topic, but all very interesting nonetheless.

Roburt you have a PM...

I tell you one that should be hard at this point is a 7 of Frankie Knuckles "It's hard sometimes" - 300 pressed and yet you can still find them about in hairy old club DJ boxes etc....oops that's 90s ....sorry!

Steve

Actually it's still kind of relevent. When I was working @ EMI in the early 80's, it was sometimes difficult to even find the 7"! The only people who needed 'em were the radio pluggers. Quite often they'd get a basic 'service' which meant that anything that wasn't a radio priority (ie virtually all Soul releases) just got blanket-mailed to the radio stations and generally forgotten about within a week. 9 times out of 10, they'd be the ones which would be lining the promotion offices shelves and be dumped every few months. It's hardly surprising that tons of these never made it to the shops. I've often gone into thrift or junk shops in the U.S. and found 100's of the same promo record, almost like the entire pressing run had been dumped just to get rid of it and that would apply to virtually all of the majors at some point or other.

I've found 100 count boxes of Eloise Laws and Segments of Time promos in a flea market - shame I never found Billy Woods in that kind of quantity!

Also Steve, see if you can find a 7" of Satoshi Tomiie featuring Arnold Jarvis "And I Loved You" (FFRR F134). Same vibe as "It's Hard Sometimes" and equally as rare IMO.

Ian D

[Daved]

How about a 7" of "Tears" Ian? Is that supposed to be hard?

[Cunnie]

Also Steve, see if you can find a 7" of Satoshi Tomiie featuring Arnold Jarvis "And I Loved You" (FFRR F134). Same vibe as "It's Hard Sometimes" and equally as rare IMO.

Ian D

All of the FFRR 7"s can be buggers to track down. Probably as they were aimed at a market that were more associated with buying 12" vinyl I guess.

Suppose we may as well chuck Arthur Miles into this bunch too.

Just seems hard to think of them as rarities for some reason.

[Ian Dewhirst]

OK, I just did a sweep of my some of UK shelves and I think one of rarest UK has to be this:-

Love Committee - Tired Of Being Your Fool Unissued UK Pressing SPSR 427

Single-sided 7" test pressing. I guess it could be EMI when they were distributing Salsoul in the UK. Just a blank white label no writing but unmistakably Love Committee.Probably no more than a handful....

Ian D

[Ian Dewhirst]

Another nice one that I seldom see on UK Mercury....

Krystal Generation - Wanted Dead Or Alive UK Mercury 6052 121

Ian D

[Ian Dewhirst]

Anyone else got this on the UK label.....?

Hoagy Lands - Friends And Lovers Don't Go Together UK American USA 13

Ian D

Edited July 20, 2012 by Ian Dewhirst

[Guest Paul]

Another nice one that I seldom see on UK Mercury....

Krystal Generation - Wanted Dead Or Alive UK Mercury 6052 121

Ian D

And they were nice pressings, Ian.

I also have a copy with a small centre hole and it looks even better ...err, well I assume it looks a bit "sexy" to those sad people who have a strange fetish about these kind of things.

I just hope these people can get some kind of professional help one day.

[Steve G]

yes Ian I am sure I have Hoagy on a a gold UK promo.

BTW have now cleared up the First Choice saga by talking to Frank Controllio who at the time was A&R head at Motown in LA.

Frank is adamant that "Armed & Extremely dangerous" IS actually the Supremes singing. WHat happened was that Alan Lentz over at Capitol could not get the mastering right so they shipped it over to Sigma Sound in Philly. When they went to pick up the finished master it had gone and no one knew where it had gone. All they could remember was some heavy dudes leaving with a suitcase - these cats had wide brimmed floppy hats, big afros and purple trench coats and drove off in a great big cadillac with a diamond in the back. One of them was called "Stan something". I think this must be Stan Watson who ran Philly Groove? Obviously Frank is still pretty miffed by the whole saga and the fact that he lost this hit.

Edited July 20, 2012 by Steve G

[Guest Paul]

Anyone else got this on the UK label.....?

Hoagy Lands - Friends And Lovers Don't Go Together UK American USA 13

Ian D

Ian, this is quite hard to find and is extra interesting because of the flip side 'True Love At Last', a gorgeous and much overlooked beat ballad which wasn't released in the US.

