Ian Dewhirst

Yeah, I think you're right - there's no promo info on the label after all. Very weird though as Casablanca/Chocolate City were always multi-coloured labels due to Neil Bogart (label owner) always spending lots of dosh LOL..... It's almost like they figured it may be pulled, which it eventually was of course..... Should've been a promo that's what I say LOL.... Ian D

I've never heard the boot Barry. Now that you've said that I'll run a comparison between the UK promo and US one although they'll probably be the same won't they? Plus I never knew that Babe Ruth was an indie release at all!! What label was it? I'm really curious as I thought they were signed straight to Capitol...... Also how much longer is the album version? You'd better play it LOL.... Ian D

The Andre Brasseur is a quite dated straight Northern instrumental - quite weird but definitely got something about it. The Casey & The Pressure Group is a GREAT handclapper and in my day would have been a HUGE instrumental. Never seen it before or since. The Sensational Williams Brothers is straight Northern slightly messy Gospelly type stormer - once again never seen it around. The Rhodes, Chalmers & Rhodes is simply a irresistible mid-tempo stormer - produced by Rick Hall. Some exceptional vocals and a straight-floorfiller IMO...... I figured the Honey Cone and Originals would be quite well-known but great records nonetheless. I've got a load of what I think could be 'crossover' which I'll stick up shortly - I'm still learning my way around it LOL...... Ian D

Yeah, poppy as it may be I always loved it. I liked "Oh Lori" by Alessi too (same group). Strange what worked back in the day really - I always remember Barnaby Bye and Felix Cavaliere from that period! Ian D

More oddball promos...... Ian D

Just done an exhaustive few hours but found some tremendous records along the way. So does anyone know these? I presume someone will but just interested if they've ever been on anyone's radar........ It's exhausting playing through stuff though innit? I'm knackered LOL.... Ian D

I'm a sucker for white demos - especially oddball ones, so here's a few......... Can anyone indulge me in a few more weird ones.....? Ian D

Yep, it's the same policy as when you get a wrongly-issued parking ticket i.e. pay now whether you're innocent or not and argue about the money later. The arguing and chasing up generally costs more than the tickets, takes a lot of time and causes a massive amount of unnecessary stress which ultimately shortens your life and makes you die young. Is it any wonder that we've turned into a bunch of miserable bastards in the UK? I had to laugh when I read about the Masai warriors who are visiting London this week:- Official government advice to six Masai warriors on what they may expect on a visit to London: "Many of them work in offices, jobs they don't enjoy, so they don't smile as much as they should". Is it any wonder, when people get sucked into things like this? You have my sympathy Paul. Best of luck with the refund.... Ian D

Maybe they should LOL. Hope the banks do better with records than they managed with mortgages! About 10 years ago I had a plan to re-educate some of the major publishers about some of the unexploited gold that was sat in their vaults. The plan was for me to approach them and hand-pick a number of their unknown and unxeploited copyrights and then work the hell out of them in return for a small percentage of the income. I was in an excellent position to get some covers and some possible TV ads at the time. None of 'em were interested. The songs in question remain unexploited 10 years later, thus not making any money for either them or the writers. So basically a dead loss. It was then when I realised that most of the big publishing houses only actively 'exploit' maybe 1% of their catalogue at best - probably much less with the biggest of them. Which I think is a lazy approach to looking after the interests of their writers and keeping to the terms of a publishing contract. And that's the problem in a nutshell. They seem to have lazy unimaginative policies for the most part so there's very little incentive for 'em to work the deep catalogue. As the late Hunter S. Thompson so lucidly pointed out: "The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side". Ian D

Sickening mate. I've seen a lady friend of mine reduced to tears because she couldn't have the radio on in the basement kitchen where she slaves for hours on the basis that customers in the shop upstairs could hear it! What next? If there's 4 people in a car listening to the radio on the way to work will that require a licence? Or similarly someone playing a radio in their own garden? I would have thought they'd have bigger fish to fry. This country is just going down the tubes with all this ridiculous beaurocracy...... Ian D

