Roburt

More female teeny-bopper 'Northern Soul' ........

ABC Records Hit Singles ad from 67 ........

A previously unreleased track cut in 1971. No doubt there's an acetate floating about somewhere.

This youtube clip shows the 45 label .......

An ad ringing the Bell for two singles ...........

I believe that the following book should be given a wide berth .............. FAME WITHOUT FORTUNE, MOTOWN RECORDS —— THE AL CLEVELAND STORY by Glenn Soucy & Ron Sheffey A book review I've seen states that it's a total waste of the trees utilised to make the pages that form the book. That's a great pity as I'm sure a 'true telling' of Al's story (pre Motown, Motown & post Motown) could be interesting. I seem to recall (though the memory is failing these days) that he ran his own (Vegas ?) based Cleveland Records some time after he left Motown.

Back in the 70's & 80's, Oldies Unlimited in Telford used to carry huge amounts of cut-out singles stock. The guy there would buy up all the 'cheap 45s' being cleared out by UK record companies / national record store chains. As this meant he had 100's of (unsold) copies of non hits, he used to do giant swops with similar record dealers in the US and in Europe. That way he could reduce his stock in a number of 'unpopular' singles from say 1500 copies to around 1000. This policy resulted in him ending up with lots of US & Euro pressed 45's and the Euro ones included lots of Italian stuff. He would put lots of these 45's in his catalogue as individually named items but some soul stuff just went straight into his 'soul packs'. I used to buy one of his soul packs per year and so I ended up with loads of Italian released 70's soul singles. They were mainly major label things on CBS and the like as I recall.

Here's a web site where you can listen to Laura talking about various phases of her music career . ..... https://lauralee.bandcamp.com/ On track 3 on the site, Laura talks about trying to record "Dirty Man" in Chicago & the song not coming together in the studio ..... .... even though the studio band included Donny Hathaway & Leonard Caston + other greats. When she went down to Muscle Shoals, those guys nailed it !!! https://lauralee.bandcamp.com/track/track-3

Here's his "Love I’m Not Gonna Be Your Fool Anymore" which does have that 'big city soul' sound ......... The arrangement is a bit too sugary for me though & his voice (on this) displays a lack of bite .... but overall it's a decent track. Ady / Kent included his "Palm of your Hand" on their 'Birth of Soul Vol.3' CD, so not doubt the booklet notes for that contain some info on Chuck.

I picked up a few nice 45's in Milan 2/3 years back. They have a big market on the square outside the front of the main railway station there on a weekend, that's where I got most of them from on that visit. One of the PC 45's I found was the Hitchhikers ABC single (Kenny Hamber was their lead singer). The group had one LP out on ABC in the US and the label pulled one 45 from it for American release. In the UK (& Germany), a 45 was also released but that featured different cuts off the LP. Italy went it's own way as well, so the Hitchhikers Italian ABC 45 features different tracks once again. Can't find any of those Italian 45's at present, so here's a scan of the group's German ABC 45 to be going on with ..........

Bet this Chart Records 45 release (distributed by RCA) confused quite a few Maxine Brown fans back in 1968 ..........

An RCA mag ad for a 'NORTHERN SOUL STARS' (!?!?!) single ........ ... Wigan Casino ruled in the soul stakes .......... NOT ............

No, not certain. Mind you, I think his cuts were 'Chuck Jackson-ish sounding' coz Chuck's stuff was selling so well back then. Chuck J had enjoyed 3 big R&B + Pop Chart hits in 61 and "Any Day Now" was shooting up the charts when this Chuck's 1st Ember 45 was being made ready for release.

If you were 'YOUNG AT HEART' no doubt you would have attended this show .............

A Rojac mag ad .........

Seems Mike has been away in France for a while. He's back now & sorting out the next edition ready for the printers.

He had 5 x 45's out on US Ember between 1962 & 1964 ............ PLUS ... according to that piece out of Billboard, he had previously had 45's out on Imperial !! His Ember releases ........... Ember 1087 (1962) Love I’m Not Gonna Be Your Fool Anymore Ember 1091 (1963) Palm Of Your Hand Ember 1095 (1963) If I Promise Ember 1102 (1964) It's A Lie Ember 1110 (1964) Heartless Tears His initial Ember 45 got radio plays on stations such as WJLB in Detroit where it just made it onto the charts.

Some records containing the special tracks cut for some old ads have been put out down the years. Here's a 45 EP that contains some Coke ad tracks. I (of course) bought it for the D,D,D,B,M & T track !!!!

Another 1961 ad, this time placed by Duke Records ................

1961 Atlantic Record's ad .................

Soul music tracks seem to have been the hip tool to use to help sell products via radio / TV ads for a good while now. But, in the US, they were using soul singers / soul cuts on radio / TV ads as far back as the 60's. The likes of Chuck Jackson did cigarette ads. Aretha, Motown stars & many more did coke ads .... & so on .... Seems that some companies ran competitions to select who would sing on their ads ........... ..... one such company, back in 1969, was Schaefer Beer. There 'Talent Hunt' competition was won by some acts who all got to add their vocals to adverts used to sell their beer. Three of those acts were the Devonnes, Ray P(ollard) and Ann Duquesnay. Here's the newspaper announcement as to who had won their 'talent hunt' (with the acts 45's added in) .......... Anyone know of other such contests back in the 60's. I (already) know of the famous 80's 'talent hunt' 45's ...

A poster for a nightclub / disco now .............

On to the early 60's now ............

Back to the 50's again .......... .. & who's that lurking in the group (Ray P methinks) ....

Come see Gloria Lynn ............