Ian Dewhirst

Always rare. I got my original copy in 1975 from Steve Caesar in Leeds who I think got it from Stuart Cosgrove when he was over in Washington studying in the mid 70's. I'm pretty sure mine went to Pat Brady in the late 80's. Never really seen it since........... Ian D

Well it's rare enough to not be in any of the price guides. Hope you got a decent price for it! Ian D

It's kinda strange nonetheless. We used to have to lug the album around. Even Levine played it off the LP. I can't remember anyone mentioning there was a single when it was originally played. Also it's not listed in either John or Tim's guides either. So it must be rare right? Ian D

Blimey. Never seen one of those in my life! Surprised it never turned up when it was first played........ Ian D

Thought it was album only Dave? Ian D

Similar thing going on there really Steve. Too much bitching, backbiting and snidy comments make it not so much fun to be around these days. I love the music but can't stand the parochialism which is one of the reasons I've always liked ducking in and out of several different scenes......... Ian D

It is. They also did a cute version of the Four Tops "Can't Seem To Get You Out Of My Mind"...... Ian D

Coming up LIVE this afternoon @ 2.00pm! Join us in the Starpoint chatroom for a beautiful soundtrack to an Autumn Sunday afternoon! Ian D

It's pretty difficult to pin down a lot of Jaimie Guyden stuff because it's always been pretty active in pressing it's catalogue from the 60's onward and always had good connections with the UK in terms of exporting it's wares - I remember Global in Manchester having loads of Arctic releases - Volcanoes records were on their wholesale lists at one point - I think I remember 'em selling "Help Wanted" for a £1 at the time and there were no shortage of copies. They'd use the same stamper and similar labels for subsequent represses across all their labels - Dionne, Jamie, Arctic, Top & Bottom, Phil-LA Of Soul etc, etc. If you think about Jaimie Guyden have always been pretty quick on the reissue button all the way back to "A Love You Can Depend On" and "Don't Stop Looking". By weird coincidence, Frank Lipsius (owner of Jaimie Guyden) was in town this week. He's an anglophile so he's always been aware of the interest in the UK.......... Ian D

Wow, the first time in 6 weeks that I haven’t been doing a tribute show of some kind or another (the last two were Ashford & Simpson and 9/11 specials), so we’re back to a regular show this week. This week we’re covering a lot of show favourites plus the usual trawl through the eras covering the last 5 decades of glorious soul music. Some outstanding killer re-edits this week too! Once again thanks to the BRILLIANT audience who listen LIVE and join us in the Starpoint chatroom every Sunday afternoon. I’m looking forward to Ibiza next weekend for the Love Soul Ibiza weekender so hopefully I’ll catch up with a few people there. Bring on the sunshine! Six Million Steps Presents The Original Mastercuts Show LIVE with Ian Dewhirst between 2.00-4.00pm on Sunday 25th September 2011 on everyone’s favourite Soul station www.starpointradio.com. Featuring…… Norma Jean * Ron Hall & The Motherfunkaz * Love Committee * Jean Carn & Shirley Jones * Maria Muldaur * The Jones Girls * William DeVaughn * Bobby Cutchins * The Four Tops * Thelma Houston * The Fifth Dimension * Friends Of Distinction * Kings Go Forth * Sidney Joe Qualls * Yates Brothers & Sisters * Moses Smith * Esther Phillips * Flowers * Barry White * Lou Rawls Hopefully catch you @ 2.00pm LIVE! Ian D X

In fact let's hear it again......... James Brown "There Was A Time" - Live At The Apollo Volume 2 Ian D

Actually my previous statement above was incorrect. Many apologies. The greatest live performance of all time is obviously James Brown's "There Was A Time". When I first heard this out circa 1972 (in the Funk clubs and good local nights), it really changed my life. I think I knew the Gene Chandler version first, but that never actually did much for me. When I heard the James Brown original live version it knocked me out. It's a king hell bastard performance. So great call Ricticman! James Brown's "There Was A Time" surely must be the greatest ever live recording played out. Can anything else even get close? Ian D

Actually my previous statement above was incorrect. Many apologies. The greatest live performance of all time is obviously James Brown's "There Was A Time". When I first heard this out circa 1972 (in the Funk clubs and good local nights), it really changed my life. I think I knew the Gene Chandler version first, but that never actually did much for me. When I heard the James Brown original live version it knocked me out. It's a king hell bastard performance. So great call Ricticman! James Brown's "There Was A Time" surely must be the greatest ever live recording played out. Can anything else even get close? Ian D

Played it out a couple of weeks ago to a live crowd in Ibiza and thwacked on my 9/11 New York tribute radio show 11 days ago. The Jimmy Michaels edit of course. A work of art and one of the greatest live recordings I've ever heard. Both "Joy & Pain" and "The Look In Your Eyes" by Maze are definitive live recordings. But the best of the lot is Dionne Warwick and Isaac Hayes's live version of Earth, Wind & Fire's "Can't Hide Love". Which is basically unbeatable. Ian D Ian D

Thinking about it, there could be several levels of rare soul collectors. In the mainsteam music biz we have different price levels for different releases, hence Backbeats @ £5, Harmless/Disco Discharge @ £7 and Mixology/Weekender @ £10 or thereabouts, so it seems reasonable to assume that some of the same rules apply to rare record dealing. People who are looking for a bargain will happily spend hours and hours trawling e-bay and lists until they finally find a goody. Other people may not have that kind of time to spare, so they'll probably be happy enough to look at the lists they subscribe to and pay a premium because it's easier and less time consuming. And then there's another strata who have zero time but tons of money who really don't mind paying well over the odds to cut to the quick. Just like the rest of life really. Then there's that rarified strata of Northern Soul mad investment bankers who have a spare £100K on account at John's with instructions to always top the last bid. Hey, what's a grand here or there.....? Ian D

