Robbk

Hi Marvin, I sent you another personal message to your message box on this forum. Please check it out. It answers a couple of your questions.

Some of us were buying those obscure Soul records in The USA, around the time they were released, and are still collecting today. I bought most of Dynamics 1011-1017 in Detroit record store bargain bins soon (within 3-6 months) after they were released.

I worked on many international 3rd World engineering projects, and all our project budgets had an item titled "Bakshish", for paying "bribes" to local project country government agencies, to provide us with data we needed, or access to project study areas (in other words, we had to pay bribes to even be physically able to do the work we were hired to do, and writing it off as necessary project expenses was entirely legitimate.

Pension plans rarely provide even 80% of a former workers average monthly income. in ANY of the countries in which I have dwelt, or with which I am familiar (even in heavily socialised Scandinavia). My German friends who come closest to matching their average late career work pay, get around 80%, and feel very lucky to do so. And, on top of that, they generally lose a little more each year, to inflation. So why should new pensioners have a LOT of disposable or discretionary income, when their pension income is already only able to support a very frugal lifestyle, and less able to do even that, over each succeeding year. I hear many, many stories about record collectors having to sell off their collections to survive, and very few if any stories about collectors who can now buy more, and more expensive records now that they are receiving their pension money. I don't know much about The British system, but, I can't imagine that it provides significantly higher pension incomes relative to previous worker incomes than in The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany Denmark, Sweden, Canada and USA (of which I am familiar).

Speak for yourself!!! Some of us are ancient, and our pensions don't keep up with inflation (REAL inflation is a lot higher than the stated inflation figures provided by our various government agencies.

I'm sure you are right. But, had Frank made the wrong decision in Berry's eyes, there still may have been a "throwaway" limited release (maybe 300-500 pressed and released only in Detroit) , to "keep him happy", as was done with The Serenaders, Oma Heard, The Vows, The Creations (for Andre Williams), Hal Davis, and many others, with no marketing push, whatsoever, just to placate them. It cost next to nothing, and was a tax write-off for the "standard amount for record production, despite Motown's actual cost for the "throwaways likely being less than the writeoff amount.

I wouldn't go THAT far. It MAY be possible that they only ran 6 test pressings of the white DJ copy, to test before running the full DJ run, which Berry cancelled. Then there would have been only 12 pressed (6 DJs, and 6 stockers). Berry, not sure if Frank would decide to give up his singing career, might have decided not to run the full DJ run (of perhaps 200-300, or even 500) until Wilson gave his answer, but, he wanted both the test pressings of the DJs AND the stockers ready, to get production started as soon as possible, IF Wilson would decide against moving to Detroit and becoming a full-time Motown producer.

Hi Ady Sent you a 300 dpi of the white DJ to your Soul-Source message box. Hope you can use it. Robb

From what I remember, there was only one 4 Bars group, who sang in The Baltimore/D.C. Area, and that was Eddie Daye's group, which sang during most of the 1950s and 1960s. I always thought that Eddie was their lead singer. They DID have member changes in transitioning from R&B to Soul, and the '50s to the '60s. They backed Vic Marcel on several cuts, but I never heard of Marcel being an official member of that group.

So, Frank Brown was the financier, executive producer and owner of the record label (Soulville International). He owned a few small Detroit Soul labels during the 1960s. No relation to Kable, Mickay's and Ring's Fred Brown, Frank had his own label, Valtone (1966-69), and had a few other small Detroit labels of his own before that.

I was not able to play the Dennis Edwards interview, because that video is restricted where I am now. Can someone please paraphrase for me what Dennis said about how he came to record it? I am very curious, as the recording sounds very like Dennis' 1966-67 Motown solo cuts, and a Motown studio cut, rather than an off-Motown Detroit cut, such as made by Groovesville/Solid Hitbound, Golden World/Ric Tic, Ollie Mclaughlin, Thelma, Correc-Tone, and the other Moptown imitators. Having Joe Hunter arrange, and Ronny Savoy write (and probably produce it?), one would have expected it to sound more like a Ric Tic cut. But, it sounds like it was recorded in The Snakepit, or at United Sound. It also sounds like it came from the period when Dennis was contracted to motown (later than his cuts with The Celebrities on Boss. Could it have come just between Boss and Motown? I'm curious about who produced it, and who paid for the production (International Soulsville). I doubt that Joe Hunter or Ronnie Savoy did.

