Nick Soule

I personally don't hear any similarities between a young Michael and whoever the lead is on "Heaven Is In Your Arms". Another thing worth noting, the backing vocalists on "Heaven Is In Your Arms" are female - there are several back-and-forth verses and sighing/swooning noises that give this away in case you can't hear it in their voices: Lead: "Girl, without your love I would surely die" Backing group: "Boy, I'm gonna keep you by my side" Lead: "Believe me girl, this is no lie"

Apex Record Pressing in Chicago was the plant that did all of these records, and there are plenty of examples of them pressing records multiple times with different fonts, typos, credit positioning changes, etc. - The Creations on Zodiac is a good example; there's even a rare pressing with the label name printed as 'Zodica'. Is the timeline above that suggests that the Aspirations/Admirations records were pressed 6-ish months apart just a guess or information coming from a label owner or group member? I would've thought they were all pressed within a short amount of time of one another.

Anyone with a copy that's willing to ship it to the US? Thanks!

Harry Gates sang lead on that record. I definitely hear the similarities between his voice on "Toy Soldier" and the Equadors record.

What is the connection between the Incredible Upsetters and the Equadors exactly? Do you have a list of the group members? I don't hear the lead vocalist on the Miracle 45 on any of the four songs on the Audio Lab EP.

As much as I would like to own a copy of FW and would pay a lot of money for one, I don’t think I’d be able to turn down the actual artist asking to buy it from me - especially for £20k more than it had ever sold for at the time.

The Kim Weston was withdrawn. I know several collectors that heard it on the radio in different parts of the US at the time it came out and tried to buy a copy from their local record store, who then called the distributor and were told that it was withdrawn from sale. Despite being pressed at ARP, Monarch, and Southern Plastics, it's definitely rare. I've been stuck with a VG- ARP pressing for years, and I've had zero chance at an upgrade despite posting want lists and having saved searches. I see 7 copies on Popsike. One of the 7 is the same copy auctioned twice, so actually only 6 copies with the last one being sold in 2014. Of those 6 there are only 2 that were given a grade above VG+. I agree that the price is high considering what it's gone for historically, but I think the main selling point was that it was a M- copy.

He states that he bought the collection in the early 80s, so assuming it was before the consolidated series, there were about 1,500 US 45 releases at that point. Multiply that by label variations and promos and the number is a lot higher, but probably not in the tens of thousands, at least not with just US releases.

The double A-sided promos that use stock labels were caused by the pressing plants running out of promo labels. Usually due to pressing flaws that were eventually corrected and the flawed records being discarded. This seems to be more common with ARP pressings, but there are examples of it happening with Southern Plastics pressings as well. Frances Nero was pressed by ARP, Monarch, and Southern Plastics (promo only) with the Monarch copies being the rarest, like everyone above has already said. Jr. Walker's "Pucker Up Buttercup" Soul 35030 is the last release to use the lilac/white labels. It seems like Monarch must've found a box of unused labels because the 3 prior releases they pressed were all done on the purple swirl design only.

It was the only other visual difference between the two labels. H### is a master number numbering sequence that Motown used for a brief time starting in 1961, I think. H909 is a later master, and you would assume there would be audible differences, but I don't hear any. And according to both Reginald Bartlette's book and the Don't Forget The Motor City site, both masters/versions were released at the same time.

I listened to both copies/versions and timed them.

H818 has the incorrect running time. H909 has the correct running time of 2:30. If there's an actual difference in the mastering, I can't hear it.

Interesting to see that the Johnny Hampton went for a "normal" price after one sold for £4,000 last week.

Looking for a clean copy of: Kim Weston - A Little More Love (Tamla 54106) Any help appreciated. Thanks!

Both sides are instrumentals. I've been told by other Detroit collectors that Doc Kyle pressed them at the request of Martin Koppel, but he accidentally used the instrumentals instead of the vocals and because of that Martin never bought them. The only other copy I've seen in person was cracked in half (there's another one on Popsike that suffered the same damage though), but I guess the winner of the auction was told by the seller that it came from Doc Kyle's estate, so it's possible that the rest of the unsold copies could surface in the near future.

I have an order form/record from Motown’s files for an order placed with Columbia’s LA plant for 3,000 stock copies and 500 DJ copies (if I’m reading it correctly) of Sammy Ward’s release on Tamla 54049:

I was reminded to listen to this today (multiple years later), and Jesse's "I'm Gonna Take You" is the same song as The Sheppard Boy's "Take You From Your Guy". The only copyright info I can find for either version of the title doesn't list either Jobete or Brohun as a publisher.

http://seabear.se/MPS1.html The above has pretty much everything pre-consolidated series. There are some promo-only records that were issued with picture sleeves that aren’t included, but I assume you’re only asking about standard releases anyway.

A friend has been in touch with one of James’ kids, and they sent him a scan of the picture.

James Thorpe is on the far left. I think that's Orthea Barnes holding the JJ Barnes album on Perception, and then JJ is of course in the white outfit - I'm not sure who anyone else is. I'm positive that James and Jay T are not the same person.

I think the skip is really just down to the turntable and stylus. I've had three copies of the first pressing that is credited with having the skip, and all three played without skipping on a Technics 1200 with both a Shure Whitelabel and N44-7 weighted at 2.5 grams. Two of the copies would skip if you went up to 3 grams or below 2 grams. And oddly, they skipped in different places, but always towards the end of the song. The real problem with this record is the fidelity of the second half. One of my old copies played through okay, but the other two (one was an EX copy) were practically unlistenable after the first half. Supposedly the demos have better fidelity throughout?

Sorry, I thought that was implied in my post.

The Yancey brother that was in the Ambassadors (on Bon, JR, Soul Track, etc.) was Clemmer Yancey. As far as I know, Dilla’s father was not in that group.

Weird write up on the back. I'm guessing whoever wrote that has never been to Detroit because Lake Michigan is on the other side of the state...