So 1975 was it's first ever release but it sounds like a very early '60s recording.

Over the years I've sold copies to Manship, Tim Brown (or someone else at Anglo-American) and John Ridley.

They were all injection-moulded pressings with on-body label print. Sadly I haven't ever seen a copy with a printed paper label... wouldn't that be sexy ?

Paul

[Ian Dewhirst]

I bet no one's got this on a UK copy.....who'd have thought that a Bobby Paris/Alice Clark stomping duet would turn up on Elektra of all labels.....

Paris & Clark "Turn To Love" UK Elektra K12206

Ian D

Edited July 20, 2012 by Ian Dewhirst

[Ian Dewhirst]

I managed to find some goodies on my shelf trawl - lovely UK promos on Tommie Young, Barbara Hall, Diane Jenkins, Ray Munnings, Baby Washington, Lou Ragland, Infernal Blues Machine, The Younghearts and a few oddities....

What the hell is this.....?

I'm actually clearing down a few things so if anyone is after any of this stuff, then check the sales thread later on. They need to go to good homes.

Ian D

[Ian Dewhirst]

yes Ian I am sure I have Hoagy on a a gold UK promo.

BTW have now cleared up the First Choice saga by talking to Frank Controllio who at the time was A&R head at Motown in LA.

Frank is adamant that "Armed & Extremely dangerous" IS actually the Supremes singing. WHat happened was that Alan Lentz over at Capitol could not get the mastering right so they shipped it over to Sigma Sound in Philly. When they went to pick up the finished master it had gone and no one knew where it had gone. All they could remember was some heavy dudes leaving with a suitcase - these cats had wide brimmed floppy hats, big afros and purple trench coats and drove off in a great big cadillac with a diamond in the back. One of them was called "Stan something". I think this must be Stan Watson who ran Philly Groove? Obviously Frank is still pretty miffed by the whole saga and the fact that he lost this hit.

Yep but entirely predictable considering the spat that Rochelle Fleming and Jean Terrell had over some guy called "Nathan Jones" which is actually a First Choice outake from the rejected second Sceptre single (which Sceptre rejected for sounding like the Supremes, remember). The Supremes heard the First Choice demo tape, nicked the song and got it out whilst First Choice were between labels. Norman never forgave Motown and revenge was sweet when "Armed & Extremely Dangerous" became a huge hit........

I think Jean Terrell was pretty cheesed off about it......

Ian D

[Guest Paul]

...I'll try and be a bit more serious in future!

Ian D

I reckon that A&R meeting came to a very sudden end...

As soon as they heard that voice saying "Calling all cars, calling all cars!" they all jumped out of the window thinking the cops were about to bust in on them.

So they never got to hear the rest of the song.

And the rest of course is history, as they say.

Paul

[Steve G]

I managed to find some goodies on my shelf trawl - lovely UK promos on Tommie Young, Barbara Hall, Diane Jenkins, Ray Munnings, Baby Washington, Lou Ragland, Infernal Blues Machine, The Younghearts and a few oddities....

What the hell is this.....?

I'm actually clearing down a few things so if anyone is after any of this stuff, then check the sales thread later on. They need to go to good homes.

Ian D

If you are trying to sell some of this stuff you might need to post sound clips I'd say as not many will know some of em.

[Ian Dewhirst]

If you are trying to sell some of this stuff you might need to post sound clips I'd say as not many will know some of em.

Yep, you're right but alas I won't have time to do 'em unless they're on You Tube. That Philadelphia Disco Movers is well weird but it's a pretty pedestrian studio jam unfortunately. I'm just curious who Soulville Records Ltd were.....?

Ian D

[Greety]

A record I bought from Pete Widdison years ago, Samuel Wright on UK Paramount "Theres something strange going on". I think thats the title without digging it out.

Came out on Paramount in the States as I remember.

I've never seen another UK copy.

[Steve G]

Hi Dave, I'd say that's pretty rare - yes Paramount US very nice record too. What did you do with it?

Steve

Here's a bit on wikipedia about our man:

Samuel E. Wright (born November 20, 1946) is an American film and theater actor andsinger who is best known as the voice of Sebastian in Disney's The Little Mermaid, for which he provided the main vocals to "Under the Sea", which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Wright also played the part of Mufasa in the original cast of The Lion King on Broadway. Another accomplishment of his was voicing Kron the Iguanodon in Disney's CGIfilm Dinosaur.