Nah. It's one of the few that I knew about when it first turned up. I don't know how many have come through since. I think ALL the current prices are nuts by the way. Give it another 5 years and they'll all come down to a reasonable level. It's inevitable IMO. I also think Pete's is much more attuned to the real values then most, probably 'cos he wants a quicker turnaround rather than, say John, who is bound to market and promote his stock better because of his position in the food chain. 'Nout wrong with either approach IMO.... Ian D

Yeah but working on the basis that you're generally half the price of everyone else, then that'll be bang on for an auction then? Ian D

Auctions are exciting! It's only fair that people pay for the sizzle and bragging rights to saying "I got outbid" or "I could have had it if I'd REALLY wanted it"............... What's Dennis Edwards these days? £2.5-3K or thereabouts I wonder....? Ian D .

You should have seen him. Very camp effiminate bizarre type. He probably saw a photo of Lada Edmund Jr and built a shrine to her for all I know. Bizarre. And what exactly was he doing with the record alone in the kitchen anyway? Fr*ggin' weirdo. Ian D

Absolutely. And it was very rare at the time but that's when rare was £15 LOL (bear in mind I bought my Eula Cooper original for £2 back then). But why would a hairdresser want to pay so much for a record he'd never even heard? He had no idea what Northern Soul was either. Ian D

Yes, correct Karen. The primary recipients will be the owners of the copyright but obviously it also extends the royalty period for artists too, so theoretically good for everyone involved if they receive royalties. The songwriters benefit from the 20 year extension. They've just got another 20 years of royalties from nowhere. Ian D

Ah, you're a musician or producer then. The thing that always kills me is the expense in going after people. I hope the lawyers aren't taking all the money! Best of luck. I've been there myself. Ian D

Yeah but the problem is you just never know why someone wants something there and then and is prepared to pay a high price for it. I've been absolutely staggered at some things that I've sold over the years. The first auction I ever did in the mid 70's, I managed to sell a Lada Edmund Jr for aproximately 400% more than it was worth to anyone else at the time. How come? I have no idea at all. "The Larue" buyer was a hairdresser from Northampton who placed what he hoped would be a pre-emptive bid on it which was aproximately 380% higher then my wildest dreams. He wanted to pick it up about 2 days before the auction ended but I said the auction didn't close until 6.00pm 2 days later. He then rang 2 days later @ 5.50pm and raised his bid further still. When he won it @ 6.01pm, he then drove 5 hours from Northampton, arrived at my place @ 11.00pm and asked to be alone with the record in my kitchen. 5 minutes later he came out of the kitchen and paid me in cash. As he was leaving, I said something like, "you must really like the record". He looked at me and said he'd never heard it. Questions questions ay? I've met some mad eccentric collectors down here who really have no real interest in the Northern or Modern Soul scenes but collect rare Soul records and they will buy a record for completely different reasons to someone else. I've got one guy who's been collecting 'dance' themed records since he was a kid and another guy who collects particular titles with certain words in them in them. The moral of the story, is that you just never know. Also it must be really difficult to guage the value of a record these days unless you're pretty on top of it all and a regular buyer, seller or dealer. I mean Lee Fields "Take Me Back" £700?????? Never in a million years. Worth £50 tops because I know how many copies are around. So I'd have flogged it for £30 probably. However,there's a lot of difference between £30 and £700 though, so who can blame people for trying? Ian D

Wow. You sound pretty genned up on this Kris. Do you study the law in this area? I'm curious because I'm generally in favor of greater transparency and access in most situations but the music biz is still pretty murky in some areas, not least this kind of thing. I know records which have blatently sampled some Northern Soul riffs and not credited the original in any way, either in using the master recording or using part of the song. So naturally I'm curious. Does the EEC have an accord on this stuff? I need to study up on this stuff a bit more...... Ian D

It's different in different territories Kris. I'll do some digging around (maybe Paul can help) but I can think of countless UK records that have sampled basslines, rhythms and persussion without accreditation and who haven't been sued, not that I'm avocating that or anything. Not much time to dig around, but just found this, which is interesting.... "Not all copyright disputes over uncleared samples are resolved in favour of the sample’s copyright holders. One example is the US case of Newton v Diamond (2003). In this case the Beastie Boys had actually obtained permission from ECM Records to sample a six-second, three-note sequence from James Newton’s flute recording Choir. The Beasties then incorporated the sample as a loop into their song ‘Pass The Mic’, which featured on the album Check Your Head. Unfortunately, the composer of the tune, James Newton, sued, as he hadn’t given his permission for use of the underlying composition. On appeal, the court confirmed an earlier ruling that no infringement had taken place. The court was of the opinion that the use of the sample was minimal, the two records weren’t substantially similar, and also that the public wouldn’t recognise any appropriation of Newton’s composition. (Though it should be stressed that recognition alone is no legal barometer of whether another work has indeed been copied.) Other defendants on the receiving end of sample infringement claims in the US have been able to rely on the defence of ‘fair use’. Fair use is a doctrine not recognised in UK, which permits copying for the purposes of criticism, reporting and review. The aim of the US legislators who enshrined this in law in 1976 was to allow authors to build upon, and transform existing works, but without the requirement of buying a licence to do so. The rights accorded to the copyright holder needed to be balanced with the broader cultural benefits of allowing artists to borrow from, re-work, and comment upon existing works of art. If Andy Warhol could re-work the images of Campbell’s soup or Marilyn Monroe, then a fair use defence would argue that today’s gangsta rappers should be free to sample their source of musical inspiration to produce new and original work". It's still a very grey area if you ask me..... Ian D