The latest set of re-edits from Paul Simpson is from Love Committee who
were a Philly group that evolved from The Ethics.
The Ethics released around half a dozen singles between 1967-70. The first one on
Wale followed by five on Vent several of which have had spins on the
UK's rare soul scene. A final single was released on Golden Fleece in
1974 before they became Love Committee. The line up was Joe Freeman and
Ronald Presson (aka Ron Tyson) from The Ethics along with Larry
Richardson and Norman Frazier.
All tracks are from their 1978 Gold Mind album "Law And Order" except
"Where Will It End" which featured as the flip side to their first Gold
Mind single "Cheaters Never Win" and also "Law And Order". They released
just one further album, a self-titled album on T-Electric in
1980.
They had five R&B chart entries, two as The Ethics and three as Love
Committee. None broke into the Top 30 and none crossed over to the Hot
100.
Tyson joined The Temptations in 1983 and is still a member to this day. His brother David Tyson was with The Manhattans from 1993. By the early 2000s the original group had splintered into two groups. Tyson was with original member's, Winfred 'Blue' Lovett and Gerald Alston, version of the group. He died in 2022 with Lovett preceding him in 2014.
Track Listing
01 - Just as long as I got you (Paul Simpson Re-edit) 9:14
02 - Where will it end ( Paul Simpson Re-edit) 7:12
03 - Law & order (Paul Simpson Re-edit) 6:55
04 - Pass the buck (Paul Simpson Re-edit) 8:38
05 - Cheaters never win (Paul Simpson Re-edit) 07:16
06 - Put it in the back of your mind (Paul Simpson Re-edit) 6:41
07 - Tired of being your fool (Paul Simpson Re-edit) 4:33
Full tracks are available to listen to on Paul's dedicated website available for a two weeks only.
Two tracks from Maxi Anderson's 1997 Blue Note album "Maxi" are being
reissued on 7" vinyl by South Street Soul on Friday (6 Oct). The tracks are "Lover To Lover" / "Walk Softly".
As well as being a one-time member of The Andraé Crouch
Choir/Singers, she was also a member of Ndugu & The Chocolate Jam Co
who released two albums on Epic in 1979 and 1980.
She was mainly a session singer with over 300 credits on Discogs featuring on recordings by Phyllis Hyman, Brenton Wood, Lenny Williams, Thelma Houston, Randy Brown, Norman Connors, Alton McLain & Destiny, O.C. Smith, Marlena Shaw, Ronnie Laws, Eloise Laws, Billy Preston and so many more.
"Maxi" was her only release, she released no singles, therefore this will
be the first time they are available as a single and on 7" vinyl.
Click on image below for link to where you can buy from.
UK promoter Gary Van Den Bussche fired this one, "Never Gonna Stop", over earlier this week asking if we'd heard it, which we hadn't. Now
we're sure many will scoff at the name but before you cast judgement and
aspersions just because of who it is, first give it a listen and then be
objective.
As far as we can determine, Stock, Aitken & Waterman are nowhere to
be seen/heard as it was self-written and produced by Astley..
Not that many will be particularly interested, it's from a forthcoming album
"Are We There Yet?" due on 13 Oct.
Click on image below for link to where you can buy from.
Requestors (Vivienne McKone vocals, Toby Baker, and
trumpeter Gabriel Garrick (son of late English jazz pianist
Michael Garrick MBE) release their first track called 'Love Has To Be Easy' on 6 Oct.
London born Vivienne McKone is mixed heritage, British/Nigerian,
who debuted in 1983 with "Nobody's Fool" which she followed up
with a four track EP "The Boy Who Won The Pools". She
re-emerged in 1991 with a promo only 12", "Self Control",
before her self-titled debut album in 1992 which produced several
(approx. 4) singles. As the 90s drew to a close her
recordings became fewer and, from our investigations, she's only
released two, that are listed, since, in 2002 and 2012. One of her last 90s recording was on her brother's, Ernie McKone,
Boogie Back label.
Vivienne began dancing aged two and attended the Royal Ballet
School at an early age, being plucked from the world of dance as a
child to appear as Velma, the solo dancer, in the film 'Bugsy
Malone' in 1976. She has appeared on UK TV series and has also supported
Al Jarreau and Anita Baker.
Toby Baker, who works with Ernie McKone (former bass player with
Galliano), is a London based musician/producer who's been around for
over 30 years and worked with a who's who list of global artists.
