Previously Unissued Andrew Smith & Ann Franklin 45's

[Dave Thorley]

10 copies of each to go !!!!! £20 each +P&P

Previously Unissued Andrew Smith & Ann Franklin 45's

Another stunning unissued 60's Detroit slice see the light of day !!!!!!

So the story goes like this. Many years ago I was mooching round in the basement of Ernest Kelly in Detroit and came across a bunch of acetates. Most of them were 10” acetates from his Geneva releases, plus a few others including a five track 12” acetate credited to Andrew Smith. Andrew is another of those unsung Detroit hero’s, a skilled drummer, who was highly regarded by his peers. He worked in later line ups of The Funk Brothers and then moved to the East Coast, when Motown went west. In his early days he played on recordings for the Four Tops, Temptations, Spinners, Marvin Gaye, Dennis Coffey and Rodriguez, such was his versatility. Once on the East Coast he played with Bob James, Yoko Ono, Hubert Laws, Eric Gale and many others.

I asked Ernest what the story was on this acetate, he told me that Andrew had gone into the studio late one night with a bunch of friends and cut these tracks. Once completed he then took it to Berry Gordy with ambitions of becoming an artist in his own right, but Berry said he was better suited to being a drummer. Somewhat disheartened he gave the disc to Ernest and asked him to shop it round to see if he could get him a deal, but sadly this came to nothing and so the disc languished in the basement until I came across it. I have had it over 20 years, playing on my radio show and occasional outings at specialist events. One problem has always been that it was very trebly, as often can be the case with acetate recordings.

I’ve often been asked why not put it out, but I’ve never had the skills to do a re-mastered, which it needed. But now with my association with Cannonball records, this has now been done. So in a month or so time one of the gems from this acetate is to see the light of day.

HEAR IT HERE https://youtu.be/6PjQWB5F9c8

 

CBLL015 & CBLL016 RELEASE ALERT!

We have been very busy in the last weeks because we wanted to be ready for the end of november with these 2 little numbers but of course we couldn't make it. Time flies and when you look after refining a record you know there's no deadline, though you gotta stop it at some point unless you want projects to stay in the clouds of your fucked up brain for ever ha ha. That said!

CBLL015 - Ann Franklin "Movin' On"

check it out here

HEAR IT HEAR https://youtu.be/hgbaYazlMYE

This is the second production in the pipeline we have mutually set up with master Rob Sevier at Numero Group. Like all the raw material we have lined up to this project, this recording comes from a reel tape and look, the original demo version (B side, 2nd half of the video) is a 75 bpm example of what soul vocals are all about, Depth & Vibe Inc. The singer here is Ann Franklin, a reliable vocalist who backed as a shifter almost all the great bands in Chicago area but sadly never got to release something on her own. We really struggled to find our way in the arrangement for the side A and it pushed us to part with our "dancefloor perspective" for a while, so we decided to go for a plain simple completion of the sound, speeding it up just a very little and playing the instruments as a hommage to the lead singer. Anyway, as usual find it on our website and if you like it please make it yours! (Limited to 300)

www.cannonballsoul.com

CBLL016 - Andrew Smith "You Came Into My Life"

check it out here

https://youtu.be/6PjQWB5F9c8

A well known member of our Investigation Department, officer Dave Thorley, tracked down this recording back in the early 00's and I invite you to go on Dave's timeline to read the full story because we don't want this post to become a whole Christmas reading haha. I just tell you the man was a legendary motown drummer and producer who one day went to Mr. Gordy and said...... (Limited to 500)