Daved

It’s been a long time since I added anything worthwhile to this site so I though I ought to pull my finger out. I haven’t been out much recently so can’t really say anything about venues although I do feel as if I am missing out on a lot at the moment! Despite that my system at home has taken plenty of hammer because the excellent tunes keep arriving. The soulful house epidemic seems to be dying down as the ratio of top quality sounds continues to reduce. It certainly seems that way to me unless you’ve got dig much deeper to find the best releases. Despite that, the pure soul stuff is top drawer at the moment with so many good tracks coming from independent labels and the UK soul specialists. Here’s a quick rundown of my favourite modern tracks just at the moment. 1. Felicia Adams - No One Else Has been only available as an independent release direct from Felicia herself but will be available in the UK from Cage De Soul from Monday. This track samples The Jones Girls "Nights Over Egypt" which makes it very instant. The entire CD is very good with "Share My Love" also being very good. 2. Michelle Williams - My Only Love Is You. Produced by Tommy Sims and sampling an old James Brown record this is excellent. Even more surprising because Michelle is one third of Destiny’s Child. Although current soul hero Tommy produces quite a few tracks on the CD, this is the only standout track. 3. Selah2 - When I Think Of You Very nice track from a very strong CD. Pronounced Selah Squared, this is from a gospel CD from a female duo. I could have picked “Hold On” too although “How Could I Ever” seems to be very popular. 4. R. Kelly - Happy People Takes off where "Step In The Name of Love" finished. A high quality tune from the annoyingly inconsistent singer. 5. Eric Roberson – The Vault 1.5 (Entire CD) I can’t pick really a standout track from this CD but if forced it should be “Rock With You”. The whole CD is very solid. Eric (or Erro as he sometimes records under) has been building a reputation for some time but still has to get his material out himself via his own website. Some tracks here are duplicated from The Vault CD. There’s not really any dancers on this CD but possibly the most consistent CD so far this year. 6. Roy Ayers – Sugar (Joey Negro Remix) Finally out on a 12” on BBE, this is fantastic. Originally recorded in the late 70s but never came out due to Roy’s prolific out put at the time. The Joey Negro remix adds a little bit extra to the unmixed version, which appears on the Virgin Ubiquity CD. 7. Sven Zetterberg – Heartaches Was All You Got This will cause all sorts of arguments. Sven is a Swedish blues singer (white, I guess) who has recently recorded this track which sounds like high quality crossover. It was announced at the recent Great Yarmouth weekender as being by Sven Goran Ericcson. If only he could produce a performance this good in Portugal! 8. The Spinners – Got To Be Love This appears on the Mtume/Lucas CD on Expansion. A fabulous CD with many well-known classics on it and a few surprises. I didn’t know this song at all until I bought the CD but I love it. It was recorded in 1981 and bears all the classic hallmarks of The Spinners and an Mtume/Lucas production – you can’t argue with that! 9. Rosie Gaines – I Can’t Get You Off My Mind This came on a Hidden Beach compilation CD last year but now appears on Rosie’s CD on Dome. I’ve always highly regarded Rosie and she produces the goods once again. She sounds eerily like Michael Jackson on some tracks. Great CD bar tracks 2 to 5. Everything else is brilliant. 10. Café De Soul Volume 4 The fourth and strongest of the Café De Soul compilations. A lot of this may be considered smooth jazz but it certainly isn’t bland and shouldn’t be associated with most of the material that comes under that banner. Standout tracks are Michael Sims, Exyt and Copeland Green but it’s all high quality stuff – just buy it! 11. Phillip Mitchell – Just The Beginning Out on Grapevine, this CD showcases mostly demos that Phillip cut for other artists to record. Some new stuff to me along with different versions of well known modern classics recorded by Bobby Womack, The Patterson Brothers and Corey Blake. Essential southern soul – I’m warming to this stuff.

