Epic

Of the current crop - "Foolish Girl" C/U has been played for quite

You should ask MR. I. LEVINE he seems to know everything else. Did Ian write it, it was bad enough to be written by him.

Think my days of asking Ian Levine anything are now behind me!!!

While we are on the subject of British "soul" music - does anbody else remember Martyn Ellis at The Ritz (circa'76/77) playing a record by Rainbow Cottage called "Let Me Make You A Woman"

I hazard a guess that he played it for a bet - has to be one THE worst records ever played.

Come on peeps - Boz Scaggs or Mickey Moonshine ?

I know where my vote goes!!

Am I missing something here?

Surely the title of this thread says it all...

Shopping Centre Soul?

Hello???????????

Feel free to look at post number 2 on this thread!!!!!!!!

1.Mickey moonshine - Name it

2. Judy Street - What

3. Gloria Jones - tainted love

4. Touch of velvet sting of brass

5 Out on the floor

6. joe 90

7. Police story

8. Little ole man

9. Move on up

10.The Champion

Thats my top 10 baggys

Lost your credibility as a true "baggy" - you failed to include "a bit of Frankie Wilson" - as I was once asked for at a gig.

What "bit of Frankie Wison" do you think he wanted ?

Hey Andy , theres got to be "Baggy House tunes" these days?

ps. you downloaded my mix yet @ www.soulselect.com

This is just a blatant plug for your mix!!!!!!!!!!!! - yes I have downloaded it - most enjoyable.

Baggy House - Urban Blues Project - "Love Don't Live"

Can we have a top ten "Baggy Northern" Trub

Judging by the amount of interest on this site in that wonderful slab of "soul" music - Mickey Moonshine has to be in there.

Judy Freeman & Blackrock - Hold On - RCA

NO NO NO NO NO, Epic.

I don't know what you're trying to get at here.

We filmed and recorded every artist. I gave all the parts to my co-producer and he has very sophisticated equipment to tweak every bit to match the originals.

If we had used the originals we would be sued, end of story, END OF THE STRANGE WORLD OF NORTHERN SOUL - FULL STOP.

And we would not be able to release the videos, and there would be no SWONS and there would be no new project, and the artists would have never been seen.

If any record company wants to infer these are not new recordings, I can walk into court with all the vocals and all the musical parts and prove that they are. If somehow one note off the original got left in the new recording, we could be leaving ourselves wide open to a lawsuit, and the whole DVD being removed and deleted from sale. That is why I have given my co-producer strict instructions that he is not to leave me in any position where I could be legally compromised. We have tweaked and pulled and prodded every word of vocals to get the best results, and even had session singers come in specially to mimic very tiny little bits that may have been missing, and sing the odd "oooh" amd "uhh" to cover up bits. I dare not reveal how many little bits Sheila Ferguson did to patch things up on lots of other female singers' songs, but it was just tiny little bits, not whole vocals. But these were just patching up. Every song is sung by the original artist.

I was determined to make them LEGALLY sound like the originals. Your inferences make my blood run cold, and to be frank, I expected better from an old Mecca pal, and I wonder here what you are trying to achieve with these awful and quite horrible insinuations.

I don't like it. Not one bit.

As Paul Mooney knows, we can be extremely clever, and cheat in lots of ways to achieve our best results, without sampling off the originals. But along comes Epic... The Sherlock Holmes of Soul Investigators. One minute you're talking about high pitched whines, the next you're inferring they missed an "uhhh" and, Epic, to be quite frank, you aren't half pissing me off. And I leave myself wondering why, and to what end, and what your motive is for doing so. I have enough troublemakers around me without fending off and justifying myself to someone I believed was an old friend.

We have done the right thing the right way and taken years of care doing it, and I don't like to be questioned like this, not when I have done nothing wrong. And neither do I NEED to defend myself. And after all the Trolls that have been bearbaiting me on here, it is simply scandalous that this stuff should come from someone like YOU. What next ?? Is my Mother going to report me to the police for going two miles an hour over the speed limit ????

Do you DARE to try to tell me something like this is sampled off the original ?? Because if you claim it is, I will supply footage of him singing it accapella for us.

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Hello Epic,

Vocals can be sampled, cut, pasted, retriggered, looped, tuned, stretched, whatever. All producers and engineers do this and I don't blame Ian for using technology to get results.

No doubt Ian has done some sampling at times but it's also amazing what can be emulated these days, especially with the latest frequency analysis and matching tools.

I can play bass like James Jamerson on a good day.

Best regards,

Paul Mooney

The point I am making is that these artists don't sound like they did nearly 40 years ago - when they were in some pokey studio in Detroit or Chicago recording on a mixer that would be laughed at nowadays.

I am not knocking what Ian did I am just pointing out that it is naive to think that these artists can still cut it in a recording studio without a huge amount of studio wizardry - which they didn't have or need all those years ago.

In fairness Ian I think people have made their own minds up about the vocals on some of the tracks on SWONS videos. Whether they are the truly new vocals only you & the people involved in the studio genuinely know.

