Amsterdam Russ

You need to find an example where he signs his name 'Dave' rather than 'David'. A couple of links to other autographs of his below. It would be great if it was his handwriting and signature, but I'm not convinced http://natedsanders.com/ItemImages/000061/69449_a_lg.jpeg https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images3/1/1216/05/rick-james-temptations-motown-david_1_03ad010b2decc41f8c411a0d47a8d2fb.jpg

A quick search of Google images for "David Ruffin autograph" tells me the writing and signature on your disc isn't his.

My pleasure. I'll get round to uploading the Burt Bacharach demo to YouTube at some point. After all, music is for sharing, and with his sad passing, there can't be a more appropriate time to do so.

Yes, it's very weak. I thought with the 1960s setting and all that comes with it - or should come with it - that the show might be interesting. Very disappointing.

Burt Bacharach song demo on an 8" acetate. Titled "And then she walked right through the door", it would be recorded by Dionne Warwick as "And then he walked right through the door" in 1974. However, the song remained unreleased until it featured on the 2013 CD "We need to go back: The unissued Warner Bros Masters." Blue Seas-Jac Music was Bacharach and Hal David's music publishing company. The disc reputedly came from the estate of Isaac Hayes. Dionne singing "And then he walked right through the door."

Watching the first episode of the new Sky comedy series, Funny Woman, and at about 15 minutes in the soundtrack is Larry Laster 'Go for yourself'. Bit of a clanger though as the setting for the episode is 1964 and Larry Laster's tune wouldn't get a release in the States until May 1966 and, of course, there was no contemporary UK release. Still, hearing it was an unexpected delight! No idea if anything else interesting was played as I gave up on the show about 10 minutes later.

Yes, would be great to have somewhere to get all those things - some sort of source for soul. Oh, wait…

RIP Burt.

@Hans Diepstraten and Harry van Vliet started up a sweet and low soul night at the Hard Rock Hotel in Amsterdam in September. If you don't know them, Hans and Harry are the voices behind Fingerpoppin' Soul - probably the longest running soul radio show in the world. Check them out in the links below, and make sure to look at their 'history' and 'artists we met' pages! http://www.fingerpoppinsoul.amsterdam Hans and Harry were kind enough to invite me to play some 45s at their last event. Playlist as follows: Set one: The Olympics - Baby I'm yours - Loma Jimmy Gilford - Heartbreaker - Solid Hit Kenneth Ruffin - Holding on to you - Bell Sound acetate Sunny & the Sunliners - Should I take you home - RPR Doug Banks - Since you went away - Argo Manhattan Soul Concert Radio ad (1970) - Acetate The Dells - Does anybody know I'm here - Cadet Milton Floyd - I'm a shadow - Rim Nick Allen - Don't make me be what you don't want me to be - Walas The Chandlers - I need your love - Col Soul Philharmonics - Will you marry me girl - Soulin Set two: Broken Hearts Inc - Please don't walk away - Kimberlite The Intentions - Don't forget that I love you - Philips Chuck Jackson - What's with this loneliness - 100 Club Anniversary 45 Lou Johnson - A time to love, a time to cry - Big Top Robert Parker - I caught you in a lie - NOLA Romance Watson - Where does that leave me - Coral Bobby Sansom - Don't leave - Sublime The Rockmasters - Raining teardrops - Romulus George Freeman - Down and out - Valiant Doug Banks - I just kept on dancing - Argo The Chandlers - Your love makes me lonely - Col Soul Direct-from-the-decks Mixclouds are here: and... Fingerpoppin' Soul's weekly radio broadcasts are uploaded to Mixcloud every Friday. Check them out here. Again check out their' history' and 'artists we met' pages!!

Ah, my mistake. I thought you were talking about the Gospel Travelers 45. Good deal you got there.

Unexpected twilight view this evening as seen from the balcony. Not a cloud in the sky and the temperature is dropping. It's already a bit frosty out there!

Billy Eckstine - have you read Duke Fakir's book "I'll be there: my life with the Four Tops"? I think we all know BG ambitions saw him move from record label owner to mainstream 'Hollywood-style' impresario. In fact, I think that's obvious to everyone with even the most basic understanding of his modus operandi. Your postulations about BG's ambitions to control Detroit's theoretically threatening output have been voiced before. Again, Duke Fakir's book offers certain and possibly useful insights from those formative days, and particularly in relation to the signing of some stalwart acts and BG's overall motivation (as Duke Fakir saw it). Now here's a question for you, tangentially but still relative to the signing-up of acts - why, in the early 60s, did Berry Gordy sign up Bunny Paul?

How have you come to that conclusion?