Hi Paul, Yep, you're absolutely right about the MCPS no longer charging for Cop Con these days - I stand corrected. However, in my experience it doesn't stop anyone manufacturing. In fact, I'm amazed at the amount of Cop Con's on many CD releases these days - ever checked many of Sanctuary's reggae releases for instance? They're ALL Cop Con LOL...... In fact the last forms I did for the MCPS when I was running Salsoul, I did by going through the MCPS database and duly noting everything which was on the system and putting either Cop Con or the US Publishers on anything which wasn't. Cue a stampede of Publishing Houses which suddenly decided that they did own the tracks in question but 'forgot to register them' with the MCPS! As per usual, when I complained that if a Publisher enters into a contract to represent a writer in the UK, then surely the very least they can do is make sure that everything is entered on the system it was put down to, yawn, 'administrative errors'! What annoyed me, as a record company, is that we took all the risk in re-issuing piles of stuff at great cost, whilst the publishers merely sat back, looked at our packages and then decided that they did in fact own something which they'd never bothered registering in the first place. Sloppy at the very least and probably in contravention of their contract with the writer at best. Is it any wonder that we sometimes get frustrated? We should have a natter mate. There's a lot of stuff to claim on since 2002. It's just very time-consuming and expensive to get all the paperwork signed by the right people for all these agencies but a bit of detective work would probably throw a few obvious ones up..... Best, Ian D

Which is patently ridiculous Cunnie! They're really scraping the barrell if they're targeting workplaces. What on earth is going on in this world? It's just money, money, money and it makes me sick....... Ian D

Agreed Paul. I think it probably is illegal to pass on a portion of the licence fee to promoters - the PRS annual fee should be part of the venue's fixed overhead surely? But I don't think the 'one size fits all' template works any longer. The whole music biz is changing almost on a daily basis, so I guess it's only a matter of time before the collection agencies will have to update anyway. Can't be soon enough for me. Ian D

Thanks for coming back Carl. One thing which I think the agencies could do which would re-align some of the present inequities, would be to maybe set up something like an 'unpaid' artists benevolent fund where a small percentage of PRS income or MCPS Copyright Control income could go into a pot and maybe help out some of those artists who haven't fared so well over the years. We know most of 'em so tracing 'em won't be so much of a problem LOL... This would be similar to the Rhythm & Blues Foundation which was set up to address the problem of royalty payment inequities in the U.S. in 1988. For further information please check https://www.rhythm-n-blues.org/ I mean it's all very well the agencies doing what they're paid to do but I'd be much happier with it all, if I knew that the payments were going to the people who deserve them the most - especially in the world of Northern Soul. I'm sure Paul McCartney would be fine with that. Let's face it, the Beatles owe a lot to the Isley Brothers, Smokey Robinson and the Marvellettes. But it was that bloody Berry Gordy Jr that steered 'em the wrong way with "Money (That's What I Want)"! Boy, this thread started off with a simple question from Jayne LOL... Jayne - one other thing you could check is: what is the actual fee that the council pay the PRS? Has it mammothly ramped-up just lately or something? Maybe the PRS has become even more complicated then it was? I thought it was a one-off annual fee in most cases unless someone can tell me any different. I'd look into it myself but I hate all this stuff - I can't be arsed with filling in forms and studying small print which I seem to do on an almost daily basis these days. Life's too short for all this LOL......... Ian D