1. The Phonetics - Just A Boys Dream 2. Jeanette Williams - Somethings Got A Hold On Me 3. Joey Delorenzo - Wake Up To The Sunshine Girl 4. Venicia Wilson - This Time Im Loving You 5. Vontastics - Ill Never Say Goodbye 6. The Brothers feat. George Young - Are You Ready For This 7. Clarence Carter - Messin With My Mind 8. Diane Pane - What Side Your Bread Is Buttered On 9. Helen Troy - I Think I Love You 10. Big Maybelle - Quittin Time 11. The 5th Dimension - Too Poor To Die 12. Fred Smith Orchestra - Baby Do The Philly Dog 13. Roy Handy - Baby Thats A Groove 14. The Blue Jays - (It Depends On The) Point Of View 15. Allan Sisters - Im In With The Downtown Crowd 16. Marva Jones - I Got Your Number (634 - 5789) 17. Pioneer Band - Jive Talk 18. Melvin Boyd - Exit Loneliness, Enter Love 19. Bud Harper - Let Me Love You 20. Brooks ODell - Watch Your I picked this up last weekend and having now played it several times, I think its the weakest of the series so far. There are some corking tracks on it such as The Blue Jays, Allen Sisters. There are more oldies on there than usual and the "modern" stuff isnt all that. The Diane Pane track is terrible - tracks like this give the r and b genre a bad name. Overall, a disappointment - 5 out of 10. Davey D agree/disagree use comments

Indeed it is. 21st century, the year 2002 and all that. Life is very complicated these days and that includes the modern soul scene. What was seen to be a variation of the northern soul scene in the late 70s/early 80s, i.e. rare recently released soul, is now a mixture of many different sub-genres. The good news is that if you’re broad minded and like variety then there’s lots of good stuff out there to listen or dance to. The not so good news is that if you only like a certain type of modern soul, you are going to disappointed at a chunk of the night’s music – unless you go to a specialist modern do that caters for your type of music. If you go to a typical modern soul do, you can expect to hear crossover, two-step, boogie, house, r’n’b, jazz, gospel and even soul from all eras. It certainly can be diverse but, to me, this is the wonder of it all. Rarity does not play a part these days. Although rare records are played, they are alongside new release CDs or 12 inches available at regular prices from HMV or maybe even local record shops. You can pick up most new stuff from specialist shops even if it is on an obscure Japanese import CD. In fact there is so much good new stuff being released it is difficult to keep up with all. Tunes are turned over very quickly and you can miss out on some very good music if you turn your back over a couple of months. I can’t help thinking that some new releases that aren’t getting much recognition at the moment, because they are just swamped under a lot of other stuff, will be the big expensive in-demand tunes in years to come. Get them now while you can, I say. Here today, gone tomorrow tunes is a phrase I’ve heard attributed to new releases several times recently. How many of these will in fact be classics in years to come? God knows. As long as quality new stuff continues to be recorded then maybe not too many. The tunes that will become classics in years to come will probably be those that were underplayed or not spotted at all at the time of release. However, I think that this is a good thing. It keeps the scene fresh, moving and more accessible for new blood to enjoy. You see the modern scene shouldn’t be a retro scene but one that keeps moving forward with the times whilst still paying respect to its heritage. The clue is the word modern in modern soul. The modern soul scene today also encompasses a wider group of people than it did twenty years ago. There is no longer a north/south divide. Some people who enjoyed Caister and The Goldmine now turn their backs on McFadden and Whitehead and Slave and the other classics they used to enjoy. In the search of something different, whilst still keeping it soulful, they travel countrywide in order to dance to records that were never popular on the “southern” soul scene years ago and the new music. In fact, many of them venture into the northern room to see what it’s like and develop a taste for that too. Music policy is similar countrywide too - all the way from Brighton to Winsford. Wherever you live a quality venue shouldn’t be too far away. DJs also come from all over the country and have a variety of different backgrounds. Also, some of the records that were played down south 15 or 20 years ago are finding favour to a relatively new audience up north. Something familiar and something new for everyone then. Amongst the glut of new releases there are, unfortunately, only a minority of CDs that I think are good all the way through. Many are one or two trackers making it an expensive business to buy many of the big tracks. I have listed below my top ten CDs which I think are strong as a complete package without the need to press the skip button more that once or twice, if at all. At least with vinyl, you either like the track or don’t. Even if you find out it’s not the track or mix you were after, at least you’ve only lost ten pounds as opposed 19 quid for an import CD. The British soul labels do a particularly good job. FER, Café de Soul and Grapevine, in particular, put out a consistent number of good quality of releases that you can’t go far wrong with. There is also a constant stream of good quality US house coming out. Releases on King Street, Soulfuric, Yellorange, Naked, MAW, Soulshine and Shelter tend to be strong. Whilst I struggled to write a list of ten strong CDs, I could have written a list of 30 vinyl releases. Anyway, here’s my top tens for the year, one for CDs, the other for vinyl: CDs Ray Chew and the Crew – Feelin’ It – Charu CD Maysa – Out Of The Blue – N-Coded CD Jaheim – Ghetto Fabulous – Warner Bros CD Ann Nesby – Put It On Paper – Universal CD Miguel Migs – Colorful You – Naked CD The Spirit Of Philadelphia – Various Artists – Expansion CD Peggi Blu – Livin’ On Love - Expansion CD The Rance Allen Group – All The Way - Tyscot CD Café De Soul Vol 1 – Various Artists – Café De Soul CD California Flight Project - California Flight Project II – CD Vinyl Big Moses feat, Ambrosia – Trust Yourself – Shelter 12” Masters At Work feat. India – Backfired (Joey Negro mix) – MAW 12” Jamecia Bennett – If I Go Boy –FER 12” King Ernest – Must Have Lost My Mind – Grapevine 12” Earth, Wind and Fire – Can’t Hide Love (MAW remix) – White label 12” Yvonne Gage – So Good – Slang 12” Arnold Jarvis – Where Has Love Gone – KIF 12” Cornell Stone – Never Get Enough Of Your Love – FER 12” Stephanie Cooke – I Thank You – King Street 12” Blaze – What We Need Is Love – Shelter 12” Hope you’ve enjoyed reading this. If you’re one of those people who pops their head in the modern room (to go to the bar or eye up the crumpet) and thinks “actually this is not bad, after all”, I hope this has given you a few pointers.

