George G

For the life of me I can't understand why you don't have someone in your own town do this work. No offense to anyone here but don't you think there's enough talent among your fan base in the Twin Cities to design an 'image'? It could also be a way of getting some people on board to your night early - they could bring their friends to show off

I just bought a copy of this (M- record, sleeve in nice shape, not M-) for $67. I had checked Collectors Frenzy and saw that $100 was tops for this. Probably a case of a record that was thought to be 'rare' about 10 years ago just before eBay really took off and now it's been revealed to be much more common. In these cases it's often that a record was not ever found in quantity and exported to the UK so there were never copies for sale by the usual dealers so they assumed it was rarer than something that had been 'around'.

Des, I honestly don't know. I will ask and/or try to find my notes. At the time we collected this stuff we were mostly interested in rock. I also used to see piles of those Capsoul records and it took me awhile to get interested in them. - George

Marylin Smith on SoJamm.... yep, the Four Tracks is the only record on 'Mandingo'. The address on the label mispells the street name (Door vs Dorr) There's a big misconception about what is a record 'label' spread by inconsistent sites on the internet. Back in the 60s (and the 1970s) anyone could record a couple songs and send the tape off to a custom pressing plant....in the process they would create a 'label name' for their record which could be a street one of the members lived on, a family pet, a little sisters' name, a mothers' name...etc. These names are 'labels' in the sense that they are printed as such, but there's no 'company' behind them and multiple releases were probably never intended or only dreamed about. IMO a label is only a label if it either was run by a party apart from the performer and which the owner (let's say financer) put money into for promotion and had at least one more release by a different act. There were some artist 'owned' labels that qualify if in addition to the artist's releases they released and promoted other artists who did not include the same performers.

Well, it's been about 15 years since we went through all the masters and got the info on the Chandlers recordings so I'll probably be even farther from the truth....but at least we were able to talk with some of the principals. Smith and the people behind Musicol recording studios wanted to set up a record label to record and promote local soul acts (Musicol did the same thing with rock acts, using the Ironbeat label name) so they came up with Col-Soul. Smith found the group, wrote the songs, and sang/played on the recording. He may have been a member of the group at some point but his MO was more of a overseer, writing/arranging music and working with a production team (as he would later with Capsoul and Owl). It's not clear why the Col-Soul label lasted for only one release, as the record was a pretty big local hit. The Ironbeat 'rock' label had several releases and none of them were as successful as the Chandlers 45. I don't know about two pressings of the Chandlers 45, the only one I've seen (at least 20-30 copies) is the Rite pressing one. "I Need Your Love" was the A side and the hit side, and IMO is musically superior to YLMML, which is too derivative to my ears. Now, the second Chandlers 45 on Bleu Rose was also recorded at Musicol with Smith's involvement. The first pressing is the Rite, and the QCA is second. Neither of which are especially rare, I'd guess that the QCA press had a good amount of unsold stock which is why it's more common (about 4:1 I'd guess). I'd love to see the details/scan on the alternate pressing of YLMML. There was a Musicol label acetate with an instrumental track for YLMML sold on eBay some years ago. The Musicol masters from this time were all preserved on two track tapes, one instrumental and one vocal track. There is a 45 on a green with silver print ColSOUND label, but that's from the late 1970s and has no connection to Jeff Smith. The artist is Judah and the sound is pop-rock

Yes, there is a garage/rock 45 on this label by the 1492 Explorers. Same exact logo/color scheme

Incentive was Jeff Smith's 'custom' label out of the Owl records (of Wee fame) operation. There's two records on the label, although one or two Owl label 45s say something about Incentive on them. The Col Soul label that is used for the first Chandlers 45 was also a Smith custom label, done in partnership with the Musicol recording studios, with intent on releasing more recordings, but that never happened. This record got some sales and airplay in Columbus, it's certainly well known/remembered by the locals.

There's at least two different pressing plants used on this, the first one done at Pama in Cleveland, the second done in Chicago, I think the place was Ter-Mar or something like that. The two different labels are original 60s pressings. Almost every Clevetown label 45 has a blue and white pressing, Ricky Hodges is one of the very few that are on blue only. This is the most common local label 45 from Cleveland (other than the Bocky and the Visions records on Redda), it sold 1000s. I'm surprised that it has any value other than nostalgic for people in NE Ohio. Jerry G was a DJ in Cleveland before he moved to Chicago where he's most often remembered. The backing musicians included members of Cleveland bands including the Statesmen (although not all of them played on it), the drummer was a member of a different band, he also did a lot of engineering at Audio Recording in Cleveland (where the record was cut). There's a couple other different recordings of "She's Gone" that are on acetate or tape only. It's a pleasant record in the NE Ohio greaser style.

