Garethx

"Two Lovers History" from these sessions has to be one of the great unheralded soul ballads. Also recorded a few numbers up in the Jubilee catalogue by The Valentinos themselves in a kind of answer version and also brilliant. Cecil Womack and Mary were married at the time and made a formidable writing team.

Worth pointing out that Jesse Fisher sang in the Raymond Rasberry Singers with, among others, Carl Hall, and that his brother Richard was also a tremendous vocalist. Here's Richard on the Jive Five's "No More Tears", quite a different type of sound for them as it's pleading deep soul with a roaring tenor lead as opposed to smooth group soul or neo doo wop. They were presumably trying to cash in on the then commercial southern soul of Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding etc.

The bit about national distribution is a red herring here. Although the magenta / yellow label superficially looks like those used in the MGM-distributed phase of the company's history it isn't quite the same. I would say none of these releases of the Jesse Fisher 45 were distributed by a larger record label on the one hand or by a truly national distributor on the other. Sebastian's posts above are illuminating as I had never joined the dots about the A3 and A mixes before. The differences in the mixes are really striking.

Pretty sure both mixes of this were pressed at ARP.

Universal Joint apparently included Rob Parissi, later of Wild Cherry ("Play That Funky Music White Boy" etc). They were from Steubenville, Ohio.

Should be possible to date this master by the Columbia Chicago number (ZTSC XXXX).

If it's you posting a want you should be prepared to make the offer. If you're not prepared to do this then maybe you should wait for one on a set sale list.

Timelessness is a bit hard to pin down in any case. Great art should be representative of its time while being able to transcend it as well. A tricky balancing act.

You make good points as ever Jock, but for me personally the quality of this music dropped off a cliff face for any number of reasons towards the end of the seventies. Budgets, demographics and a simple evolution of how and why African-American people made music meant that mainstream R&B fundamentally changed at that point. Of course there are exceptions since then, but really, where are the "What's Going On", "Curtis", "Friction" or "Black Bach" of the 80s and 90s? The major artistic statements filled with craft, passion, insight and creative flair? Where indeed are the releases which exhibit even competent skill in songwriting or production or arrangement? Where are the truly exceptional new vocalists to rival a Sam Cooke, Johnnie Taylor, an OV Wright, Jerry Butler, or a Linda Jones, Judy Clay or Bettye Swann? Where are the great standard songs like "A Change Is Gonna Come" or "Dark End Of The Street" or "Let's Stay Together" or "Let's Straighten It Out"? Sutty can accuse me of ignoring a whole swathe of music, but he would be wrong to do so. I bought new US releases religiously until the mid 90s, until I woke up and was finally able to smell the coffee: that very little of it had any artistic merit, and that even average or poor discs from soul's Golden Age were functionally superior in practically every single way to even the best of the output of the 80s and 90s.

I'm not so sure that Paul Anka would be a massive record had it lain undiscovered until 2012. The scene is so different now that I wonder if it would have much impact at all. Can you see Butch or Dyson playing it at Lifeline or the 100 Club? It's so far out of step with the flavour of what is seen as current. It could be played at Stoke but seeing as it would be a new discovery to everyone it would probably garner little floor response there for the first few monthly plays. As discussed elsewhere the idea of something taking off in the first week of being played is something that rarely happens these days, even for the most instant or obvious sounds. I'm not knocking the record: I've gone on record before as saying it's one of the most interesting examples of the 'curveball' records from unlikely sources which in some ways sum up an important part of Northern Soul. I've also said that the 'major label pop with the right beat' phenomenon should just be an interesting curio alongside the main diet, which should be soulful, danceable music. As an aside here is one of Searling's RCA pop discoveries which graced the lower reaches of the Hot 100: Glenn Yarbrough appearing on Hollywood-A-Go-Go in 1965.

There is no true soul music made these days. Anyone who believes that is just kidding themselves. Artists who were good may still make revival records and there might be productions which pastiche the textures of true soul music but they can't compete with the real thing. How can they and why indeed should they? 'Soul' was a flavour of R&B which had a finite timespan: from the early 1960s to the mid 1970s with rare exceptions either way. The culture which produced the soul boom has changed. The music has changed accordingly.

This is actually far harder to locate than you might think and doubly hard on black issue. Certainly much harder than "I Need Someone" also on MGM.

Again, the Wildwoods is the original version of "No Good To Cry" (they wrote it too), so really the opposite of the topic's theme. The first recorded version of "What Condition My Condition Is In" is by none other than Jerry Lee Lewis on his Smash album, "Soul My Way", although its writer, Mickey Newberry recorded it a couple of months later for RCA. These both predate Kenny Rogers and The First Edition by a year or so.

Elton John's is not a cover version. It's the original recorded version of a song Thom Bell and Linda Creed had not released on anyone else previously. The Spinners sing backing on the EJ version and subsequently recorded two versions of their own with Bell but without Elton. One featured just lead singer John Edwards, and another the entire group. The John Edwards version was a US and UK single. The version which became a worldwide hit decades later is an Ashley Beadle remix of Elton John's recording with added elements adding to a dance feel.

That's not to say that good fighters didn't also enter the Gloves tournaments. Even in the 70s and 80s future world champs like Michael Spinks, Thomas Hearns and Mike Tyson became National GG winners on the way to turning pro. My point is that in the early rounds it was possible for relatively untrained novices to also take part alongside the cream.

There's a Sonny Liston single. Mentioned in passing in Nick Tosches' biography Night Train. Turned up on ebay from a Las Vegas seller in about 2006 and went for a reasonably large sum of money. I saved a scan of it at the time but seem to have lost it now. Regarding the Golden Gloves: this is a strictly amateur tournament which a lot of no-hopers would have entered over the years, particularly in the days when professional boxing was seen as a realistic escape route from the dead end of the ghetto. Berry Gordy, Roy Hamilton and loads more future entertainers entered. It is several rungs beneath even the type of amateur level needed to qualify for any kind of international bout leading to, for example, Olympic qualification, so calling these people 'boxers' is a bit like equating regular karaoke performers with professional entertainers.

Thomas Hearns recorded a 45 with The Dramatics.

The guitar solo is the only good bit.

Eddie aged 40.

Little Eddie Taylor was apparently 34 inches tall and reputedly the brother of Johnnie Taylor.

The RCA matrix tells us this was mastered between January and June 1966.

The other side of this is a fantastic soul record which despite not having any beat to speak of sounds great now on a big sound system. The yellow/blue label is an original. The blue/black is a bootleg. Lee Mitchell was a brilliant artist. His HL&M singles are awe-inspiring and the rest of his output was never less than very good.

The 12 is a bit longer in terms of running but thankfully the fantastic ending is fully intact on both versions: the 12 just has a few extra bars of backing as opposed to singing.

"Chin Strokers Oldies" appear to be the same as garden variety "Oldies" then?