I'm sure that The Underdogs' "Love's Gone Bad" didn't chart nationally in USA, and probably only got local sales in Detroit because they had a local following in Detroit's Garage Band scene. They played locally at The Hideout, and a few other venues, and were quite popular from 1966-68. But, their national sales were likely minimal. They didn't even get play in Seattle, which had a thriving "Garage scene" (Sonics, Wailers, etc.).

I wouldn't call "Festival Time" a "Motown hit". It had no sales in North America on Ric Tic, and none on Gordy. Same for "6 By 6" on Soul. The OP asked for Motown hits. Maybe they would count as Motown hits if their Tamla-Motown releases were high on the charts in The UK. Were those 2 really "big hits" on the Pop charts in The UK?

So, was The Maxine Jenkins record before Dynamics' 1000 series, or after it? So, "A. Abney" was Armond Abney, Butler's other son.

No surprise that there were Soul records in The Philippines during the 1960s. It was a US territory with US military personnel stationed there. But why would RCA print The Lollipops' record in Egypt??? There were some Brits there, but I'll bet that song got no airplay in The UK. It didn't even get played in USA outside The Northeast.

Could it be that Godin was selling franchises, and Martin Koppel got The Canadian one? Maybe there were Australian and New Zealand franchises, as well?

Yes, Jubilee/Josie Group (distributor) covers came on the later Festival records. There was an earlier Festival sleeve when the earlier Festival output was out. There were no company sleeves for any of Johnnie Mae Matthews' labels.

I concur. I don't believe Arc Records used Arc sleeves on Arc - distributed records. I never saw any indication of Arc Records having any subsidiaries or distrbuting records for smaller non-affiliated labels.

Do you mean "La Louisienne"?

Not nearly as good as The Merced Blue Notes' "Do The Pig", which was horrible, and probably their worst recording.

Yes, Teri Thornton used an AKA as "Teri Summers". All the Teri and Terri artists on Preview and MSR were likely to have been Teri Thornton.

She looks a little like Teri Thornton, when she was young.

"Something's Burning" was sung by The Marvellos (L.A. group who worked with L.A. Jobete Music producers). The Marvellows were a Chicago group, who sang ""I Do" and "In The Morning", later becoming The Mighty Marvelows, who sang "Talkin' 'Bout Ya Baby (on your list above), and who worked in Chicago, with Johnny Pate.

No vinyl release. On one or two CDs.

Today's favourite 20: 1 Monitors - Crying In The Night 2 Contours - It's So Hard Being A Loser 3 Carolyn Crawford - Lover Boy 4 Originals - Suspicion (version I sent with Rod Shard to UK in 1981) 5 Temptations - A Tear From A Woman's Eye 6 Emanuel Lasky - Lucky To Be Loved By You 7 Volumes - Gotta Give Her Love 8 Gwen Owens - Mystery Man 9 Miracles - Mr. Misery 10 Contours - Baby, Hit and Run (Dennis Edwards lead version) 11 Jimmy Ruffin - On The Avenue 12 Barbara Green - Lover's Plea 13 Satintones - My Beloved (early 1960 version-no strings) 14 Spinners - Truly Yours 15 Jimmy Mack - My World Is On Fire 14 Distants - Come On 15 Marv Johnson - Just The Way You Are 16 Jackie Wilson - Am I The Man 17 Parliaments - That Was My Girl 18 Tobi Lark - Happiness Is Here 19 Hollywood Flames - Dance Senorita 20 Carolyn Crawford - I'll Come Running