Calling All Rare Uk Soul & Tamla Connoisseurs

[Guest thierry]

dear all

as most of you i mainly collect US 45s, but being continental and based in Belgium i always had a soft spot as well for the french Eps, dutch ps releases and of course the ones released in this country .

There isn't a lot of secret anymore about the french and dutch releases since they have been well documented over the years in various magazines , books and nowadays on the net .

Belgium is another story, no real archives and it's really a tough job to find any information from what has been released over here . Most of the archives from the record companies importing or licensing soul and R&B records in Belgium have been thrown away when those record companies closed .

I have been collecting for more than a quarter of a century now and there is some of that stuff that never turns up . Before the French Tamla Motown EPs and the dutch Artone releases , a Belgian company called Ronnex imported several "Tamla series" on Oriole to Belgium and added a picture sleeve to them to make them more attractive and usually to hang above the Juke Boxes in the bars .

I have the following releases with picture sleeves :

45 CBA 1762 MARY WELLS : You beat me to the punch

45 CBA 1763 THE CONTOURS : Do You Love Me

45 CBA 1799 THE CONTOURS : Shake sherry

45 CBA 1803 MARVIN GAYE : Stubborn Kind of fellow

45 CBA 1808 EDDIE HOLLAND : If it's love it's allright .

i would say that the two Contours ones are pretty easy to locate , but the 3 other ones are rare as finding a briefcase containing one million pounds on the street . On the back of the sleeves they also mention Beechwood 4-5789 by the Marvelettes .

Now i was wondering if anybody has ever seen or heard about a copy with a Ronnex picture sleeve ?

my second question is concerning the Tamla Motown shows in the UK and continental Europe during the sixties . Is there a site (not being lazy, but i just couldn't locate one) that has all the tour dates , i came accross Beatles, Rolling Stones and many other sixties bands ones but nothing Motown or related . I know that sometimes they are really well hidden and don't show up on google .

the scans of the Oriole issues with Belgian picture sleves are planned to appear in one of the next issues of There's that beat . (hope you enjoyed the european soul eps and picture sleeves in the last issue )

thank you for reading and any info will be very much appreciated .

kind regards

Thierry

[slimharpo]

dear all

as most of you i mainly collect US 45s, but being continental and based in Belgium i always had a soft spot as well for the french Eps, dutch ps releases and of course the ones released in this country .

There isn't a lot of secret anymore about the french and dutch releases since they have been well documented over the years in various magazines , books and nowadays on the net .

Belgium is another story, no real archives and it's really a tough job to find any information from what has been released over here . Most of the archives from the record companies importing or licensing soul and R&B records in Belgium have been thrown away when those record companies closed .

I have been collecting for more than a quarter of a century now and there is some of that stuff that never turns up . Before the French Tamla Motown EPs and the dutch Artone releases , a Belgian company called Ronnex imported several "Tamla series" on Oriole to Belgium and added a picture sleeve to them to make them more attractive and usually to hang above the Juke Boxes in the bars .

I have the following releases with picture sleeves :

45 CBA 1762 MARY WELLS : You beat me to the punch

45 CBA 1763 THE CONTOURS : Do You Love Me

45 CBA 1799 THE CONTOURS : Shake sherry

45 CBA 1803 MARVIN GAYE : Stubborn Kind of fellow

45 CBA 1808 EDDIE HOLLAND : If it's love it's allright .

i would say that the two Contours ones are pretty easy to locate , but the 3 other ones are rare as finding a briefcase containing one million pounds on the street . On the back of the sleeves they also mention Beechwood 4-5789 by the Marvelettes .

Now i was wondering if anybody has ever seen or heard about a copy with a Ronnex picture sleeve ?

my second question is concerning the Tamla Motown shows in the UK and continental Europe during the sixties . Is there a site (not being lazy, but i just couldn't locate one) that has all the tour dates , i came accross Beatles, Rolling Stones and many other sixties bands ones but nothing Motown or related . I know that sometimes they are really well hidden and don't show up on google .

the scans of the Oriole issues with Belgian picture sleves are planned to appear in one of the next issues of There's that beat . (hope you enjoyed the european soul eps and picture sleeves in the last issue )

thank you for reading and any info will be very much appreciated .

kind regards

Thierry

There is a nice article on www.guardian.co.uk when you get on the site tap in 'are you ready for a brand new beat' into their search engine. The article is dated March 2005 and commemorates 40 years since the first Motown Review landed here and names a number of the venues. Georgie Fame who had Yeh Yeh out had to be added to the tour because ticket sales were so bad! The article includes this quote 'one eye witnress records less than 200 people at the ABC in Chester'. I was one of those 200 (if that many) and had bought a cheap seat at the back but the MC came out and brought us all down to the front to add 'atmosphere'. Soul Sam was there and gave me a lift home! I still have the programme from the show which as you can guess was awesome.

[Guest thierry]

There is a nice article on www.guardian.co.uk when you get on the site tap in 'are you ready for a brand new beat' into their search engine. The article is dated March 2005 and commemorates 40 years since the first Motown Review landed here and names a number of the venues. Georgie Fame who had Yeh Yeh out had to be added to the tour because ticket sales were so bad! The article includes this quote 'one eye witnress records less than 200 people at the ABC in Chester'. I was one of those 200 (if that many) and had bought a cheap seat at the back but the MC came out and brought us all down to the front to add 'atmosphere'. Soul Sam was there and gave me a lift home! I still have the programme from the show which as you can guess was awesome.