I have watched the Eddie Parker - "Love You Baby" video & I cannot believe that 30 years after the original that Mr Parker would sound as much like the original without a little "help" from a sound engineer- even the original uh's are in there - but not actually coming out of his mouth in the video.

This is not a dig at you Ian but I just wish you would treat us all with a bit more intelligence - it comes across as insulting. I understand that some of the ageing artists must have been struggling - I don't mind if they did mime - it is such a joy to see these artists that it doesn't matter to me - but to talk about adding syllables etc is just semantics. Let's just agree that some of the artists had a little "help" from the original recording & leave it at that.

At least with RW,s nights you get exactly what it says on the tin, held as close as can be to the original venue !!!! wtf,s wrong with that !!!!! each to there own, it will be packed and they will have a great time, leave them to it and get on with your own life

Ian.

Good job they didn't build a golf course,swimming baths or graveyard on the "hallowed" (sic) site.

Northern & rare soul will be better appreciated hopefully,(if at all) when our generation is long gone. The thought of geriatric soul fans celebrating Wigan Casino's 57th anniversary in a shopping mall makes my blood run cold.

Some forward thinking promoter should open a "Northern Soul Retirement Home" where toothless,balding, incontinent (& that's just the women ) old soulies could sit round a piano while "Matron" belts out "Elijah Rocking With Soul" - because "the old dears" like to reminisce.

Don't see many copies of "Yes I Love You Baby" - The Dynamics - where does that sit in the list of rarities?

kenny burrell bought one for only 15k......not 25k atb tezza

Which one - The Scottish DJ or the American jazz guitarist

Terry Christian - Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

No no no.

We recorded their vocals first, with them wearing headphones and singing along, while the mike captured the new vocal, which usually had lots of stops and starts. Then, with the cameras rolling, they mimed to the original record, then we made a new record out of their newly recorded vocals once we got thevocals back in England, and tried to synch the miming in with the new version. It isn't always quite as tight as we might have wished, but overall it works.

There are no elements of the originals left on our versions once they are finished.

The only reason I question this is for a long time someting has been puzzling me.

I have an original 7 inch of Deon Jackson "That's What You Do To Me" & I can remember at a certain point in the record there is a high pitch noise which sounds like microphone feedback.

If you listen to the recording you did at (YouTube) 1 minute 53 seconds this noise is also there.

There is also a You Tube of TWYDTM which is the original recording posted up by someone else & guess what happens 1 minute 53 seconds into the recording?

Either you have gone the extra mile to re-create that authentic sound or your answer to my question isn't totally honest or you have another explanation.

I wasn't trying to beat the Pied Piper production.

But Kapp became MCA which is now Universal, and that means using the original version is a complete no-go area for a multitude of reasons.

It was a case of re-record the track or don't use the song.

Even, as I have said, if we had raised a fortune to pay to use all the original versions, that would have only lasted three years. Ten years later we would, once again, have all this footage and no rights to use the music to go along with it.

Re-doing all the songs was the only possible way to do this whole project in the first place.

Yes - but some of the vocals are so obviously mimed to by the artists - was it only the backing tracks that you had to re-record? I suspect that elements of the original backing tracks may have been used also.

Tune I like which is hidden away on an old Barbara Pennington (United Artists) album is "Spend A Little Time With Me" - I am surprised you haven't revisited that track more recently with the new artists you have worked with.

Think the words "Shopping Centre Soul" tells you the answer to your question.

....there is loads more Mecca etc... stuff to talk about..........happy dayz,happy dayz.....

pete

Get some Photos up you old timer!

Andy.

The one of Ian in his white "boiler suit" will be shown unless he meets our ransom demands.

Always thought The Soul Notes was a bona fide discovered record - not a tailor made. I stand to be corrected if I am wrong.

Yes.

There was a big shop right on the seafront in Blackpool, at the base of Victoria Street or near it. In 1971 they suddenly acquired hundreds of thousand of cut-out records for 20p each. Loads on both UK labels and on US.

I got both Bobby Hebb and Frankie And The Classicals on English Phillips in there. And on US labels, Thumb A Ride, The Millionaires "Never For Me", Lenny Welch on Mercury, just loads of stuff you'd never expect to have found in Blackpool.

It was called "Moochers" - they also had ton & tons of reggae singles (things like Harris Wheel on Crab etc) - there was one in St Annes also - remember pulling out lots of copies of Vibrations - "Surprise Party For Baby"

Incidentally back then Starpic had Motown "cut out" albums for 49p - Marvelettes - Barbara McNair - Tammi Terrell etc.

You're mixing two tracks up there Epic, "Motown" by The Cammotions is a legit 60's stomper

I am sure the 12inch white label promos had a cover up name similar to this - Ian Dewhirst will know,

Uptown Festival by Shalamar is the closest thing to a Northern "Stars on 45" - Mr Soussan had a hand in it - got a few plays at Wigan I think - wasn't it covered up as Motown by Commotion or Chaos - something like that.

The odd time the bouncers turned us away, we went to a club in Cleveleys (can,t recall its name) that played Northern. A young Pete Haigh used to go.

It was The Gallopers - saw the Detroit Emeralds there in '73.