Garethx

It has to said that The Temptations made more than a few truly perfect group Northern records: Come On Back To Me Baby, Angel Doll, Loneliness Made Me Realize and Gotta Find A Way To Get You Back to name only four. A long-standing favourite of mine in the underplayed Motown stakes is Marvin Gaye's wonderful version of The Drifters' There Goes My Baby from the "In The Groove" album: obviously an older recording included as filler, but there's an effortless cool to the vocal and a marvelous ease to the backing track which makes me play it repeatedly.

Hi John The Soul Bowl one is a first press demo. The copy on JM's site is the second issue and I think prices for both are spot on. I understand Garry Cape was instrumental in getting the Lewis family to repress this: possibly for the Japanese or European market. He's a member here so can perhaps tell us the full story. Congratulations on snagging an original issue. best, gareth

Jerry Butler & The Impressions "For Your Precious Love" is as good a place as any to start: a crucial transitional record between doo-wop and soul and a stone-classic which every soul fan should own. There are usually copies on the Abner and Falcon labels on ebay for not too much money: it sold in vast quantities on its release. Nice too on UK London and very nice indeed on maroon Vee Jay (with a pricetag well into four figures).

The original press was quite hard to find for a long time, but I've had a couple of dj copies off ebay for peanuts (both under a dollar) in the last few years. Both copies had an inaudible pressing fault: a blemish which looks like a small crack in the styrene. As it's in exactly the same place on both copies I'm guessing it's on others too, but like I said it's inaudible. I've never seen a legitimate first issue though and imagine it's quite a tough one, but I wouldn't have said it was any more valuable than the dj copy unless you're thinking of selling to someone who might particularly covet such an item. The represses are on vinyl and the type is smaller than on the styrene orignal. The ballad side is a wonderful slice of Chicago soul, the crossover side is a bit generic to be a truly good record although the ingredients are all in place.

As an aside: does anyone have a striped (Frankford/Wayne vinyl) Oscar Wright on Fairmount for sale? I have the Hemisphere and west coast, styrene Fairmount releases. Also, if memory serves, my Billy Leonard is the 'west coast' label design, but on vinyl; I'll check later if that's a Monarch or F/W press, which might mean the other logo was in use nationally. Don't recall ever seeing Billy Leonard on the other label variation. I also have dim memories of another Fairmount release (The Pageants?) being like this. As Tony says, the 1963 date on the labels doesn't refer to the year of release of the records, just the incorporation date of the Fairmount label itself.

This 45 exists on both blue/white striped Frankford/Wayne presses and apparently Monarch Black/Blue/Orange presses with the logo in an arch for the West Coast*. Think all copies of both I've ever seen are DJ copies although the East Coast issue does exist too. Pretty rare on all formats, I suppose, and couldn't speculate the quantities of either relative to each other. *There's a scan of the Monarch press on here somewhere, courtesy of Mark Hanson. Something about it doesn't quite ring true to me: the typeface used for the credits seems at odds with any Monarch records of the time. I'd be interested to know what others think...

Isn't the Paul Kelly 45 called The Upset?

Pete Parker on Kapp; definitely a proper soul singer rather than a pop artist appropriated by the Northern scene. His "Standing On The Outside" 45 is a Leonard Jewel Smith production and a fairly decent deep soul ballad. On the other side of the coin is Steve Davis on RCA Victor; definitely a pop artist but his "Laugh A Little, Cry A Lot" is a beat ballad I've always had a great deal of time for as an exquisite example of the genre. I presume this is the guy who wrote Percy Sledge's immortal "Take Time To Know Her", too, so his country-soul credentials are impeccable. Also on RCA there is Steve Colt, an artist I don't really know much about but I believe is another blue-eyed singer. We mustn't forget Steve Dixon, a fine singer with several bona-fide Southern Soul rarities to his name with the most notable one being "Depend On Me" on Spotlite: one of the most expensive deep soul records out there.

