Roburt

Pete, you are , as always, right ...... but the tale being recounted above happened in the UK ..... so I was talking about the UK classification of the track in the mid 60's.

A quickly made mock-up ..............

Maurice & The Radiants - Baby You've Got It Back in the 60's when we danced to this at venues like the Wheel it was either 'Club Soul' or 'Big City Soul' ............ R&B never came into it then & it doesn't these days either. ....... it's out & out soul with a big S Much like this similar track ........... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSwmlK_k_XE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmXeyPZnkwU

Quite like some Action stuff but their version of "Harlem Shuffle" is a total mess.

You're wrong there Ady. If you walk out across the beach for a mile, then you can catch the Cleggy Water Ballet team in training. They can be quite spectacular when a Humber gale is in full blow.

Good Venue Good Live acts (for me that is. Don't attend weekenders without a live act) Decent music (2 rooms > 60's & Modern) Good atmosphere (combination of music & people > enough of both & both decent) Good accommodation Good soul crowd in attendance Not too difficult to get to (distance, roads, weather).

Probably one of the acts that Jewel has unreleased tracks on in their archive. The person to (probably) confirm that is Paul Mooney who used to check through their unissued stuff listings back in the day.

There have been threads that have tried to explain this topic in the past .......... .......... .......... With regard to a statement in the Shit-fi article above .............. Is there any evidence of 45s on any of the tax scam labels? ..... There are a couple on Dellwood, but I don’t know if they were released before or after the albums. My guess is that Dellwood was a real label, and then was transformed into the tax scam It didn't seem to make any difference at all to the tax scam whether the releases were 45's or LP's though I guess it was easier to make much more money from releasing LP's. You make a claim saying you pressed up 10,000 LP's and can claim back a decent % of the wholesale price of around $4.30 (for a $7.98 retail cost release) ... say $30,000. If you did the same for scam 45 releases, no doubt you could only claim back around $5,000. So it was much easier to make loads of money by claiming for unsold LP's One tax scam label I do know quite a bit about was the LA based Emkay Records. In all there were 12 releases on the Emkay label in 1979 ........ 10 No. 45’s + 2 No. LPs. Six of the 45’s were soul outings with four being rock. The label's releases only included tracks that they legitimately owned whereas many labels put out stuff that didn't even hold the rights to (no doubt using tapes originally sent out by the artist reps in an effort to secure a record deal). In Emkay's case, the guys at the record company were approached by a 'wide-boy' lawyer who told them about the scheme and then operated the scam tax rebate claim on their behalf. Many of these lawyers sailed close to the wind with regard to what they actually claimed back (to increase their fees) and the guy who did this work for Emkay had to head across to Canada, when his dealings were discovered by the US Revenue Service, to escape jail. I guess some of these labels might have actually pressed up their releases in the quantities that were actually claimed back (i.e. 1000's of copies of each release) BUT as most 45's / LP's involved have remained scarce, I guess they did only actually press up dozens of copies of each rather than the 1,000's claimed for.

Close enough to the label switch over to have been pressed up on later version of label ..... IF .... a radio DJ had gotten behind either 45 and was playing it in his area for a few weeks or he had reactivated it coz it was a personal fave. If that was the case, it could easily have prompted label promo team to have 2nd press done & sent them out with sheet saying "big in Jackson" (or wherever). These two 45's released in Feb / March 1966 with label changeover coming in April 66.

......... a slight variation here .......... this could be titled THE PITFALLS OF RUNNING A FEMALE GROUP ........... ...............rest of post copied across from Soulful Detroit Forum ................. When the Velvelettes were auditioned in 1962, there were 5. Come 1963 when Millie became pregnant, they had to perform as four. Later Millie returned but then it was Norma's turn! So during this time, there were mostly four consisting of Cal, Bertha and Kelli plus one more being either Millie or Norma. Kelli left the group officially when she was 20 in September 1964 because that was when she was able to sign a contract herself. However, she had been recording as a Vandella as far back as June 1964. From then on it was reduced to a basic 3 with Norma and Millie interchanging. So that is why you see Millie in the Apollo shots and Norma at the Regal in Chicago. Millie’s decision to reduce her input was down to the negativity from folks who didn’t agree with her leaving her children at home to go on tour. So Millie only helped out in exceptional circumstances. Bertha and Norma (who gave birth yet again) carried on with Cal but both of them wanted to leave permanently by 1965. When I reviewed the studio logs with them in about 2003/4, they concluded that they stopped recording in about June 1965. However, Cal only had to recruit new members for tours, not for recording purposes. All Velvelettes recordings at this time consisted of Cal on lead with Cal plus the Andantes (or whoever else was there) on background. Annette was taken on first as a dancer. Cal would interchange the third girl with Bertha, Norma or even a cousin. The Velvelettes then had an engagement in about January 1966 for 'Where The Action Is' which I gather is based on the West Coast. She couldn't use her cousin or any of the other former Velvelettes for that engagement because it was not local. Cal had to recruit a new girl and she was called Gail and hailed from Baltimore. (Cal doesn't even recall her surname). However Gail wasn’t there all that long before she started to take steps to take over the group! So she was gone soon after that engagement. In that TV appearance of Needle...Gail is furthest from Cal! LOLOL Sandy (Tillie -- from Cleveland) was introduced to Cal by Abdul Fakir of the 4 Tops who had met Sandy in Philadelphia. Sandy was also a great dancer, looked good and fitted in well with the group. Sandy also harboured a secret wish to sing lead but Cal only found out about that much later. In fact Cal hadn’t heard Sandy’s lead vocal on "Honey Love" until I played it to her in about 2004.