And there lies the problem John. The system works like a dream for George Michael but not at all for George Blackwell. I'm really amazed that in 2008 there's not more clarification on many things like this. It's obviously patently unfair for a scene which plays predominently unknown U.S. black music from 40 years ago to further line the pockets of Paul McCartney, whilst making no real effort to address the problems of compensating the original artists. It doesn't make sense to me, unless of course, you're a fee paying member of the UK PRS, which most of our 70-80 year old heroes aren't. If somebody approached me tomorrow and funded me to set up a 'rights clarification' agency and get hundreds of artists registered in ALL the appropriate areas (MCPS/PRS/PPL) I'd do it in a flash. But whilst I've suggested it to various people in the past, no one's beaten down my door with enthusiasm as yet. It's simply not in their interests. Unfortunately though, this is just the tip of a rather large iceberg. I'd like to see a damn sight more transparency about some of the murkier stuff that still goes on to this day, especially in the Publishing arena. For instance, unless the law has changed, it's still perfectly legal for a UK publisher to claim UK publishing for a song that 'they haven't been able to trace' (or probably don't want to trace in all reality). The money is then collected from that song and put in an escrow account for a 6 year period. If, at the end of 6 years, the original writer has still not been traced, then the UK publisher gets the money. Simple ay? And legal. No, I don't get it either. It certainly doesn't constitute what I would consider to be fair and equitible practice. I'd put it more strongly but I don't want to break the law LOL! The reason why I feel so emotive about this is because I got conned myself by one of the great and good in that world and, to this day, whenever I speak to the artist in question (who luckily still trusts me), he always tells me how ripped-off he feels about that particular situation. Never again. One bitten, twice shy. Like many large institutions in the UK (the National Health service, the Post Office, The Tax Office, The Civil Service etc) I think the Music Rights organisations seem to act like quasi goverment quangos (which they are of course) and, therefore, are somewhat innured to change or common sense. But we are now living in the digital age where I can download anything I want in a second, so it would make sense to me to re-design all these daft systems which are based on a world which no longer exists and are patently outdated in this day and age. But, hey, I forgot! We're living in the UK where councils are spying on tax payers over school places whilst kids are stabbing each other every week on a road near you............. Ian D

Hi KathDJ, Dead right. The venue's responsibily for sure. And yep, I'm dead interested in being a researcher for your company! I'm the living expert in these arenas. Seriously, PM me 'cos I know this stuff backwards as a result of me being around forever LOL.... Ian D

Hi Carl, I still maintain that it's the venues responsibility to purchase the appropriate license from the PRS in the first place. If a venue is in the business of hosting musical events and even just playing music, then surely the onus is on them to make sure the venue is PRS licenced is it not? Off course, everything that Carl says above is true in a fashion. However, as per usual, with Northern Soul, there's numerous anomalies. Very, very few of the fly-by-night U.S. labels that we treasure would have had either the infrastructure or forsesight to register with a foreign performing rights society back then. It just wasn't on the radar in Buttf*&k, Indiana at the time. They were too busy figuring how to sell records in the next town leave alone another continent. Plus they'd more than likely go bust a couple of months later anyway LOL... So consequently, they didn't spend much time dealing with any adminstrative stuff in any other country. Why would they? Nobody knew that the records would ever make it outside the state, leave alone the country..... So, apart from the U.S. majors and a few very sussed independents from the 50's, 60's and 70's, the majority of Northern Soul copyright owners simply aren't registered in the U.K. period. Hence they're not collecting any income which is derived from their copyrights being aired in PRS licenced UK venues. Sad but true. There's a million horror stories and I don't want to air them here but suffice to say that 90% of the artists and record companies I've interviewed or talked to have never derived any benefit from the play of their records from venues in the UK. They just didn't know the system. Still don't in most cases unfortunately. And before you can draw anything, you have to sign up and get registered etc, etc... And let's not forget that they're not getting any younger either! A few people on here know about this scenario - it's not exactly fresh news. It's basically a major administrative process to get the right people registered so they can collect their rightful dues. In Northern Soul's cases many of these people are now dead, messed-up, not in great shape or their estates are under the impression that's there's millions of dollars at stake from a play in Burnley on pissing-down Tuesday night in February. Y'know, not easy........ Funnily enough, you'd think that'd more or less be the perfect job wouldn't you, i.e. contacting a singer you worship and saying "hey, want some free dosh? Then just sign right here on the dotted line on this and this and this".....etc, etc, etc.... It's not that easy believe me. It takes a TON of time, a lot of resource, a lot of admin, a lot of headache, a lot of heartache and a large degree of compassion for a hero that has been somewhat shortchanged from the system. I'm sure we all remember the fact that James Fountain received the princely sum of $8 for recording "Seven Day Lover". Ask him what UK residuals he's picked up lately.....? Essentially, the PRS does a wonderful job for it's members and I don't think anyone would blame 'em for taking their responsibilities seriously. Certainly not me. A good team to have on your side believe me - I'm mates with the chairman and he runs a whippersnapper ship. But I think we need to be realistic here. I'm pretty sure that Northern Soul isn't the PRS's No.1 target - especially for promoters who book a venue for a Northern night in good faith and who suddenly get stuck with the dilemma of the venue using the PRS as an excuse for hiking the price! Switch venues Jayne. They don't deserve you. Ian D