Edited July 20, 2012 by Steve G

[Roburt]

Samuel E Wright 45 ........

[Ric-tic]

Roburt. I was THERE mate. I'd got into Wand/Sceptre because Mel Cheren fancied me and thus allowed me to go through the Wand/Sceptre promo cupboard in the mail-out room.

Ian D

oh no [groan] not another they chased me round and round the kitchen table story

[Ian Dewhirst]

A record I bought from Pete Widdison years ago, Samuel Wright on UK Paramount "Theres something strange going on". I think thats the title without digging it out.

Came out on Paramount in the States as I remember.

I've never seen another UK copy.

Talking of UK Paramount, I haven't seen many of these eiither:-

Stephanie Mills "I Knew It Was Love" UK Paramount PARA 3050

Ian D

[Ian Dewhirst]

I've never seen a UK copy of this even though it's got a Cat No on the acetate....

R.B. Greaves "Let'sTry It Again" Pye Acetate BTC 2203

Ian D

[Ian Dewhirst]

This is interesting - a 7" promo of a 10" record!

Nina Simone "My Baby Just Cares For Me" Charley Plug 1

Ian D

[Ian Dewhirst]

This one got lost in the shuffle but it's actually great...

Showstoppers "Baby Don't Leave Me Standing In The Pouring Rain" UK Beacon BEA 110

Ian D

[Greety]

Talking of UK Paramount, I haven't seen many of these eiither:-

Stephanie Mills "I Knew It Was Love" UK Paramount PARA 3050

Ian D

Hi Dave, I'd say that's pretty rare - yes Paramount US very nice record too. What did you do with it?

Steve

Here's a bit on wikipedia about our man:

Samuel E. Wright (born November 20, 1946) is an American film and theater actor andsinger who is best known as the voice of Sebastian in Disney's The Little Mermaid, for which he provided the main vocals to "Under the Sea", which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Wright also played the part of Mufasa in the original cast of The Lion King on Broadway. Another accomplishment of his was voicing Kron the Iguanodon in Disney's CGIfilm Dinosaur.

Hi Steve.

Still have it. Factory sticker demo.

Re our man Sam I heard a Lion King track played on Radio 2 a while back. And the dj gave our man a mention. At least that is one soul singer who should have carved a decent career for himself.

[Steve G]

Dave Greet wrote

Hi Steve.

Still have it. Factory sticker demo.

Re our man Sam I heard a Lion King track played on Radio 2 a while back. And the dj gave our man a mention. At least that is one soul singer who should have carved a decent career for himself.

Yes Dave great that he made it to the big time when so many don't.

PS: If you ever want to sell your UK copy let me know please....a good home awaits....

See you soon

Steve

Edited July 21, 2012 by Steve G

[Roburt]

I don't think many of the UK Paramount label soul 45's are about in any quantity.

.... I know (Sth Yorks) John Benson has copies of quite a few of em ....

.... I only have copies of a couple (the fine James Phelps "Check Yourself" from March 72 being one of em).

The Stephanie Mills track was included on her 1st ABC LP wasn't it ?? (Paramount Pictures lost interest in the record label and sold it off to ABC).

Edited July 21, 2012 by Roburt

[Guest Paul]

Here are two UK Paramount (EMI) singles I have:

PARA 3038 : Michael Olatunji - Soul Makossa (Part 1) / (Part 2)

PARA 3039 : Len Barry - It's Time To Fall In Love (All Over Again) / Touching, Holding, Feeling

Both are promos and were issued mid 1973 towards the end of the series.

Paul

[Roburt]

Mark Radice had 2 x 45's out on UK Paramount.

He was the son of a top recording engineer & this helped him land a record deal with RCA (in the 60's) at the age of 7 (!!). He was working with Jerry Ross in the early to mid 70's and then he hooked up with Brass Construction for a few tracks.

He later went on to work on Sesame Street & the Muppits, no doubt a well paying job.

[Roburt]

A later Mark Radice effort ......