Hi Bob Interesting acetates. I think Ady still has a copy of "Daydreamer". It was found in a London record shop in the early 90s, and they had two acetates featuring the track: both 10" multi-track publishers discs featuring more than one artist as opposed to the seven inch you have. I think the copy Ady has features Daydreamer as track one. I put a deposit on the other disc (they wanted £450 for it), which featured Daydreamer as track four, side one, but never picked it up and the shop closed its doors shortly afterwards: I wonder who ended up with that copy? I think Rob Thomas has another acetate and Pete Lowrie also owned a copy at one time, so there are others around. For what it's worth it's my favourite unreleased Motown track, a real beauty which shows what an under-recorded artist Eddie Holland was: the song's tremendous and his vocal's very soulful indeed. Ady re-counted the tale of finding this amid a great haul of one-off publishers discs in the sleevenotes to the Kent CD Gettin' To Me (the eponymous Ben E. King monster was also in the catch) so I'm sure he can tell us more: it was a kind of once-in-a-lifetime find and I'm sure members who are unfamiliar with the story would be very interested by it.

Don't see many mentions of J.J. Lewis "When" on Malaco from the early 70s: was unknown to me until recently and the most enjoyable record I bought in 2008: brilliant tricky midtempo southern soul with vocals of the highest quality and a knee-freezing ending as he sings to much intent against a mass of male backing vocalists.

Martha was about as good as you'd expect her to be: I don't know if she's ever been feted as one of the great technical vocalists and years of not singing regularly to a high standard have not been kind to her. However the point of the enterprise was to pay tribute to her and the song: an icon in its own right which will probably outlive everyone who performed it last night. Performance of the night for me was Dizzee Rascal: he displayed a lot of energy in running through a completely compelling pop song: for me one of the year's finest.

Herbie Mann did a great version on Atlantic.

A truly superb group record. One I was lucky to pick up before the recent hike in the price and am very glad I did. The harmonies are glorious and the swapping of the lead vocal is brilliantly handled, particularly as the record speeds up after the spoken section and the falsetto vocalist comes in. I was thinking of opening a topic on records which owe a debt to the "Tighten Up" rhythm and I think this is one of the very finest of the lot.

A good topic, Dave. Haven't got the facility to post soundfiles but a few off the top of my head would be: Charles Earland & Odyssey "Drifting" from The Great Pyramid (Mercury) although this is on a 12" single as well. Charles Earland & Odyssey "Shining Bright" from Revelation (Mercury) The above two Charles Earland tracks feature the vocals of The Sound Experience's Arthur Grant and are both wonderful soul cuts: Drifting is uptempo, while Shining Bright is maybe the greatest stepper of them all. Pharoah Sanders featuring Phyllis Hyman "Love Is Here" from Love Will Find A Way (Arista) A beautifully profound ballad and for me Phyllis Hyman's best ever record. Melvin Sparks "Get Ya Some" from Melvin Sparks 75 (Westbound) A pounding but cool soul instrumental as opposed to a 'jazz funk' track. This album also features two great vocals from Detroit's Jimmy Scott. I should also mention Coke Escovedo's "I Wouldn't Change A Thing" from Comin' At Ya (Mercury), which might be old hat to many, but is pretty much the definitive example of a soul anthem on a Jazz Funk lp. I think this track is overdue a journey onto the mainstream Northern scene, where I'm sure it has the potential to be very popular.

An awesome record and probably my favourite of Rozetta's issued material. Was quite tough for years but demo copies seem to crop up on ebay every few months now. I've personally never seen an issue copy of this 45: does anyone out there have one at a working man's price (after Chris has been sorted of course)?

I feel exactly the same about it: bought it when I was still very new to soul collecting and thought it was rubbish. It has sat in a box of odds and ends for over two decades. Stumbled across it again recently and was surprised to see that it shared the credits with Wilson Love's fantastic crossover record, The Money Song on Natural Soul Records (in fact both sides of The Natural Soul Band and The Money Song are supposed to be on the same LP: The Natural Soul Show). It got me thinking that while Wilson Love was once something of a rarity until more copies were found, The Joker itself seems decidedly elusive. But while it might be worth £75 in terms of relative scarcity I think I'd have a job actually selling a copy for that amount as it's still, to my ears at least, not a particularly good record.

