Ian Dewhirst

I passed through Savannah in the late 80's and found a fantastic place on the edge of town, it was almost in the woods. The guy had bought a lot of stuff from when James Brown was made bankrupt so he had tons of James Brown related memorabilia, stage clothes etc and a mammoth stock of 45's. Typically I was with a U.S. girlfriend and her family at the time en route to Hilton Head island so I only had 20 minutes or so before they started agitating to leave and get to Hilton Head island! So I left with a couple of Lorraine Chandlers and an Ann Sexton and vowed to go back there by myself next time. Naturally I never did make it back but the place has haunted me ever since. It definitely would have been a bonanza. I'm pretty sure someone else must have found it since............ Ian D

Also, unless I'm mistaken, didn't John have something to do with those Swan re-issues that Global did in the early to mid 70's? Guys From U.N.C.L.E. and the Modern Redcaps etc.....? Once again I think Rick Cooper could shed some light on those....... Ian D

Yep, I guess you had to deal regularly with John simply in order to know which of the hundreds and hundreds of crates to look through! I reckon it would have taken years to go through the lot properly. If ever there were such a thing as too many records, then House Of Sounds was it LOL.... Ian D

Mmmm. 18 copies of Greg Perry "It Takes Heart" 12" listed on Discogs with the average price being somewhere between £5-10:- https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?release_id=439429&ev=rb And the winner @ approximately 1000% uplift on the normal price is: https://www.discogs.com/buy/Vinyl/Greg-Perry-It-Takes-Heart/48748077?ev=bp_rel_det $125 is surely overdoing it a bit isn't it? Ian D

Hi Dave, Well I was there in 1976 but I can't say I really dealt with them per se. It was the most amount of 45's I've ever seen under one roof in my life. A huge operation with hundreds of millions of cut-out 45's in a one block long and one block wide building with 5 stories and every story was filled with 20' x 20' wooden crates full of records. I think Rick Cooper and John Anderson would be the guys to speak to. There's a tremendous amount of information on John Lamonte and House Of Sounds in the book "Stiffed: The True Story Of MCA, The Music Business And The Mafia" by William Knoedelseder:- https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stiffed-Story-Music-Business-Mafia/dp/0060924942 John got badly beaten up by Morris Levy's thugs and had to have a full facial reconstruction before he went into the witness protection programme in the 'cut-out' scandal that plagued MCA in the mid 80's. The above book documents the whole case and is a cracking read! Ian D

Reports just coming in that Don Cornelius has been found dead at his apartment from a gunshot wound. Early reports are suggesting suicide...... https://www.hollywood...ul-train-286390 Ian D

Don't buy 'em though. All bootlegs! Ian D

Ian D

I've just found a great Philadelphia International: The Re-Edits megamix on Soundcloud by Greg Womack:- https://soundcloud.com/womackreworks/philly-re-edits-megamix-womack Some lovely snippets in there..... Ian D

"Ode To Billy Jo" - Bobby Gentry "Wichita Lineman" - Glen Campbell Ian D

"Love Insurance"? Ian D

I concurr with Dean on this. The term Jazz-Funk sprang up around '76 and held pretty much until the end of the decade. This was a period when both Disco and Jazz-Funk dominated the UK dance-floors, with Jazz-Funk being the more 'credible' of the two terms. This was also the period when it wasn't unusual to see artists like Herbie Hancock, The Crusaders, Rodney Franklin in the UK Pop Top 30. Had you asked any of the regular club goers or all-dayer goers in the late 70's what they were into or what scene they were in, they would have said 'Jazz-Funk' without hesitation, much as a decade later they would have said 'Acid Jazz' or 'Rare Groove'. Ian D

Coming up LIVE @ 2.00pm! Ian D

In fact that's the exact track listing from Classic Jazz-Funk Mastercuts Vol 1. One of the few 'specialist' albums to sell over 100K copies (mind you it was re-licensed 4 times over 12 years)! Ian D

Well, I'll probably be recovering from the Starpoint Club Soul gig @ the Holiday Inn Heathrow tonight hence I thought I'd better post the show early! We'll be continuing pretty much where we left off last time with several more utterly brilliant new Tom Moulton remixes from the upcoming "Philadelphia International Classics: The Tom Moulton Remixes" due at the end of next month, some cute new mixes and new re-edits plus some stone Northern killers and a brace of beautiful Motown gems. All in all it'll be another wonderful way to while away a couple of hours on a cold Winter Sunday afternoon so hope you can join me in the Starpoint chatroom for some warm banter. Six Million Steps Presents The Original Mastercuts Show LIVE with Ian Dewhirst between 2.00-4.00pm on Sunday 29th January 2012 on everyone's favourite Soul station www.starpointradio.com. Featuring...... The O'Jays * The Three Degrees * Jose Burgos feat Kenny Bobien * Luther Vandross * Marvin Gaye * Archie Bell & The Drells * The Casualeers * The Idle Few * Bobby Hebb * Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose * The For Tops * Brenda Holloway * Junior Walker & The All-Stars * The Jones Girls * David Ruffin * Lou Rawls Hopefully I'll catch some of you tonight at Club Soul at the Heathrow Holiday Inn, Sipson Road, Heathrow on Saturday 28th January where I'll be spinning with Barry Stone and giving away some 'Philadelphia International: The Re-Edits' packages to some lucky people. Also I'll be up in Leeds for 'Heritage' @ Distrikt on Friday 10th February for a brand new city centre night with Paul Schofield & Liam Frisco just mere yards from the old Central club where we started some 35 years ago! Catch you Sunday afternoon between 2.00-4.00pm sharp! Ian D