[Roburt]

More Radice & Brass Construction .....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpXQIzvaDmQ

[Steve G]

This UK Paramount stuff if fascinating. Got a rack full of US ones, quite a few goodies, but my UK shelves are nearly bare - two x Linda Clifford, 1 issue, one demo, and the Stephanie Mills in a company sleeve. I should probably start collecting em

[Louise]

During a conversation with Pete Wid at Cleethorpes the subject of a English record I had forgot about came up:

Sweet Pea Atkinson 'Don't Walk Away' on the tiny Zing label.

It's a cover version of the General Johnson song on Arista

Dave

[Shsdave]

I managed to find some goodies on my shelf trawl - lovely UK promos on Tommie Young, Barbara Hall, Diane Jenkins, Ray Munnings, Baby Washington, Lou Ragland, Infernal Blues Machine, The Younghearts and a few oddities....

What the hell is this.....?

I'm actually clearing down a few things so if anyone is after any of this stuff, then check the sales thread later on. They need to go to good homes.

Ian D

Got one of these somewhere, from memory (& I did only play it once when I was almost young!) its' er....... not very good

[Steve G]

During a conversation with Pete Wid at Cleethorpes the subject of a English record I had forgot about came up:

Sweet Pea Atkinson 'Don't Walk Away' on the tiny Zing label.

It's a cover version of the General Johnson song on Arista

Dave

Interesting and reminds me didn't G C Cameron Live for life come out on a 7 as well as a 12? V Rare though.

[Roburt]

During a conversation with Pete Wid at Cleethorpes the subject of a English record I had forgot about came up:

Sweet Pea Atkinson 'Don't Walk Away' on the tiny Zing label.

It's a cover version of the General Johnson song on Arista

Dave

I have a copy of the S.P.At. 45 .... thought it was on an Island label (was Zing distributed by Island). It's been a while since I pulled it out though (the 45), so my memory may be playing tricks on me.

[Roburt]

Interesting and reminds me didn't G C Cameron Live for life come out on a 7 as well as a 12? V Rare though.

Yep, the GC 45 came out on UK 45.

When it was a new release, I came across a bunch of em in the Nottinghill branch of R&T. Didn't realise how rare it was, so only bought 2 copies of it.

Sold one to them there Lancastrians at a Withernsea Hotel soul do a few days later.

[Louise]

I have a copy of the S.P.At. 45 .... thought it was on an Island label (was Zing distributed by Island). It's been a while since I pulled it out though (the 45), so my memory may be playing tricks on me.

Hi Roburt

It's a very pale green label from what i can remember, with not that much details on.

See if you can find your copy out and put a scan up, thus putting us all out of our misery

[Roburt]

Dozens of boxes of 45's here & no idea which one to look in to find the Sweet Pea At 45 ....

........ so will this do instead ......... it shows the LP but the label is the same ...

Edited July 21, 2012 by Roburt

[Roburt]

It was on an Island label .... & it wasn't called Zing, it was Ze ...

.. I'm sure my 45 came in a piccy sleeve which was why I can't recall what the label looks like ...........

............ Produced by Was Not Was ........

Edited July 21, 2012 by Roburt

[Roburt]

Found a scan of the 45 piccy cova ............

[Louise]

It was on an Island label .... & it wasn't called Zing, it was Ze ...

.. I'm sure my 45 came in a piccy sleeve which was why I can't recall what the label looks like ...........

............ Produced by Was Not Was ........

It must have been released twice as there are most definitely pale green issues too with the same logo design in black as your scan Roburt

Edited July 21, 2012 by Louise

[Roburt]

I think it was the A side of one 12" / 45 ... & then ... the B side of a 2nd release on Ze.

[Steve G]

I also have a 7 of S.P.A.....Found it at ANdy's Records in Peterborough many years ago 10p

[Guest Paul]

Zing was one of my labels in the late '80s and early '90s. There was no demand for 7" singles at the time but, looking back, I wish we'd done some.

I wasn't familiar with that Sweat Pea Atkinson on Ze Records but I always loved the song by General Johnson anyway.

Through Millbrand / Selrec I control the GC Cameron songs and masters which came out on Flamingo and I licensed an alternative mix of 'Live For Love' to Soul Brother / Passion etc a few years ago. Coincidentally I recently had a license request from a company to issue a 7" edit of 'Live For Love' (with an unissued track on the flip) so that will happen soon.