The Natural Soul Band The Joker c/w Milestones Way Out West Ltd. W.O.W. 3030 Anyone got any clue as to what this is worth these days? TIA for any assistance gareth

The term "essential" is sometimes overused in the soul marketplace, but I consider all these records to be just that. Fair pricing too.

One of my all-time favourite records. I would be interested in hearing some opinions as to the current value of this brilliant 45.

Hi Russ am hoping to hear "Searching" by Change at the 100 Club.

I have a spare in M- condition if anyone's interested.

Boba: do you have any idea of how Bob Lee came to release this in Chicago? Jimmy Robbins was a Californian artist and I've always been led to believe that Impression was the first, Californian release of a Californian recording. Having said that, it's an almost definitive example of 'Chicago-style' hard soul in the vein of an Otis Clay or Harold Burrage, explaining its popularity in that market.

Not as straightforward as this at all Benji. The Jesse Fisher YNLAB 45 is not distributed by MGM. While the multicolored issue is on an MGM-type blank the rest of the typesetting (i.e. the black type) is exactly the same as the red type on the 'early', red and white stock, and doesn't emanate from an MGM pressing facility. The football star Jim Brown was the major financial backer of Way Out. He started filming The Dirty Dozen after the end of the 1965-1966 season for MGM. In order to finish the movie he refused to return from England to play for The Cleveland Browns in the 1966-67 season, effectively retiring from the sport. MGM distribution of Brown's Way Out logo was presumably a sweetener to the nascent film star and a way for the notoriously staid MGM to cash in on the soul music boom with a label fronted and guaranteed by one of the most visible and charismatic African Americans of that or any other time. Unfortunately for them Way Out couldn't unearth anything like a consistent hitmaker, probably a fault of distribution and radio-plugging shortcomings in an unfamiliar part of the market rather than a lack of quality in the actual product. By 1969 Brown's film career was in decline as he never really replicated the success of his first film. MGM would have been keen to offload fripperies like the notoriously-difficult Brown's pet record label. The releases of this period are not MGM distributed: rather they feature the credit "BIG JIM RECORDS: A division of Way Out Ent." My contention is that in order to release Brown from his film contract part of the deal was offloading remaining physical assets like the magenta and yellow label blanks, of which there must have been a few, seeing as very few of the MGM-distributed releases of 67-69 sold in any great number. The chaos of Brown's financial affairs might go some way to explaining the often erratic nature of the label's releases. At this time Brown was a notoriously profligate spender, gambler and high-roller. His financial affairs often lurched from feast to famine. Because of this the Way Out label continued in much the same manner, maybe explaining why some releases are plentiful, while others such as Demanding Man are decidedly scarce.

I think Tony is absolutely correct regarding this point. The particular copy of The Sensations for auction is about the cleanest copy of the record I've seen, so probably worth the bucks to those wishing to upgrade to a minter. A great record into the bargain: group Northern gets no better than this double-sider in my opinion. Something has occured to me about Way Out releases which exist on several variants of the label such as Bobby Wade I'm In Love With You and Jesse Fisher's You're Not Loving A Beginner: conventional wisdom has it that the first issue of these is on the red and white logo (as per Demanding Man), and that the other releases (grey in the case of Bobby Wade, magenta and yellow in the instance of Jesse Fisher) are later issues, carrying lesser pricetags. I wonder if this is really the case. My theory is that the ones on the red and white logo could very well be be later pressings on remaindered blanks of the "c.1966" stock. If you think about it any record label would press on the latest, 'hip and happening' variant of its label design first, then, when stocks of this are exhausted and a 45 demands another pressing run, on its older blanks if they happen to be lying around. Something to think about next time a red and white Jesse Fisher is offered at a price premium above the multicoloured label version.

Joan is right: this was a 'Gene McDaniels' cover-up in the mists of time. A bit of a slur on old Willie McDougal as the two vocalists are like chalk and cheese. I would sell my copy but for the fact that the other side is brilliant, top drawer deep soul which would be expensive to replace.