UK EMI released a similar compilation on Stateside in 1986 titled 'One Minit At A Time' AND ... in Germany EMI put out 'Out of Sight, Out of Mind' in 1981 on Capitol that included old Minit, Capitol, Liberty, Imperial & United Artists tracks. MIND YOU, we've mentioned loads of great soul comp series so far but failed to mention the really good 'This Is Loma' series.

A bit of a different one but still Levi shows his class ............

You could post up classic clips of Levi & the guys all day ......

Over in London & singing to a live track (I think; probably a BBC show as they did this sort of thing a lot) ............

AND ANOTHER FROM THE SAME SHOW ..........

AND ONE OF THEIR MANY CLASSICS .................

Up on youtube, a tribute to Levi .............

An edition of Soul Train that Letta appeared on ............ ... she's on at around 19mins into this clip ............ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4hVCNayUAQ

........... KTF ............ ... YOU KNOW IT MAKES SENSE ......

Got to agree with Paul, in the early days when we were still 'wet behind the ears', compilation LP's were a great way to get introduced to new artists without too much risk (as you knew you would like some tracks coz you knew those artists but not some of the others). The comps that helped most with my early soul education included the Sue stuff (various Sue Story volumes, Dr. Soul, Soul 66), the EMI / Bell ones (Bell Cellar of Soul Vols.1, 2 & 3), the Pye Records ones (Sing a Song of Soul, Blues & Soul,Rhythm & Blues Vol.2) and of course the Motown ones. ..... bought some of these from the top floor based record department of the Co-op in Dony back in the mid to late 60's .... before that floor was turned into 'the Attic' soul club !!! But other interesting releases (though also not really containing tenuously linked tracks) that I got down the years include ........ The Action label LP 'These Kind of Blues' Sonet's 'The Soul of Black Music' (all gospel cuts) The great UK Stax comp 'Boy Meets Girl' (though the US release featured more tracks as it was a double LP package) The French series 'Rhythm & Blues Formidible' & 'Rhythm & Blues Terrible' (though these are spoiled a bit as each track runs into the next) The Spanish Atlantic (& some Stax) releases 'Hits & Soul' The US East Memphis Music double LP (& cassette package) 'History of the Memphis Sound' (think a 2nd revised version of this also escaped) A Jamaican issued Hi Records comps 'Hi Sounds Rare Collection Vol.1 & 2' (Vol.2 escaped as Hi was failing back in the US and contains tracks that aren't too cheap to obtain on original US 45's -- Quiet Elegance, Gene Anderson, Darryl Carter, Veniece) The series of special LP's produced by record companies for the BBC (on the BBC Radioplay Music label) ........ artists featured included Thelma Houston & Jerry Butler, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Jnr. Walker, Jimmy Ruffin, High Inergy, 4 Tops, Shorty Long, Gladys Knight, Impact of Brass .......... one of these albums was even titled 'Keep The Faith'.

Here's a scan of the tuva side of this 45 ....... 1 cut from United Artists, 1 from Renfro, shouts BOOT to me ..... ... about a dozen 45's on the label, usually different artists on each side. Again shouts BOOT to me ......

Yet another of her Motown cuts ............

Another of her Motown tracks .......

From South Africa, Letta Mbulu went to the US (via England) to escape apartheid and hooked up there with Hugh Masakela. She cut loads of tracks in the US for the likes of Capitol, Chisa, Motown, A&M + more. Eventually she returned to South Africa and continued to record and perform live there. She's best known in the UK for her US Random Records 45 "What's Wrong With Groovin", this having been reissued here by Jazzman Records about 12 years ago. She had an album and two 45's out on Motown / Tamla Motown in the southern Africa region + a Motown 45 out in the US. Some of her stuff has been reissued on CD and the like in more recent times .......... BUT .... I'm trying to establish if she had any Tamla Motown label 45's released in Europe. It seems that she may have achieved a Euro Motown 45 release and I'm trying to establish the details of this (tracks featured / 45 number, etc). Anyone here help ?? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk68K8a1cw4

More product to feed the nostalgia boom .............. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Club-Soul-Vol-3-Catacombs-1968-74/dp/B00E4V0BWI/ref=pd_sim_b_2 The Catacombs Temple Street, Wolverhampton 1968-74 The Original Sound Of Northern Soul, Popcorn And R&B 'The sounds hit you like a ton of dynamite and stayed with you. You remembered what you heard at The Cats. We took what had gone before, what was happening now, and set the template for what was to follow at The Torch, Wigan and beyond, and it's still following today! Basil, (aka Paul Grainger, former Catacombs DJ) The Catacombs club in Wolverhampton was one of the UK's premier rare soul clubs. An upstairs venue, housed in an old lead smelting works, what it lacked in glamour it more than made up for in influence and during the late sixties and early seventies The Cats was responsible for introducing many future Northern Soul anthems to the UK. This new compilation collects some of the classic tracks that would have been played at the time. The 28 tracks include gems from Bobby Womack, Gene Chandler, P.P. Arnold and more.