Garethx

The only company sleeves I've seen have been for the earlier incarnation of the logo featuring the daschund, but would be interested to see if a bag exists for the label's soul period.

"Dedicate" is a lovely record in its own right, maybe my favourite Roger Hatcher recording.

Inspirational stuff. Great that this living legend was profiled in this way. I thought the show was very well put together given all the normal constraints of access to archives etc. Tony's point about the 'northern' stuff is eloquently put and completely correct.

Cheers Tony. I have (and love) the Boz Scaggs and will seek out the others. Bobby Charles on Bearsville sounds particularly interesting.

I'm sure you'd love it Tats. Here's a youtube link to Changing Colors: Very much like Point Of No Return. I'd completely forgotten how much of The Poets I & II he was responsible for: American Dream, Trying To Get Over, Tell Me Why, Secrets, So Many Sides etc. When you listen to his stuff you see how much of an influence he was on Womack harmonically. It must be said that very little of his material is straight country: there's a lot of soul, west coast soft rock and bluegrass in there as well. As well as his solo stuff and the Womack connection he also wrote Niki Hoky for PJ Proby which received early scene spins as well.

A great point. The other side of the 45, Changing Colors is pretty fantastic as well. I wish I knew more about this particular strand of music: I only really got the Jim Ford records because of his connection to Bobby Womack. The crossover between soul and country in the American South at that time is fascinating and I'd love to be pointed in the direction of more music of this character and quality.

Hi Craig This is on King subsidiary Hollywood as opposed to the main label. Got to be a strong contender for the greatest deep soul record ever made. Does anyone have a copy for sale?

"Divide & Conquer" James Lovejoy

I was led to believe that the Pyramid 12" was after Expansion and that Searling initially played this from tape.

Is there any original US vinyl release of this?

It was certainly very exciting to be at the 100 Club when these tracks were first aired. While time has shown the quality of the archive material to be variable the highlights mentioned above have all worn extremely well I think. I look forward to the next installment. Regarding the relative merits of Sharon Scott versus Reggie Alexander (and I agree with your point above Ady) I have to ask if anyone involved in the production of It's Better had any personal recollections of Reggie himself? Always felt that it was an odd record to have been championed by the soul scene and have often wondered which market Mr Alexander was aiming for with the Boss 45: he inadvertently seems to have come up with one of the world's most in-demand MOR titles.

Played at Wigan first. Levine sold it to Pat Brady who played A Life of Tears there.

it fetches money because it's properly rare and has been consistently popular as a dancefloor record for the best part of twenty five years. A wise man made the point to me recently that a great many of the records we always thought of as rare are, in reality, anything but. Think of how many copies of, for example, Jackey Beavers on Revilot have shown up since the world became more ebay-savvy. This record, love it or hate it, has proven to be stubbornly rare in it's original format. This particular copy is as clean as any I've ever seen offered for sale and will go for a significant amount of money. Proper Northern soul.

Hi Chris sorry can't help with a valuation or a soundfile but I think this 45 is a good bit less common than many of the label's releases which turned up in some quantity four or five years back. I don't have one but wonder if the "All Alone" side is a version of Tony Ashley & The Delicates on Forte (as "All Along I've Loved You" and later released nationally on Decca) which is a pretty sought after deep side.

This is a really great record and one the northern scene should be proud of rescuing from the dustbin of history. I've always found it hard to fathom why this wasn't at least a minor hit somewhere on commercial release. It was thought of highly enough to spawn a couple of UK cover versions and older acquaintances have recounted tales of queuing outside Woolies specifically to buy it as a new release. Around the time of Ray Pollard's appearances at Yarmouth, 100 Club etc. I was in contact with a guy called Jerry Jaffe from New York. He was the US manager of bands like The Jesus & Mary Chain, St Etienne etc. He was in the UK at the time of the 100 Club appearance and came along to see the show. He had grown up with Feldman, Goldstein & Gottehrer (the song's writers) in Brooklyn and after getting in touch with one of them (I can't remember which one, it was a long time ago) recounted the tale of the session which spawned The Drifter. FG&G were The Strangeloves of I Want Candy fame. They had also written pop classics like My Boyfriend's Back for The Angels and great soul like Giving Up On Love for Jerry Butler. United Artists were keen to sign them to an exclusive deal where they would write, produce and record their own material in an attempt to become a kind of American version of The Beatles. As a sweetener they were given free reign to record anything they wanted for a few warm-up singles. Growing up as doo-wop obsessed kids they had been massive fans of The Wanderers and hand-picked Ray Pollard to record The Drifter, a song specifically written with him in mind and one who's pathos would mirror that of Ray's own life. Garry Sherman and the cream of NY session men were crammed into the studio to produce the most expensive session the boys had ever been involved in. Ray majestically nailed the song in a couple of takes and everyone left the studio convinced they had a worldwide smash on their hands. For some reason that didn't happen. The record stiffed commercially and Pollard went back to singing in clubs and hotels. Feldman, Goldstein & Gottehrer went their separate ways (Richard Gottehrer went on to have a long and successful career in mainstream US pop music as a founder of Sire Records, producer of Blondie, The Go-Go's etc.) but always considered this song to be their lost masterpiece.

Thanks. yours in soul, gareth

It was a custom label attached to Phoenix AZ's major (only?) recording studio and had strong links with Duane Eddy. As such there's a vast array of different kinds of music on the logo, from surf instrumentals to sweet soul and everything in-between. A couple of the releases have Eddie & Ernie links and are worth seeking out. My favourite record on the label is the Christopher Blue 45, a great soft rock rarity.

That's a pretty sweeping and completely ill-founded slur Ian. I demand a public apology.

Capitol 2105 Tony Bruno "Small Town Bring Down" / "What's Yesterday" Also came out on UK Capitol.

There's still a copy on gemm.com @ $4.00 if anyone's bothered.

Still one of the rarest Wand 45s, there appear to be only a handful of copies out there unfortunately. Never been keen on the Love Keeps Me Crying side, but love Not Now But Later. The (presumably unreleased) instrumental backing track of the topside has been played out too over the years.

Sold one on here last month for a broadly similar price and had lots of interest at that rate. I've got to state that I prefer Lonnie Youngblood's version. Jessie is the better singer, hands down, but I think the vintage 70s backing track beats the vintage 80s backing track quite comfortably.

Don't forget Bill Coday's great "Right On" on Crajon which also shares the JLTW backing track. The writer credit on that is Denise Jones, the married name of Denise LaSalle. For what it's worth Nolan Chance's version is my least favourite as a record. I've yet to hear the Mill Evans acetate, but look forward to doing so.

How much are you willing to pay? kind regards, gareth

Hi Rob. I have a copy in clean condition for sale. best, gareth