Far too many to list but to give you an idea: from reggae star Maxi
Priest, gospel artist BeBe Winans, pop artists Lulu and Sinead
O'Connor through a host of UK soul artists including Jaki Graham,
Imagination, Junior Giscombe, High Tension, Central Line, Freeez,
Beggar & Co. and Kenny Thomas to international stars such as BB
King, Chaka Khan, Candi Staton, Jean Carn, Change, Evelyn King,
Michael McDonald, Eric Clapton, Donna Summer and so many
others.
Toby was also a member of Soul Talk with Ernie McKone and Gary B.
Poole who released an album in 2010, is the musical
director for Change and is currently keyboardist on Alexander
O'Neal's farewell tour.
Gabriel Garrick took up the trumpet aged 7 and played in bands with his father and brother gaining exposure to pretty much every major jazz player on the UK jazz scene. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Music (jazz) in 1995 and whilst there worked with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra.
The second release from Soul4Real's Jai Alai imprint due on 14 Oct pairs two album tracks from Malaco. One from Johnnie Taylor's "Gotta Get The Groove Back" (1999) and another from Bobby Bland's "Members Only" (1985)
It was Taylor's last album before he died of a heart attack in May 2000 aged 66, although a studio and a live album were released posthumously. The first two tracks on the album were paired as the only single from the album. The track selected for release for the first time on 7" is "Let's Get Back On Track" co-written by Frederick Knight and Chares Brooks. We are told that the backing track was used seven year later on David Sea's "Stay In My Arms".
Taylor's career dates back to the 50s, first as a member of a doo-wop group, The Five Echoes, and then as part of gospel group The Highway Q.C.s which included Sam Cooke. Cooke left to join The Soul Stirrers and when he left that group, for a secular career in 1957, Taylor replaced him. The connection didn't stop there as, when Cooke set up his own label SAR in 1961, Taylor became one of his first signings releasing his first solo single in 1961 on SAR. Soon after the death of Cooke in 1964, SAR was closed and Taylor signed for Stax releasing his first single there in 1966. He had five minor R&B hits until he hit the R&B #1 spot with "Who's Making Love" in 1968 which crossed over to 5 Hot 100. He had two further R&B chart toppers with Stax but none broke into the Hot 100. After Stax's demise, owing to bankruptcy, in 1975 he signed to Columbia and had his fourth R&B #1 hit and first Hot 100 #1 with "Disco Lady" in 1976 which was re-recorded in 1998 as "Disco Lady 2000" and was his final R&B chart entry but only reached #98. By 1981 Taylor had left Columbia for new label Beverly Glen run by Otis Smith where he released four singles and two albums before being signed by Malaco in 1984 (apparently after being heard by the company founders singing at Z.Z. Hill's funeral) where he recorded ten album in sixteen years.
Taylor was nominated for three Grammy awards, for "Who's Making Love", "Disco Lady" and for the album "Gotta Get The Groove Back". The song "Disco Lady" was the first ever Platinum Award by the RIAA.
Robert Calvin Brooks acquired his name Bobby Bland from his stepfather, Leroy Bridgeforth also known as Leroy Bland, after his birth father left the family not long after his birth in Barrettville, TN, in 1930. At 17 he moved to Memphis and began singing in gospel groups later venturing into Beale Street and acquainted himself with the Beale Streeters (i.e. B.B. King, Junior Parker, Johnny Ace and Rosco Gordon).
Having recorded a few unsuccessful singles in the early 50s for Modern and Sun, he was signed to Duke Records. Bland had dropped out of school in third grade and was illiterate. After spending two years in the Army, upon his return Duke had a new owner who duped him into signing a contract which short-changed him to receive a quarter of the industry standard per record i.e. $0.005 instead on $0.02 per record sale.
His first single on Duke was released in 1955 with his first hit appearing in 1957. He had a string of R&B hits including three #1 hits up to 1985 but none troubled the Hot 100 Top 20 and only two broke into the Top 40. Duke was bought by ABC/Dunhill and Bland was retained where he stayed until signing for first MCA in 1979 and then with Malaco in 1985 where he stayed until his death in June 2013 aged 83.
The track selected from his first Malaco album ("Members Only") in 1985 is "Heart Open Up Again" which appears as a single for the first time.
Despite never really crossing over into the mainstream, he received seven Grammy nominations and multiple awards such as being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997 amongst several others.
The single is available to pre-order from Sou4Real for release on 14 Oct.
Click on image below for link to where you can buy from.