I thought it was the venue's responsibility to cover the PRS licence - most of 'em pay an annual fee for the priviledge of playing music. It doesn't make logistical sense to have promoters paying seperately........ Ian D

All horribly complicated Jayne. All the details are here: www.mcps-prs-alliance.co.uk. I've always thought it's a little bit cheeky for the PRS to charge for Northern Soul stuff since none of the money will ever get back to the original acts in most cases as most of 'em aren't registered in the UK! I think it's fair to say that most U.S, acts from the 60's and 70's wouldn't have a clue about registering for PRS/PPL/MCPS in the UK. Musicians in 60's Detroit, Michigan just didn't think like that. Anyway, hope it helps....... Ian D

It's amazing just how Northern it is when the Beach Boys harmonies are removed. I've just done a comparison and you can plainly hear a straight Northern backing underneath the vocals. If it was the Sons Of Moses we'd all be lapping it up LOL......... Ian D

Yep, very sad but it's the nature of the beast I'm afraid. The stuff we look for was commercially unsuccessful for the most part, so not many fairy stories there unfortunately. Found it sad when Steve Mancha turned up in the UK to record a vocal of a song we were doing and he patently couldn't sing anymore plus it was a bitch even getting him to the studio LOL..... Such a shame that many of our heroes ended up with nowt. But we must remember that it's not our fault. Everyone got ripped off in the 60's music biz and many turned to drink or drugs as a result. Some of 'em died as a result - anyone ever read the Frankie Lymon story? Worst thing for me was seeing Jackie Lee spark out on a park bench in L.A. in the 70's......... Ian D

Just going through some gear and I came across a Beach Boys album called "Stack O' Tracks" from '68 which is the original instrumental backing tracks of their hits from the mid 60's. Track 1, Side 1 is a 100% storming Northern instrumental version of "Darlin'" which sounds incredible. It is the 'Wreckin Crue' (the cream of L.A. session musicians) so it's obviously vintage stuff - not a million miles away from Mike Post IMO. Anyone know it? Ian D

Found in a junk shop a while back - a nice white promo of "Get Out" - Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes on Landa for the princely sum of 10p. It certainly looks original but is it too good to be true? I dunno. But why would they bother booting it? The record had been a mini-hit on a UK re-issue so can't see the point really. So, did it ever get booted on a white? Ian D

Nah, that's greedy Dave! You should be sharing your vast knowledge with some up-and-comers and give 'em the chance to be played out. If you can bear to part with 'em that is LOL..... I know it sounds nuts, but I regularly flog stuff to people I think can use certain tunes - that's how things like Si Hightower and Bobby Taylor finally got out there. I'd almost rather see 'em being used than have 'em on the shelves gathering dust if you see what I mean. I'm just going through all my gear at the moment and finding that I've got a ton of oddball stuff and quite a bit of this crossover gear too.... It is fun going through 'em and wondering why you kept something - I've still got some right oddballs though...... Ian D

Don't think I've heard either of those two in a gaff EVER Max! Bet not that many other people have either........ Ian D