Andantes - (Like A) Nightmare

[Sunnysoul]

One of the great Motown rarities and not often seen for sale.

 

This one finished yesterday at $3,366.77

 

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/THE-ANDANTES-northern-soul-Motown-45-Like-A-Nightmare-If-You-Were-Mine-VIP-/310946368375?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEWAX%3AIT&_trksid=p2047675.l2557&nma=true&si=IynSCx6oTsMqaci9cEPGK4tH%252FEE%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

 

What is the generally accepted view on how many of these would have been pressed up at the time?

[Guest Polyvelts]

A nice pay day for Brad Hales ! Wish there was a Peoples Records shop in London !

 

PS I won the Dani Raye in the same sale for $5.99 in case anyones interested

[NEV]

A nice pay day for Brad Hales ! Wish there was a Peoples Records shop in London !

PS I won the Dani Raye in the same sale for $5.99 in case anyones interested

Only if your selling it for $6.99

[Zanetti]

 

 

PS I won the Dani Raye in the same sale for $5.99 in case anyones interested

[Soulhawk]

I thought it would go for more

 

[Robbk]

Originally, I thought that only the 6 stock pressing plant test copies were pressed up, with 2 being retained by the pressing plant (which Ron Murphy eventually got-and later sold), and 4 copies going to Motown, 2 to Berry Gordy, 1 to The Motown Record File, 1 to The Jobete Music File, and 1 to Quality Control.  I'm beginning to wonder if for this and Soul 35019, there wasn't a regular press run and shipment to a Detroit distributor, and subsequent call back with order to destroy them, and some "escaped".  Unlike the Frank Wilson, there seem to have been NO DJ copies pressed.

[Steve G]

And I wonder who was Elvin B Roper…….

[boba]

I don't believe this or the patrice holloway had only 6 pressed. One thing I think people never understand is that most records that got "into the wild" haven't survived. People think because there was some ultra rare record there must have been 50 pressed or something when in reality there was more likely 1000 pressed, a lot of the stock never distributed and discarded, and out of the 200-300 that got into people's hands, most were thrown away. The idea that there could be 6 records pressed, all of them getting into regular people's collections, and not have almost all of them thrown away is very unlikely.

[Robbk]

Both the Andantes and Frank Wilson probably had 500 or 1000 pressed up, and were both recalled, and per Berry Gordy's instructions, were destroyed before being distributed.  Those that did escape other than the official Motown file copies and pressing plant test pressings were probably lifted while at the distributor, before the destruction order was given.  I'm sure that none ever got to shops in Chicago.  I'd bet none never even got to shops in Detroit.

[Soulhawk]

I spoke to the consignor of this record & he claimed he got it from Jackie Hicks when she was moving house

 

not sure I believe him

 

[Guest Aaron Darcy]

I spoke to the consignor of this record & he claimed he got it from Jackie Hicks when she was moving house

 

not sure I believe him

 

same here

[Guest Aaron Darcy]

considering not a great copy ' Brad did well with the auction

[boba]

considering not a great copy ' Brad did well with the auction

 

for ultra-rarities collectors can't be as picky. i don't think the price was super high. the only other copy i think i've seen was a manship auction, has it been on ebay before?

[Mick Boyle]

Laverne brought her copy over to Prestatyn on one of her visits

Dave Tidswell sold it for her

[Guest Polyvelts]

I don't believe this or the patrice holloway had only 6 pressed. One thing I think people never understand is that most records that got "into the wild" haven't survived. People think because there was some ultra rare record there must have been 50 pressed or something when in reality there was more likely 1000 pressed, a lot of the stock never distributed and discarded, and out of the 200-300 that got into people's hands, most were thrown away. The idea that there could be 6 records pressed, all of them getting into regular people's collections, and not have almost all of them thrown away is very unlikely.

 

 

When my wife saw a mouse in our house she always insisted on referring to it as 'the' mouse, because she had only ever seen one at a time (and they all looked the same) she couldn never accept the possibility that underneath the floorboards we were most probably overrun with the little f**kers !!

Edited May 9, 2014 by Polyvelts

[Soulhawk]

for ultra-rarities collectors can't be as picky. i don't think the price was super high. the only other copy i think i've seen was a manship auction, has it been on ebay before?