I've come across Audiodisc acetates (the 3 style you mentioned) with completely different artists on the sides as you described. I don't know why, other than I assume that someone wanted to make copies of sons to play on a turntable, such as a mobile DJ perhaps, and didn't have access to a commercial copy of the record. At one time records that weren't current hits were hard to get, even if they had been a big seller in the past. I remember seeing an acetate to use for a school production. I hope this helps George

I'm not sure I understand the question. All acetates were premanufactured blanks - a lot of places that had cutting lathes also made custom labels that they stuck over the Audiodisc or Transco 'blanks'. In some cases the same labels were used from the 1960s into the 1980s. I have unused stock of labels from operations in Ohio and Oregon that were printed way back when. The links are pretty interesting. One of the things that gets misunderstood pretty often is the recording source for acetates, ones that have labels from recording studios. The recording may have been cut somewhere else and taken to the studio where they had the cutting lathe for the acetate and acquired the label for the place with the lathe. During the switch from mono to stereo starting in the late 1960s, a stereo cutter was much more expensive than a mono one, so only one or two places in the area would have one and get all the stereo acetate cutting jobs even though the recording could have been done at any number of places. - George

Yes, please thanks George

You're about 110 miles off...Toledo. Connected to Toledo's Lee and the Leopards.

The same seller sold a copy of the Foreign Blue Renaisance a couple months ago. It was graded VG+ as well, no sound file. I wonder how that turned out?

It was first sold earlier this year (Jan/Feb).

It's moderately rare, usually found in decent used shape, really hard to find mint. $300-ish seems to be the price for a good playing VG(+) (UK VG+/Ex) copy. On eBay every 5 months or so. Too fast IMO to be played at a rare soul dance night. She has three 45s and an LP, the Reece label was the namesake of her manager (later husband) Steven Reece. The LP has some good songs but more in a smooth soul/pop direction.

What label/issue do you want on the Castaways - if you want a standard US release - I will *give* you a copy. I have some in boxes of records I donate to the thrifts. The only drawback is that I'm in the US so it will take a while to send it. - george

I believe this was cut in Los Angeles. "Working..." was an Intertains/Entertains song, hence the Larry Hancock co-credit (they performed it live) before the O'Jays recording. Ed Wright was a DJ at WABQ but he quit there and moved to LA to work for Minit records in late 1966. The O'Jays lived in LA from '66 until '70.

yes, there was. Based on inside info, the BIN copy was in better shape. It is a solid (US grade) VG+. The prices for both copies (the BIN was significantly cheaper and probably closer to the market value, even at that a little high) can be easily found by search engine. BTW - the clip of this in refosoul (unless it's been updated) is terrible. It's missing one channel(!) and has the intro cut off.

My first (and maybe last, if the thread goes away from the top) post on this Little Richie - Just Another Heartache Masqueraders - Do You Love Me Baby David Peoples - Blueberry Hill (one for the Cleveland files) Joan Bias - Crazy Over You (Way Out) another for the Cleveland files to upgrade my cracked one, the rarest WO 45 Foreign Blue Renaisance - Finding You

Mifflin is a high school in Columbus, Ohio.....

There's a garage record by Beaver and the Trappers on WC, it's great. I can look it up at home later today if you want the details. Also the Swingin' Apolloes and One Eyed Jacks are garage-ish.

Sold for $1500+!! What the hell???? BTW this BLOWS UP the floor when I play it here in Seattle - and I get asked often what it is....I'd take this crowd pleasing 'garbage' any day over some museum piece snoozer

I haven't been to the store in years but back in the 1980s I always had a good time at D&J. He is rather gruff but as I'm from the Rust Belt culture myself I can speak his language, so to say. My favorite was when I got the Magic Plants "I'm A Nothing" out of the 'reject' box next to the listening turntable. Turns out a UK soul collector was there the night before and passed on it....mine for $8 - thanks mate!

I'll ignore the silly comments about the gulf war and the Lockerbie terrorists....sadly, a lot of people in the US couldn't even make those connections. The vast majority of people in the US are very favorable towards the UK and Australia. Just come over here and use your 'accent' and you'll see....works great if you're looking for a fast girlfriend/boyfriend as well. There's numerous reasons - the setup of eBay for the US doesn't provide a lot of options so people take the easy way out and say no international shipping - which is why there's claims of "don't ship to Italy" in the item description, as you can't set eBay to block Italian bidders. EBay's setup for US users also forces restrictions on what you can officially charge for postage so some US people think they get burned on excessive fees. Everyone who seriously deals records on eBay ships internationally. The ones who don't are probably pickers and junkers who don't distiguish records from large items like furniture or stuff like software that's subject to legal restrictions. Don't take it personally - I'd ask the seller first before I jump to conclusions. I don't think you're gonna be called a Jihad loving terrorist.

If you're talking about the US... Bob "the count" Ellis wins Nods to Rich Rosen and Les Harris Funny, I bought one record from Richard Domar and it went fine. Maybe I got the 'first purchase' VIP treatment and it's downhill from there.