The tracks were from a 1980 LP project for Honey Records (distributed by Fantasy in the US) but the album never came out. I have the LP masters here but to be honest only one of the unissued tracks is really of interest to soul fans because GC was aiming for a different kind of sound at that time.

By the way, the Flamingo label was owned by publishers Peterman & Co (which was run by Mike Collier of Carlin Music) and licensed to Magnet with distribution thru RCA. And those records were pressed at the RCA plant in Washington, up here in the north east of England, just a few miles from my home at the time. They were made out of coal (just kidding).

From the very late 1970s a lot of good soul records were (and are) often overlooked by soul fans (myself included) because the golden days of soul were over and expectations were low.

Take the Eddie Floyd record I issued on Shotgun a few years ago, it was actually recorded back in 1979 for an album which was almost released by Arista in the US but they obviously had other priorities.

This is a great thread, by the way, because so many UK records were overlooked and are now very hard to find. The initial batch quantities of UK pressings were usually quite small because our market was (and is) so small in comparison to the US. That explains why many UK issues are so much more hard to find than US issues. And only a few promo copies were needed for the UK, whereas you could use a couple of thousand promos in the US to service all the stations etc.

So how many promo copies, for example, would EMI have made (and circulated) when they issued 'A Lover's Reward' by Tommy Tate on UK Columbia back in 1966? Did the press 300, or even less, and did they actually send many out to radio stations? And that was 46 years ago so no wonder these records should be cherished.

And if we can include test pressings of unissued or withdrawn UK releases there are some seriously rare records, things which maybe only 5 or 6 copies (or less) ever existed for quality control purposes.

I think the first six or seven Ardent singles were on 7", after that it was all 12" singles but we also did 7" test pressings of two which were never issued.

I did a few productions for Ardent and Zing which didn't get past the test pressing stage, one at EMI, and of the six copies made I don't even have one myself. The late 1980s or early 1990s may seem quite recent until we stop and think that more than twenty years have passed since then.

Luckily my good friend Scott Taylor kept a test pressing of a track I produced on GC Cameron in 1992 so at least I can borrow it back and look at it when I'm feeling nostalgic! And one day I'll release it anyway.

Another example, when I licensed the UK mixes of 'My House' and 'Foolish' by GC Cameron for the Grapevine GSX 12" series in 2002 (or whenever) we almost did a 7" single with different edits but it was cancelled and only one pair of 14" production lacquers exist. I don't think we even did a test pressing but if we did it will be scarce.

There's also a test press of a Lighthouse Family thing I worked on before we did the Polydor deal. There are three copies out there somewhere. And there's the original unissued (and superior) version of 'Ocean Drive' which we did in 1993. As I get older I start to value these "trivial" things more.

It's okay to have a master tape copy or whatever but there's something very precious about a vinyl copy. If only I'd kept a few copies of everything.

I admit I was a bit "frustrated" when there was a huge European demand recently for the Ted Ford record I'd issued back in 1979 when I was a youngster. I could have sold hundreds of copies (some sold for £400 each at the peak of its demand) but, guess what, all I had was one good copy and a one-off test pressing which I didn't want to part with for sentimental reasons. People assumed I'd have boxes full of them but more than thirty years had passed. At least I released it again (and actually sold some this time) and licensed it to Joey Negro's Z Records for a retro disco compilation.

Anyway, sorry for wandering off-topic a bit (or a lot) but there must be some amazing rare and fascinating UK records out there which are very hard to value in both financial and sentimental terms.

Paul

[Guest Paul]

PX 104

I raved over this as a new release so I was pleased that it eventually become quite popular.

I've no idea what this EMI test pressing would be would be worth in financial terms (it's about demand rather than actual rarity) but if I ever sold it I wouldn't expect to find another copy.

I have an issue and a promo but the test pressings were first off the press so they (in theory) were the highest quality before the stampers gradually started to deteriorate with wear as more copies were pressed.

I'm not really a collector and I'm not into rare records as such, but it's certainly nice (and sentimental?) to have a "special" copy of a track you love so much.

The more I love a record, the more it's worth to me, so some of my UK promos and test pressings are priceless to me even though they might not have much financial value to others.

Paul