 

the record was VERY undergraded ( IMHO)

 

I looked at the runout deadwax & didn't find the usual ARP stamp( which is typical of non-RCA Motown pressings of that time) - my guess is the this was a very limited run

Edited May 9, 2014 by soulhawk

[Robbk]

the record was VERY undergraded ( IMHO)

 

I looked at the runout deadwax & didn't find the usual ARP stamp( which is typical of non-RCA Motown pressings of that time) - my guess is the this was a very limited run

That is what I had always heard.  Maybe this was a "vanity" press run, just for Berry to provide concrete records for The Andantes' personal desires, similar to Miss Ray's tiny run of Miracle 2.  Berry had promised them a record, but had no intention of letting them make personal appearances or go on the road to promote their record.  He wanted them singing backgrounds in the studio every day.  Maybe this is similar to his favours of letting a record get pressed for DJs Joel Sebastian and Tom Clay.  Maybe only a box of 50 were run (plus the 6 press run test records).

[Pete S]

for ultra-rarities collectors can't be as picky. i don't think the price was super high. the only other copy i think i've seen was a manship auction, has it been on ebay before?

 

I remember maybe 10 years ago there was an online store in the USA selling a copy, they claimed to have one copy of everything sort of thing, they had scans of it..

[Cover-up]

Both the Andantes and Frank Wilson probably had 500 or 1000 pressed up, and were both recalled, and per Berry Gordy's instructions, were destroyed before being distributed.  Those that did escape other than the official Motown file copies and pressing plant test pressings were probably lifted while at the distributor, before the destruction order was given.  I'm sure that none ever got to shops in Chicago.  I'd bet none never even got to shops in Detroit.

 

It's not comparing like with like, but probably the most famous withdrawn record in the UK is the Sex Pistols on A&M. I suspect given the buzz around the band, a load of copies got pinched on their way back to the pressing plant. And a box of 100 or so was allegedly kept by the label.

 

if the Andantes was withdrawn, who would have thought "oh, that'll be worth keeping a few copies of?" Presumably they were completely unheard of?

[Andy Rix]

Robb K ... sent you a pm days ago

 

Check your in=box

 

Andy

[Robbk]

It's not comparing like with like, but probably the most famous withdrawn record in the UK is the Sex Pistols on A&M. I suspect given the buzz around the band, a load of copies got pinched on their way back to the pressing plant. And a box of 100 or so was allegedly kept by the label.

 

if the Andantes was withdrawn, who would have thought "oh, that'll be worth keeping a few copies of?" Presumably they were completely unheard of?

I was around in 1964, collecting records (and collecting ALL Motown releases).  And I knew several others like me in Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles and San Francisco (and there were others in the other major cities), who did the same.  I had friends working at distributorships (and a couple record shops) in Chicago, that would pull one of each new Motown release for me.  So I KNOW that The Andantes record NEVER got to Chicago distributors.  It probably only got to its main Detroit distributor before it was recalled.  It must have gotten there, because more copies of the record (at least 9 or 10) have turned up than the pressing plant 6 test copies (used for Motown official copies).  I KNOW that there were at least a couple collectors that worked for Detroit's distributors who would have grabbed some copies of any Motown record which was "pulled back" and slated for destruction.  The fact that The Andantes had never had a hit had no bearing.  By 1964, many collectors bought ALL Motown releases.  And those were the very type of people who worked in record stores and record distributorships.

[Louise]

As quoted by John Anderson today:

He remembers buying a soul radio Dj's collection from Baltimore in the 70's which included a copy of the Andantes.The majority of the collection were demo copies, but the Andantes was a issue with a drill hole through the label, a usual practice when records went to the cut outs and usually done while theiy were still in their boxes (hence why sometimes the drill hole goes through the run out groove). Whether this was a single 25 count box or one of several who knows ?This particular copy went to Levine for the princely sum some of 15 quid.

Dave

[Cover-up]

I was around in 1964, collecting records (and collecting ALL Motown releases).  And I knew several others like me in Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles and San Francisco (and there were others in the other major cities), who did the same.  I had friends working at distributorships (and a couple record shops) in Chicago, that would pull one of each new Motown release for me.  So I KNOW that The Andantes record NEVER got to Chicago distributors.  It probably only got to its main Detroit distributor before it was recalled.  It must have gotten there, because more copies of the record (at least 9 or 10) have turned up than the pressing plant 6 test copies (used for Motown official copies).  I KNOW that there were at least a couple collectors that worked for Detroit's distributors who would have grabbed some copies of any Motown record which was "pulled back" and slated for destruction.  The fact that The Andantes had never had a hit had no bearing.  By 1964, many collectors bought ALL Motown releases.  And those were the very type of people who worked in record stores and record distributorships.

 

Always love reading your accounts of collecting at the time, great knowledge dropped as usual...