Review - Togetherness Modern Side By Dave Dixon I went to Togetherness on Saturday and was really looking forward to it, especially considering the aggro I had getting prepared to be able to make the journey. I walked in about 11pm during Soul Sams spot and thoroughly enjoyed it. I didnt know a single record he played but it was fantastic rare modern soul including a Timeless Legend record I hadnt heard before. It seemed pretty quiet at this stage - no record dealers and bar was quiet too. However, Mike Stephens set up a stall later on. Next up was Richard Searling, an hour earlier than usual becuse Dean wasnt there, starting off with Donny Hathaway/Roberta Flack to get people up. He also played Angie Stone and OJays back to back which went down quite well. I dont think he played anything too dramatic. Andy Davies was also on earlier than usual and said at the beginning of his set that hes going to play some big tunes to get everyone going. His set included Janita, Dennis Taylor, Drizabone (Real Love) and Llorca. He did the job as stated but I couldnt help thinking that he was being under-utilised. So after a set of stuff we all know, I was looking forward to Mike Stephens but he basically carried on in the same vein - Jon B, Shabazz (Glad Youre In My Life), Jaheim, Rahsaan Patterson. I started to wonder if the DJs had been told to play it safe. Mikes a top man but his set was very unadventerous and he is capable of playing all sorts of obscure promo stuff. I dont think it wouldve been his choice alone to play that set. So far no soulful garage and next up is Colin Curtis. I prepared myself for an entire set of it, in view of his recent comments and that the previous djs hadny played any. Instead we had Kenny Lattimore, Luther Vandross, Harold Melvin & Bluenotes and some other 70s stuff for the first 30 mins and then it was Joi Caldwell, Lenny Fontana, Jon Cutler and others for the last 30. I must say he had the place rocking during his garage bit. It would have been so easy for Terry Jones to continue where Colin left off. After all, hes been playing soulful garage in his sets for the last few years anyway so its nothing new to him. But, top marks to the man, he starts of by slowing it down by playing Maxwell and then Maysa Leak, The Dells, Main Ingredient, Donnie (Youre The One - record of the night) and other soul stuff. He finished off by playing crossover stuff like Melvin Moore and Karen ? (Make Love Last Forever). Easily the best set so far. Gary Dennis then started off with Ollie Nightingale & Chuck Cockerham and played some great older stuff. Unfortunately, I was in danger of nodding off at the end of his set as Id been up since 6.15am on Saturday so as much as I tried to keep myself going I was marched off the premises by my wife so I missed Gavins final set. Overall verdict - In comparison to the high standards its set itself over the last four years, it was average. I enjoyed myself, had a good dance and it was great to bump into folks again. However, I usually walk away wanting lots of tunes or to dig out some old ones but not this time. I thought too many of the djs were playing it safe. Perhaps its always like this but Im just getting fussy because Im more up to speed these days and have been out a lot more this year. There was also a lot of duplications - Angie Stone, Jo Jo, Marvin Gaye, Maurice J, Dante, Jaheim (Just In Case someone didnt play it earlier on) & Rahsaan Patterson. Sets of the night were Soul Sam, TJ and Gary. Ive been pretty loyal to Togetherness - Ive been to 10 out of 12 of the allnighters and the recent weekender (which I thoroughly enjoyed) but it may be time to spend my hard earned at different venues next year. Lets face it - theres a lot of good competition these days. There seems to be a policy change from a progressive modern allnighter to a twice a year party night. Then again, maybe its me. Also, the sound quality was not good. The volume caused some significant distortion - a view shared by many people. Cheers, Dave