Jaheim H. Hoagland from New Brunswick, NJ, is the
grandson of singer Victor Hoagland, aka Hoagy Lands, known well to the
Northern Soul community for his classic tune "The Next In Line"
(Laurie 1967) in particular. Lands was born to an Afro-Cuban father
and Afro-American mother of American Indian descent. His singing career
spanned the late 50s to the mid 70s.
Jaheim grew up in a New Brunswick housing project,
(176 Memorial Parkway Home). His father died when Jaheim was just
two years old. At 15 he was a three time winner of the famed Apollo theatre talent
show. Just two years after that his mother also died but he persevered
and continued winning talent shows and four years later (around 1999/2000) submitted a demo tape
to Kay Gee's (aka Kier Gist a founding member of Naughty By Nature) Divine Mill
label (distributed by Warner Brothers).
Divine Mill released his debut album "Ghetto Love" in 2001 and followed it in 2002 with "Still Ghetto". A third with a Ghetto title, "Ghetto Classics", appeared in 2006 which debuted at #1 on Billboards Top 200 album
chart. He has released a further four since making seven albums to
date, his last "Struggle Love" in 2016. Only a couple of singles have materialised since.
Soul4Real has selected a track from each of his first two albums for
release on 7" on their Jai Alai imprint: "Just In Case" from "Ghetto Love" (which gained some spins on some of the hipper
modern soul rooms on release) and "Diamond In Da Ruff" from "Still Ghetto". Both have seen previous 12" releases but
appear on a 7" for the first time.
The single is available to pre-order from Soul4Real with a release date of 14 Oct.
Click on image below for link to where you can buy from.
On the back of his acclaimed album, "Billy Valentine and the Universal Truth", Billy Valentine has six European dates next month
with one date in the UK at London's Jazz Cafe on 9 Oct.
04 Oct - New Morning, Paris, FR
07 Oct - Paard, Den Haag, NL
08 Oct - Tivoli, Utrecht, NL
09 Oct - Jazz Cafe, London, UK
10 Oct - La Sirene, La Rochelle Jazz Festival, France
Sheree Brown releases a new single "I’d Rather Be In Love With You (The Sax Way)" on Expansion: on 13 Oct ahead of her UK appearance with Leroy Hutson at The Barbican, London, on 29 Nov.
In the late 70's Sheree worked on demos of two songs ("You'll Be Dancing All Night" and "I'd Rather Be In Love With You") that she felt would be a good representation of her music. She collaborated on the arrangements and music with Patrice Rushen, Ricky
Lawson, Jim Gilstrap, Syreeta Wright, Abraham Laboriel, Brad Williams, Gerald
Albright, Paulinho Da Costa, Curtis Robertson, Jr., Paul Jackson, Jr.
and Alexander Thomas (EWF) who was music director and helped produce the demo.
She presented the demos to Capitol Records in 1980 which resulted in Sheree signing a deal with the label.
However, when it came time to record her first album, “Straight Ahead” (1981), the producer, Richard Rudolph (husband of Minnie Riperton), did a
magnificent job of capturing the arrangement and essence of her demo for
"You'll Be Dancing All Night", but "I'd Rather Be In Love With You" had a
certain raw sensitivity and sweetness and Sheree yearned to produce and
re-record it herself and decided to hold off putting it on the album until
an opportunity presented itself sometime in the future.
That opportunity arose in the late 90's and she recorded a new version of
the song for an event to raise funds for her daughter and two of her
friends traveling to NY for the summer to attend Alvin Ailey and the Dance
Theater of Harlem's summer youth dance programs. It was retitled "I'd
Rather Be In Love With You (The Sax Way)" and featured saxophonist Dean
James and background vocals by Juliana Jai Bolden and was produced by
Sheree and musician/songwriter/singer Lisa Huang.
She performed it live for the fundraiser, accompanied by a tap dancer
Miles Jeffries from the Broadway musical Stomp who danced to the rhythmic
pulse of the song. In the new recording she used the rim shot from the
drums on the original version throughout the song, along with her guitar,
bass, and keyboards, and of course the backgrounds. The song was included
to a limited licensed CD for "Straight Ahead" in 2010 as a bonus track and
is now being made available as a single.
We did a
feature and Discography on Sheree Brown
in Feb '21 (pre-Spotify days) so if you wish to explore her music further
then we direct you there. Her 1982 album track "Got To Get Away" from "The
Music" is one of our desert island discs.
Click on image below for link to where you can buy from.
Click icons below for further information or to connect with the
artist.