I watched a French film from 2019 last night called "Le meilleur reste à venir" (The best is yet to come). Imagine my surprise when the opening theme started up and it was Little Willie John "I'm shaking'"! The film's plot centres on a misunderstanding, one that could be cleared up very easily but doesn't and as a result scenarios play out that go from bad to worse. In this case the misunderstanding is a diagnosis of terminal cancer. There's no misunderstanding about the cancer, but who has it. In what is essentially a buddy movie, we have two middle-aged guys - one is a free spirit and the other is an uptight doctor. When the free-spirited one has an accident, he goes to see his doctor chum who takes him to A&E. But wait, Mr Free Spirit doesn't have his medical card with him so borrows his mate's card. The guy gets x-rayed, is treated and sent home. Next day the hospital phones up the doctor chum saying they need to speak to him urgently. His x-ray shows terminal lung cancer. Except, of course, it's not him who has the cancer, it's his free-spirited mate. For various reasons the doctor friend can't tell his mate he has just six months to live. Mr Free Spirit, thinking his mate has cancer, encourages him to live what's left of his life to the full. It doesn't sound like the subject of a comedy, and I'm not someone who enjoys plots that spin entirely on the contrivance of a misunderstanding that could have cleared up easily. But, no misunderstanding, no film. In the end the film turned out to be both heart-warming and stuffed full of the sentimentality that the French seem to love. It was worth watching. Russ rating = 6.5/10. IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9284430/

Had a copy with labels reversed (clicking through the Popsike listings, it seems to be the same for most if not all copies) for more than five years. It's also very shiny and new and looks identical to the one in the pics. Matrix number is HSS-107-Y (Not V). The rest of the runout details are the same. Sound fidelity is great.

The only ad I could find is the one below. The soundtrack is just a bit of stock music taken from a sound library or specially commissioned for the ad. https://vimeo.com/686191274/87ca3c8311

For those who like 'foreign' cinema (ie, not English language and with subtitles), I can say that 'Le temps des secrets' (A time of secrets) is well worth a watch. I saw it this evening. This is a remake of the marvellous 1990 film 'Le chateau de ma mere', which followed the equally glorious 'My father's glory'. Both stories are about a young boy growing up and coming of age in the backdrop of the wonderful landscapes of isolated Provence (pre-WWI), where his family go for several weeks each summer. Marcel Pagnol's books also gave us the classic films 'Jean de Floret' and 'Manon des sources'. You'll surely know them. Not sure why a remake of the wonderful 'Le chateau de ma mere' was considered worthy, but it stands up as a lovely and heart-warming film in its own right. Perfect for a Sunday afternoon - or any situation where you feel the duvet is the best place to be. Sceptical about a remake at first, I enjoyed it. I'll give it 7.5 out of 10. Trailer (in French only ) here:

I used to go to niters armed with a packet of orange-flavour dextrosol and a big bottle of lemonade.

Ah, yes. I remember now. There was also an early version of “Get hip to yourself”.

That does help. Heard snippets some years back, but don’t recall them now. A copy of The Blues Discography 1943-1970 might be useful here.

All good here, @Marc Forrest. Thanks for asking, and likewise hope all is hunky-dory with you. It's been a while. Only asking about your Marvellos stuff out of curiosity relative to this new and very wonderful box set. If none of the recordings you have relate to the unreleased sessions presented in the box set then I wonder if the tracks were cut for Loma at all bearing in mind those sessions were typically done in sixes, ie, enough tracks for potentially three vinyl releases. Any evidence that 'your' recordings were actually for Loma and not WB or another label?

If that were me and I heard someone shout to the punters that a legitimate test press I was playing was a bootleg, I would have waited til the end of the record, and with the mic in one hand and the record held aloft with the other, and pointed out that person's mistake. Clarification made. Person made to look foolish. Job done.

A man of action (Netflix 2022) is definitely worth a punt. It's a French/Spanish film loosely based on the real-life exploits of Lucio Urtubia (never heard of him before the film), a bank robbing anarchist and counterfeiter who gave most of the money he appropriated to political groups and the needy and pulled one over on the French Police and one of the biggest banks in the world. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12703292/

Yellowstone S05 - great show all round, and this series is just as good, although a little rushed in terms of developing the multiple story arcs, I think. Perhaps that's because there are so many story arcs - there's a lot to get in. Very disappointed to learn that it was 'taking a break' after episode 8, and won't be back til later in the year. 1923 - good, but not as good as Yellowstone by a country mile. The heavy Irish and Scottish accents grate. Father Brown is back with season 10. Love everything about the show. Well, wasn't that keen on Bunty. No idea if she's in this series as haven't seen any episodes yet. Midsomer Murders S23 - plotlines either becoming more extravagant or more stretched. Not sure which, but it's still good fun. Billy the Kid was enjoyable, although it stretches credulity somewhat with its 'he's just a nice boy' approach. Ancient Apocalypse - Graham Hancock gets a second bite of the TV cherry (remember his Quest for the Lost Civilisations in 1998?) to convince us of his theories. I like his theories - I read a number his books mid/late-90s - but think the short confines of a TV series, where there has to be some over-exaggerated sense of drama and suspense, don’t do him any favours. Still, I enjoyed this series enough to be working my way through it a second time.

A compilation called Motown Around the World was put out on CD in around 2010. There's a write-up and podcast about it here: https://www.npr.org/2010/05/28/127245081/mein-girl-motowns-hits-found-in-translation And there's a complete track listing - including sample sound files, here: https://www.bear-family.com/various-motown-around-the-world-foreign-language-versions-of-motown-greatest-hits-cd.html