[Robbk]

Robb K ... sent you a pm days ago

 

Check your in=box

 

Andy

Thanks Andy.  I've replied.

[Sunnysoul]

Robb , I don't for one second doubt your immense knowledge and experience but I have always had a problem accepting the often repeated part of the story that Berry Gordy recalled all existing copies of records like Frank Wilson and Andantes and then ordered them to be destroyed.

 

I'm not trying to be facetious here but  ... are we seriously  suggesting that Berry ordered a junior intern to go to the trouble of going outside with a sledgehammer and literally pounding them all into a thousand pieces ?

 

Surely it would have been easier to just throw them in the trash, or just tell the distributor to do so?

 

If by chance,  by some huge miracle , a copy found its way into the hands of a popular local Detroit DJ who then played it on the radio and then started getting calls from listeners on it , Berry Gordy could still just as easily kill the record in an instant anyway by simply not pressing it up for commercial release.

 

But, as I say, I bow to your great knowledge and experience and would be happy to be corrected by you.

Edited May 12, 2014 by sunnysoul

[Tony Smith]

Thought it was a very fair price for a genuinely rare record.

[Simon T]

but the Andantes was a issue with a drill hole through the label, a usual practice when records went to the cut outs and usually done while theiy were still in their boxes

I've never seen a copy / scan of record with a drill hole, has anyone? (or the Patrice Holloway either)

[Robbk]

Robb , I don't for one second doubt your immense knowledge and experience but I have always had a problem accepting the often repeated part of the story that Berry Gordy recalled all existing copies of records like Frank Wilson and Andantes and then ordered them to be destroyed.

 

I'm not trying to be facetious here but  ... are we seriously  suggesting that Berry ordered a junior intern to go to the trouble of going outside with a sledgehammer and literally pounding them all into a thousand pieces ?  :lol:

 

Surely it would have been easier to just throw them in the trash, or just tell the distributor to do so?

 

If by chance,  by some huge miracle , a copy found its way into the hands of a popular local Detroit DJ who then played it on the radio and then started getting calls from listeners on it , Berry Gordy could still just as easily kill the record in an instant anyway by simply not pressing it up for commercial release.

 

But, as I say, I bow to your great knowledge and experience and would be happy to be corrected by you.

If there was already a commercial  press run at the pressing plant, and the lot was not yet sent to a distributor, Motown would have ordered the pressing plant to have the records melted down.  The pressing plants' record plastic suppliers often picked up unwanted/unsellable records at the distributors.  So, if The Andantes' record DID get to Detroit distributors, and Gordy ordered the record cancelled, they'd have ordered the plastic company to pick all the pressed Andantes' records with their next general pickup of unwanted records from those distributors.  If The Andantes' record boxes were marked for melt down (plastic company pick-up), you can bet that workers at the distributorship would have lifted several, given that they were a Motown product (ESPECIALLY because the plastic companies would NOT count how many were in each box).  But, some workers would have "lifted" one here or there as soon as those boxes arrived at the distributor.  I think that is how ALL the extra non-inside Motown copies remained safe from meltdown.  I don't think any copies got to record shops, and very, very few, if any got to DJs.  No white DJ copies were pressed, and (to my knowledge) no yellow issues were found with any promotor stamp (like Gil Bogos, or any of the others Motown used) to provide to DJs.  It was not played in Chicago.  After Toledo and Cleveland, Chicago was always first to receive Motown product, back in the early/mid '60s.  But I've asked Ron Murphy, Carl Pellagrino, Spyder Turner, Kris Peterson, Clay MacMurray, Stu Bass, The Count, Ray Monette, Dennis Coffey, and other Detroiters who were around then.  They said they never heard The Andantes' record played on the radio in 1964, and never saw it sold commercially in a shop in Detroit.  I was listening to Detroit's Soul radio stations in 1964.  I didn't hear it played.

 

The talk around, including on the inside of Motown, was that Berry called the record back (e.g. cancelled the issue and had any pressed up records destroyed, except the company file copies (and maybe personal copies of the group?)).  We need Louvain Demps to tell us exactly what happened.  But, I believe what I've stated here is what she told us.  I can't remember from what sources I've heard what, but I  seem to remember hearing that Berry told The Andantes that he needed them more to sing backup in the studio, and that he decided that they were too valuable to let them go on the road to promote their own records, so he had decided to NOT issue their record after all, but to make it worth their while, he would raise their salaries.  Let's ask Louvain for her view on what happened.

Edited May 13, 2014 by RobbK

[Sunnysoul]