Johndelve

Excellent LPs IMO. Enjoying them. And I counted about 8 unreleased tracks across the four volumes....the two Carl Hall tracks they claim are unreleased is wrong though as both were included on a CD on him recently...

A marvellous CD, one of the best this year, I'll wager. 'BIYMG' IS brilliant and "Don't Leave Me Baby" is just as good.

Fine review, fine release. Astonishing that so much good stuff lay unreleased for so long.

It's another lovely CD from what has been a great series and a fair few on here are new to me which is always a bonus.

Steve, thanks very much for kind words. It is much appreciated. I like the binding, too. I was determined to give this my best shot and I didn't want to stint on quality. Unless sales are absolutely disastrous - hopefully not of course - there will definitely be a Volume 2, and indeed, I am a little way along with it. Cheers John

Yes, Mike, absolutely right and my new top 100 in the book reflects this approach. The top 25 list I also include is one that DOES deal with retrospective sets as the likes of "Bill Coday" and "The Artistry of Brenda Holloway" are just too good to not deserve a highlight of their own....

Yes and no, is the answer to your question. I have deliberately avoided "various artists" compilations as I'm already conscious of the size and weight of book and this would have just pushed up time taken to write it, weight, cost, etc. etc up even further given there are so many various artists comps out there. However, on the other hand, I do refer to Big 16 as it is obviously not a various artists collection. But I don't talk about it much as I have chosen to spend more time on "albums as albums" rather than "greatest hits " and "best ofs"..

Thanks again, Mike. Yes, a top 100 list is included ( but one only taken from artists covered within this book, ie only from those from A - K. I've also done a top 25 'best of' list. The book hopefully make sit clear why I've done two lists... As I say in my preface, I've got fed up of waiting for someone else to do it, so did it myself !

Thanks Roburt and Mike. Roburt, very happy to send a copy for review. What address shall I send it to please ? Mike, yes, physically available right now. I've already shipped out a number of books... I think Volume 2 is probably at least a couple of years away. Volume 1 has 408 pages and 435,000 words. It took me three years. But I've learned a lot in that time about how to write a book and the countless hours i wasted by needless editing will save me loads and loads of time for Volume 2 , and I've already started it, but I don't expect it to take three years this time around. . John

I'm not sure if this is the right place within Soul Source to announce this or not. If not, apologies, but I did want to make people aware of a book I have just written and had published which is now available for sale. I'm attaching a handful of pictures which should give a bit more information but as I have said in my product description on Amazon : This is the definitive attempt in book form to list and discuss thousands of soul LPs that were issued in the vinyl era. Volume 1 addresses album releases by hundreds of artists from the famous - James Brown, Marvin Gaye and Aretha Franklin - to the much more obscure - John Byrd, Harmon Bethea and Geater Davis. Beautifully produced in hardback, including 108 colour photographs of LP covers, Spinning Around : The History Of The Soul LP, Volume 1 : A - K, is the first truly comprehensive study of this topic ever undertaken anywhere in the world. My plan was to announce this in conjunction with its availability on Amazon but trying to get it ready for sale there is proving to be a nightmare although I'm sure it will be sorted out soon. An alternative means of sale is simply for anyone who is interested in buying a copy to contact me directly at john.lias@googlemail.com and I can ship copies directly. Price is £20 + £2.80 postage anywhere in UK. Same selling price holds true for other parts of the world but postage is going to be expensive, I'm afraid, as book is heavy. But it really looks great, If I say so myself. Thanks John Lias

Nice article, Heikki, though I must admit I was flabbergasted to hear Phillip say that Huey Meaux was one of the nicest people he ever knew !

"Sweethearts Of Sigma" - Barbara Ingram, Evette Benton and Carla Benson.

I would agree with Sean and suspect it is Ian's mind playing tricks. No other copies of an original ever been seen by anyone in forty years. I know i had in my own mind pictures of LPs from four decades ago that I could swear I once saw but now realise do not exist.

And I've just dug it out for first time in years. In case anyone is interested here's what I said : "Until recently records like this did not really exist. The issue of a 15 year old, previously unreleased session of southern soul from an almost completely unknown female singer would have been commercial suicide. Hopefully, the recent re-appraisal of this type of music will mean that it won't be just such a disaster. It might even do Sandra Wright some good too. The sleeve notes by the producer of the session, David Johnson, relate how Sandra became the unwitting victim of his decision to pact the project with Stax at exactly the time they were going out of business and the whole episode so traumatised her that she refused to record anything else for some considerable time. Which is our loss, despite her style being fixed somewhere between Aretha Franklin and Shirley Brown, and thus prohibiting unrestricted eulogy, this is a most appealing record. Most of the tracks have actually been recorded by other artists: "The Sha-La Bandit" and "I'm Not Strong Enough " both appeared on Aretha's "With Everything I Feel In Me" LP from 1975 where they were presumably dispatched with all speed as soon as the fate of Sandra's versions became apparent. Wright's reading, by the way, is the real peach here - a gorgeous southern soul classic. Even the tracks that have not been recorded elsewhere have a familiarity not borne out of contempt but from the timeless echoes of the southern soul art. "Wounded Woman", for example, sounds much like Bettye Swann's "Make Me Yours", but is none the worse for it. One final point, Demon, is that far from being an "unknown" song, "I'll See You Through" is actually Luther Ingram's "I'll Be Your Shelter". It won't worry the late Raymond Jackson (one of the three composers) but I'm not sure how Homer Banks and Carl Hampton will feel. "

I reviewed The Demon release in Black Echoes at the time it came out. Very favourably, I might add.

I reviewed The Demon release in Black Echoes at the time it came out. Very favourably, I might add.

Indeed, he's great. His two sides on The Temptations One By One CD from 1996, I Feel Like Givin' Up and Once You Had A Heart, are brilliant.

Indeed. Seems to consist as much as anything of posts about birthdays and deaths of people who have absolutely nothing to do with soul music at all. : (

Bette Williams " He took my hand" is an album ? Surely not...?

I also recommend the Stuart Cosgrove book, "Detroit '67", but it is appallingly badly edited, containing more typos than any book, of any sort, I have ever read in my life. I really hope this has been sorted out by the time of his next book, "Memphis '68".

Just received a very apologetic email this morning from Will. Records STILL not ready but at least communication lines now open again.

Has anyone else, like me, paid for the M-Pac! LP weeks ( maybe months even) ago and still not received it ? To make things worse Will at Secret Stash records has now simply ignored my email of last week and one of the week before asking what is going on. A few weeks back, to be fair, he was enitirely apologetic about the lengthy dealy. Now he seems to have gone to ground.

The CD is absolutely fantastic. The drum sound Dap Tone get is better than anyone has managed since the mid seventies and the songs are also nearly all well above average' as evidenced by "Mr Teddy" above. Such a smart composition. "If only" is magnificent.

And for only $1.3 million. Says it all sadly about living in Detroit nowadays. A place of this size and opulence in London or New York - and many other places - would be way in excess of $ 20 million.

Thanks for the reply to my enquiry. The answer to your question is, I believe, "Hey there lonely girl".