Sweeney

I suppose in a lot of ways we're going to be the worst audience in the world because our standards are pretty high and we're very demanding and critical. And in some ways there are many positives. Seeing the likes of "Suspicion" and "All I Do" and others finally released on a legit single is a great thing. Who'd have put their house on such a thing coming to market even ten years ago? It's a shame that the QC wasn't higher.

Fortunately mine play OK but I'm not particularly happy with the quality of the vinyl to be honest. All seven disc appear dished to some extent and what's with the humungous run-out grooves? It feels poor quality lowest common denominator to me. £45 is a fair amount to shell out. From a nit-picking graphic designer point of view - if you're trying to replicate the look of a British Motown single from the 1960s/70s you're going to have to try a bit harder. Trying to give the impression of silver print on black using four colour process is a bit pointless. It just looks poor. The effect is a dirty off-white which is filling in and making text hard to read rather than the lovely silver on black which characterises the British Tamla Motown singles. Surely doing a two colour black and silver spot colour label wouldn't be that costly? When I was designing for the record industry the product managers would go mental if you suggested going 4 colour process on labels due to the extra cost over a bog-standard two colour label but I guess that's all changed. The box is nice, but the token single scrap of paper containing the sleeve notes is an insult to the consumer and to the author. Again, it would have cost relative pence to expand the scope to a 4pp single folded insert so that old gits like us don't have to read them using a magnifying glass. They could also have varied the colours of the single bags as there were some very nice historical ones. The orange gets a bit visually boring. It wouldn't have cost any more as they're printed 4 colour process on a nice shiny stock and it would have made the whole package feel a bit more special. Printing them on a more authentic rubbish quality uncoated paper would have been closer to the originals! OK Pedantry Mode off...

01970 Present and correct.

The lacklustre vocal, poor production values, mundane songwriting?

This one? https://www.popsike.com/SANDY-GOLDEN-Your-Love-Is-Everything-When-Were-Alone/120651574892.html

no need to apologise Pete. One man's meat is another man's Carstairs.

burn the heretic!

An incredible song written by Terry Callier and Larry Wade. I think it would be hard to do a bad version. It's also nice to see that Callier's work is being recognised after his death. An extremely talented songwriter as well as an artiste. This is fine as far as it goes, as were her covers of 'First Taste of Hurt' and 'Super Duper Love'. Wouldn't go as far as buying them though.

I wonder how many of those are Christmas presents which won't be opened for another month?

It's an A-side with 'Ah! Sweet Mystery Of Life on the B. Quite tough for some reason. There's one on Discogs for more money than the condition dictates.

Dave - merely pointing out that the Mods weren't the first young reprobates staying up all night to listen to obscure Black American music.

My parents-in-law used to frequent All Night Jazz Sessions in the mid fifties in Soho.

My issue copy plays off centre on the 'Just Looking' side too Wayne.

I love this...

I was daft enough to sell a batch of records via E-Bay once. Never again. I've never come across such crass stupidity in my life. It made me fear for the future of the human race.

Male: Lee Jones Jerry Butler Female: Linda Jones Gladys Knight

Also has the benefit of Jerry's sublime rendition of 'I've Been Trying' on the flip - which I believe is the first released version..

Two of my favourites

I've got a British issue in the same sleeve as the Chiswick demo. I wouldn't have though it was super-rare and as Pete has said not sure who the target market would be. Possibly the German version is rarer but again don't know if there would be a price premium based on rarity. There are three people looking for it on Discogs however... https://www.discogs.com/Red-Beans-And-Rice-That-Driving-Beat/release/1965163

No wonder record dealers are miserable. They have to deal with us lot!

You did Derek. It was called To Be Loved and came out in (I think) 1995. Not a great book to be honest. A very good PR piece for Berry Gordy but you got the feeling he kept quite a lot out to protect the good name of Motown. Which arguably was the point of the exercise. Certainly not a warts and all expose if I recall correctly.

I think by and large Motown's Quality Control got it right. Very few of these unreleased recordings are better than the universally known hits which sold millions and are regarded as stone bonking classics of their type. They may satisfy the obscurists and completists amongst us, but few represented a stellar leap in quality over what we regard as the quintessential Motown Sound. I wonder if Marvin Gaye for instance regarded 'This Love Starved Heart of Mine' (which I personally love) as being better than some of his million sellers? Not at the time it was recorded in May 67 when it represented a type of sound he had finished exploring and was moving away from. In fact - would we as Rare Soul fans and collectors even be bothered with such a track if it had been released, sold well and was widely available as a Tamla single for a tenner? Probably not. All IMVHO etc etc...

The rare soul scene bandies the world 'legend' about with careless abandon. It seems that anyone that had a record played a couple of times on the scene is called a legend these days. In this case the word 'legend' doesn't begin to do justice to the immense contribution of George Jackson. A very sad day. RIP Mr Jackson and thank you.

Nothing can make up for his shocking performance at the Olympics opening ceremony.

Manship's selling a solid centre Atlantic 'Ooh Baby' for £45 which is not unreasonable.