Now all the hullabaloo has blown over regarding the 50th
anniversary of Wigan Casino (6Ts Soul also celebrated their 44th
anniversary the same weekend), two other Northern Soul venues are
celebrating anniversaries this year. Morecambe Pier it's 40th in
April and, the daddy of them all, the birthplace of Northern Soul,
Manchester's Twisted Wheel club was 60 on 27 Jan 2023 and celebrated the
60th anniversary of their first black music all-nighter on
28 Sep 2023.
The Twisted Wheel was founded by the Adabi brothers who bought the premises of the Left Wing Coffee
Bar in Brazennose St. It got it's name from all sorts of wheels used as decor (notably
the DJ booth pictured below) and ran from 1963-71. The last event held at the the Brazennose St. location was in Sep
1965 before relocating to Whitworth St. The club began playing
blues and beat music but, with the introduction of DJ Roger Eagle, began
playing rhythm and blues. It later developed as the pioneer in the UK
for US imported rare soul music which was later to be dubbed Northern
Soul by Dave Godin in his Blues & Soul column "Land Of A Thousand
Dances" (in issue 50 Jun 1970). He had used the term since 1968 in his
Soul City record shop after noticing that Northerners visiting the shop preferred different records than those bought by Southerners.
The first session was held on 27 Jan 1963. At the
all-nighter sessions US acts would regularly perform. Artists such
as Junior Walker, Edwin Starr, Jimmy Ruffin, Ben E. King, Little
Richard, The Shirelles, Oscar Toney Jr., Marv Johnson, Mary Wells, Ike
and Tina Turner, Johnny Johnson and the Bandwagon, and Inez and
Charlie Foxx all played the club along with many UK acts including Georgie Fame and The
Rolling Stones.
The club was shut down in 1971 owing to a new by-law which ruled that
clubs couldn't open more than two hours into a new day meaning it
had to shut by 2 a.m. putting paid to all-nighter sessions. Edwin Starr performed
live on the closing night to a packed house.
Running concurrently were
two midlands venues Chateaux Impey (1965-67) and from 1968 The Catacombes in Wolverhampton. Catacombs DJ Farmer Carl Dene (Carl Woodroff)
regularly attended The Wheel and supplied records to DJs there so
naturally, although not an all-nighter, The Catacombs took up the
mantle until the opening of The Torch (The Golden Torch, Tunstall,
Stoke) where all-nighters began in 1972. Although running for only a year, The Torch became legendary. Upon it's closure in 1973, Wigan Casino
was its successor as, arguably, the country's number one all-nighter.
Soul nights at Blackpool Mecca's Highland Room also began in 1971.
Other venues sprung up in the early/mid 70s such as Up The Junction
and Blue Orchid (Crewe), VaVa's (Bolton), Cat's Whiskers (Burnley),
Cleethorpes Pier/Winter Gardens, Samantha's (Sheffield), Queen's Hall
(Bradford), Yate, King George's Hall (Blackburn) and 100 Club (London). Clifton
Hall (Rotherham 1980-?), Morecambe Pier/Carlton (Apr 1983-86) and Top
Of The World (Stafford May 1982-Feb 1986) picking up where Wigan
Casino left off in the 80s.
The Wheel re-opened later in the 70s, this time with a licensed bar named Placemate 7 and underwent several name changes to Follies and finally
as a gay bar Legends. Regular attendee Pete Roberts vowed to re-open
it as a Northern Soul venue which he did in 2000 after pestering
the owner for six months he got the green light to run a Northern Soul
night and the first night commenced on 20 Jul 2000.
The Whitworth St venue was demolished in 2013 to pave the way for a
new hotel after much protest from locals who wanted it preserved as a
building of cultural significance with it being the birthplace of
Northern Soul. The final event at Whitworth St. was held on 30 Dec
2012. The club relocated to Night People in Princess St. and in 2022
relocated again to Band On The Wall.
Many of the records discovered by The Wheel DJs such as Roger
Eagle, Barry Turner, Brian Walker, Paul Davies, Brian Rae, 'The
Godfather of Northern Soul' Brian '45' Phillips, Phil Saxe and
Les Cokell have become Northern Soul anthems played to this day. We've selected 50 of our favourites from The Wheel era below.
The first book written about The Twisted Wheel was by Keith Rylatt
and Phill Scott published in 2001 titled "CENtral 1179" after the telephone number for the club. Another, "6 Whitworth Street, Manchester - The Birthplace of Northern
Soul", was written more recently by Wheel goer Rob McKeever in
2020. Both are now out of print so you will need to fine them on the
re-sale market.
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