Excellent, thank you .

the tamla motown show stopped also in Paris in 1965 @ the famous "Olympia" .

the programme announces :

act 1

Earl Van Dyke sextet

Martha and The Vandellas

Stevie Wonder

act 2

Earl Van Dyke Sextet

The Supremes

Smokey Robinson & The Miracles

final

with all the artists

[Guest biggray1]

Hi Teirry,is there any way you coul post scans of the 45s and pic sleeves,i have some uk orioles but never seen Belgium releases,hav lots of Euro Pic sleve motown 45s and 70% of the Uk eps..be nice to see them..Graham

[Mike Lofthouse]

my second question is concerning the Tamla Motown shows in the UK and continental Europe during the sixties . Is there a site (not being lazy, but i just couldn't locate one) that has all the tour dates , i came accross Beatles, Rolling Stones and many other sixties bands ones but nothing Motown or related . I know that sometimes they are really well hidden and don't show up on google .

Thierry

Thierry

you might find this previous thread useful -tour dates and a nice poster in there

https://www.soul-source.co.uk/Motown-...use#entry404678

Mike

[Guest thierry]

Thierry

you might find this previous thread useful -tour dates and a nice poster in there

https://www.soul-source.co.uk/Motown-...use#entry404678

Mike

fantastic Mike, thank you 1000 times .

exactly what i was looking for , so Paris seemed to be the only continental date .

[Guest thierry]

Hi Teirry,is there any way you coul post scans of the 45s and pic sleeves,i have some uk orioles but never seen Belgium releases,hav lots of Euro Pic sleve motown 45s and 70% of the Uk eps..be nice to see them..Graham

Hello Graham

i usually like to share things with everybody, but i promised Dave Moore not to post anything before the article would be published in the magazine . And i haven't finished all my researches either, but you will not be disapointed once it's published .

The Oriole 45s where standard UK issues but with that little extra , the belgian sleeves .

It took me some time to get the 3 mega super rare ones and seeing them all together with the Contours ones will be really nice . As i said earlier the Contours ones are the most common, but in the last 26 years i've only seen twice the Eddie Holland and the Marvin Gaye ones and only one copyu of the Mary Wells one . They are printed on really thin fragile paper and god knows how many survived, the records inside the sleeves usually come with punched holes, so i assume they where played in jukeboxes .

I picked up an unplayed Mint Copy of The Contours "Shake Sherry" , last year from a record shop that closed it's doors end of 1965 .

It gave me a good idea of what was on offer it the Belgian shops in those days, it was a mixture of french Eps, Uk issues, dutch , belgian and german 45s .

Recently i also acquired a Marvelettes one on a tiny belgian label, this is the first Tamla 7" licensed in Belgium . Hardly any dealer or collector where aware of this release, unfortunately the two copies known do not have picture sleeves . But on saturday night i bumped into a belgian soul/popcorn collector who claims to have a copy with picture sleeve ... so lets wait and see .

best regards

Thierry

[MotownDave]

hi do you know how many of the oriole release were issued in belgum with picture sleaves? there are 19 uk oriole release in total did they all get picture sleaves? would be nice to see them. ive only got the uk issues well 15 of the 19 would be interested to see what did get the pic sleave treatment .ATB Dave T

[Guest thierry]

hi do you know how many of the oriole release were issued in belgum with picture sleaves? there are 19 uk oriole release in total did they all get picture sleaves? would be nice to see them. ive only got the uk issues well 15 of the 19 would be interested to see what did get the pic sleave treatment .ATB Dave T

hello Dave

except the ones that i mentioned in my initial post, and maybe the Marvelettes but not sure . That's it and by the end of '63 Artone Holland licensed and took care of the tamla releases for the netherlands and belgium so no UK orioles anymore via Ronnex .

best regards

Thierry

[MotownDave]

Hi Theirry

You have to wonder what prompted Ronnex to issue those 5/6 singles they are not the most obvious releases given that the Eddie Holland is about as common as hens teeth in the uk as well did they get a choice or where they told what they could have must have been a facinating meeting the day the deal was done.still questions that will never be answered i dont suppose but perplexing all the same

Dave T

[Guest thierry]

Hi Theirry

You have to wonder what prompted Ronnex to issue those 5/6 singles they are not the most obvious releases given that the Eddie Holland is about as common as hens teeth in the uk as well did they get a choice or where they told what they could have must have been a facinating meeting the day the deal was done.still questions that will never be answered i dont suppose but perplexing all the same

Dave T

Hi Dave

can you imagine my face the first time i discovered my first copy of Eddie Holland, i just could not beleive it .

I swapped it for a rare dutch marvin gaye 45 on Artone, that was in the mid 80s and it's only recently in 2008 that i digged out a second copy and beleive me i'm always on the look out for records .

Now the only problem is that we will probably never know exactly how the decisions were made since, Albert Van Hoogten owner of Ronnex records has passed away . I met him once , but was still very young (and he was already an old man) at the time and the All HISTORY around the releases was not a priority for me at the time, i was just trying to get as much good music as possible .

have a great week end

Thierry

[Guest vinylvixen]

hello Dave

except the ones that i mentioned in my initial post, and maybe the Marvelettes but not sure . That's it and by the end of '63 Artone Holland licensed and took care of the tamla releases for the netherlands and belgium so no UK orioles anymore via Ronnex .

best regards

Thierry

Thierry, I know John Schroeder who set up the deal with Motown/ Oriole. If you send me all the questions you'd like to know about the releases, I'll ask John. Also, the export information for Tamla/ Stateside 45s is held in the British Library - try their website to see if you can access any of the company data on-line. The numbers exported to each non UK country is documented on a card. For instance, when I was the Universal Archivist, I found the export figures for 'All along the Watchtower' by Hendrix. 118 copies were initially exported to Holland and 1 to Aden!!!!

Jo

Edited January 13, 2009 by vinylvixen