Hi Bob, To get an idea of the different scenes that were going on the 70's and 80's it probably easier to check the track-listings on the various Mastercuts albums I did in the early 90's which cover areas like Rare Groove, 80's Groove, Jazz-Funk etc, etc. There's a listing here:- https://www.discogs.com/label/Mastercuts Look from CUTSCD1 TO CUTSCD44 and ignore everything else 'cos those others were nothing to do with me........ Ian D

Pretty much. It was really interesting for me when I moved to London in 1983 'cos I'd gone through the Northern, Modern, Disco and Jazz-Funk scenes whilst I was up North over the 70's and early 80's and then I got to London and suddenly I was hearing most of the records that were rejected up North for being too funky or sluggish etc, etc. But somehow they all made sense when hearing 'em in the Wag or the Africa Centre. It was a buzzzing scene at the time. My only regret is that I left thousands of Rare-Groove/2 Step stuff in stores in the 70's when they were like 10 cents each....... I think a lot of two-step stuff was played by Kev Edwards up in Warrington in the mid 80's. I seem to remember him telling me that the biggest record at one time was Arnold Blair "Trying To Get next To You" and it was going for a couple of hundred quid at the time.......which is kinda weird 'cos I left a 100 count box at a warehouse in Telford in the late 70's (along with Lew Kirton "Heaven In The Afternoon")..... Ian D

So you like it then Steve? Ian D

Frankly, if even you can't figure out where you've put your own records, then the rest of us are plainly f*cked. C'mon Bob, man up.......... Ian D

Also, lest we forget, Johnny Fruin was immortalised in B.A. Robertson's massive UK Top 10 hit "Bang Bang" in the late 70's...... https://bar-six.blogspot.com/2009/09/life-was-in-ruin-she-loved-johnny-fruin.html Ian D

Yep. He was a traditional English playa. What brought him onto my radar was the FANTASTIC full-page Warner Music ad in Billboard which introduced the U.S. music business to their potential counterparts around the world. The one which had the most impact was John Fruin in a traditional English 3 piece pin-stripe suit with a bowler hat and a brolly doing something akin to John Cleese's 'Ministry Of Silly Walks' sketch with Big Ben in the background. Talk about nailing an easily assimillated image LOL. Brilliant. Just brilliant. I kept my eye on him after that LOL.... He was a major character. I'm gonna do a bit of research on him LOL..... He's very fondly remembered by most. Ian D

Phew! Whatta week LOL. In the constant battle for shelf space and trying to punch above our weight in the mainstream album market we did pretty good. We had a SPECTACULAR day one chart entry @ No.22 which even shocked me (I was figuring No.25) and we were the 2nd highest new entry in the Top 40 Compilation chart. That was because of great advance pre-orders and general buzz. The momentum of that and also fantastic support from retailers (a lot of stores played the album in-store throughout the week) meant we were holding @ No.25 even up to Friday. However, Fridays and Saturdays are the HUGE days for TV advertised albums and heavily campaigned Supermarket promotions so generally most 'specialist' albums get welll and truly crocked by the end of the week when Friday and Saturday's sales are tabulated. So when "Philadelphia International: The Re-Edits" went in @ No.36 on the final chart on Monday I breathed a sigh of relief. Yay! Philadelphia International was back in the main UK charts for the first time since 1998. So far it's all looking looking great. I think people are still assimilating the album and opinions are pretty divided depending on people's different viewpoints - check the Amazon reviews to see the wide swathe of thoughts. Either way, it's certainly making people re-visit the PIR catalogue if only to validate their own opinions, which was pretty much the whole point in the first place. Anyone who doesn't get off on the Re-Edits package will probably love the Tom Moulton package and if that doesn't work then Ralph Tee's 10cd Box Set will hopefully swoop up any remaining diehards. If none of those work, then maybe Bob Dylan might hit the spot? Ian D

Oh, you mean the U.S. John Fisher! Like Paul I was assuming you were talking about the UK. Actually I recently re-read the brilliant "Exploding - The Highs, Hits, Hype, Heroes & Hustlers Of The Warner Music Group" by Stan Cornyn and I don't recall the name John Fisher coming at all........ Ian D

He was quite a player as well. Didja hear about the cut-out scam he ran with the Warners overstocks in the mid 1970's? Ian D

Mmmm. A spelling mistake that also translated to a PR photo? Maybe they were called the Swans and then booted Nat Kendricks and switched the 'S' for a 'T'? Ian D