Seano

Many thanks for posting, got my order in too.

I missed this when it was posted, so just to add best wishes to his family and friends, even if he had only ever taken those first steps with Stax we all have a huge debt to the man.

Fascinating thanks Chalky (and David Welding).

I went with my wife and a friend last night to the final performance in Northampton. We all thought it was excellent, and one area where I'd agree with the pretty poor review in the Guardian is that Abiona Omonua sang superbly in the role of Tammi Terrell. We had brilliant seats in what turned out to be the 2nd row bang centre (should have been 3rd row), with the 1st row removed so that they could have steps up to the stage allowing Marvin's two sisters to occasionally step out of the frame for their narration of the story. I think the Guardian review by Lyn Gardner misses the point in criticising the play for the focus on Mavin's immediate family and that we hear very little of his music. There are so many compilation CDs, reissues and downloads and all sorts of ways you can hear his music; the whole point of this was to shine a light on a possible interpretation of his relationship with siblings and parents. Whether it does so correctly or not may be up for debate, but giving it a bad review for not being an end to end rehash of his songs is plain dumb.

Finished it just half an hour ago. Excellent book, lots of great detail without losing the page-turner feel of a well written piece of literature. It brings people and the music to life; despite the sad personal note at the end of the book, it is an uplifting account of the past 50 years and points towards decades to come. Although I recognised aspects of myself in the various references to the obsessive nature of our craft, I did manage to resist reading the glossary and index! I was also very pleased to see that it had been very well edited - although I found Detroit '67 interesting to read, it was littered with typos. Look forward to the next book!

The book arrived on Friday and after a very quick flick through I'm looking forward to reading it - and your review makes it sound like I won't be disappointed!

Certainly like this one, not sure about the white vinyl though.

Always used to put this on tape swops, great track and who'd have passed by on seeing a 45 on Motown by Major Lance? Had to be good news and good to see it getting a bit of a spotlight here.

My wife spotted this in the 'What's On' guide for the Royal & Derngate theatre in Northampton. From Friday 20th May to Saturday 11th June, tickets between £10 and £29. The play is written by Roy Williams, and the blurb says it was in close collaboration with members of the family of Marvin Gaye. "A dramatic thriller about one of the most influential musicians of our time." Of course quite a lot of us will know how it ends, but it sounds worth a punt! Soul - new play

I don't care if her eyes are redI don't care if her nose is longI don't care if she's underfedI don't care if her clothes are wornFirst I look at the purse! Lyrics (link)

Tremendous work here Chalky, great detail and it more than makes the point that you set out to document about life in the scene post-Wigan.

How brilliant is this soul superstar? Just thought anyone likely to be around Cambridge Circus in London might want to drop by Fopp Records to see if they've still got copies of the Japanese import CD 'The Show Must Go On' for just £3. Fabulous album, great price. Picked mine up last week amongst a selection of import CDs they had down at £3. https://youtu.be/Z_n8cbEuJwE Sean

Thanks Steve, Chalky & Bob and as you say Steve, great work from Derek for all of those years of diligent solid work and commitment on a great magazine. Sean

Many thanks Mike!!

I've got a set of scans of flyers from a few soul events in London during 1981-84 in one of my galleries on here, but not sure how to give you the link here. If you look for it under the title ' Seano - Early 80's London flyers' hopefully you'd find them. Of course there's also the thread on scans of soul fanzines that several of us have contributed to, Shades of Soul being one, Beatin' Rhythm another, and there have also been uploads of the Pete Lawson mags. Not quick and easy items such as flyers, but terrific social documents of the time. Again, not sure how to give you direct links to these. Sean

Another I remember hearing at Wigan - George Benson, On Broadway.

I remember dancing to it at Wigan when it was out, but not sure if it was one of those early sessions before the nighter or not.

T Connection 'Do what you wanna do'

Good grief - trucking a pile of those magazines over on holiday is dedication! Despite my never having a good memory, I used to vaguely hope that names, titles, labels etc would stick in my mind - my collection begs to differ!

Final upload for me, issue 30, and all being well Chalky is going to then post the final couple of issues. Looking forward to reading them as I sadly didn't get them back in the day. Best Sean Shades_of_Soul_issue_30_May_2002.pdf

I'm on a roll! Issue 28 worked (at least the download did for me, let me know if that's not the case for you), so here's issue 29, knock yourself out! Best Sean Shades_of_Soul_issue_29_Oct_2000.pdf

I can't see an option to delete my previous attempts at issue 28, but now that things seem to be resolved (big thanks Mike!) here we go again: Shades of Soul issue 28 July 1999.pdf

Mike - so sorry to have not read that, totally understand and I'll wait and wish you luck with it all! Best Sean

Hi Bob, I can't get your to download either - is it working for you or others? Sean

Going back to issue 28 yet again. Whatever the problems have been with the version I scanned don't seem to have worked out, but Bob has kindly sent me a compressed version so hopefully this will work, and if it does then I'll follow on with issue 29, although as I scanned that on the same copier in the same way don't hold your breath! Shades of Soul Issue 28 July 99.pdf It still won't download! Uploaded fine as did my previous attempts, but on checking that you can download it - no joy.