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MY REVIEW
Rare soul review
I have recently received
this 1st issue of the rare soul review written by Tim Brown [as above
cover] I
myself do not collect vinyl like I used to do back in the seventies, even
then I could only afford to spend so much on records because I was on a
puny little Apprentice wage, buying from soul Bowl and Johnny Manship
lists only when I could afford it.
The magazine cover has a
nice picture of "Hoagy Lands" [where ever did his mother
get that name from?] and is in all glossy A4 size. Inside
Tim asks "Why another soul magazine?" and I would think a lot of
people will ask the same question, but this one is a little bit different
in the fact that it covers only rare soul music as it's title suggests.
Tim believes that we are not exposed to the full amount of soul music that
is out there and hopes this magazine will give us a chance to discover
loads more of that fabulous soul music.
I myself think this is a
great idea and it will make my spare time even more enhanced by the discovery
of new soul music, I love listening to new records that I have never
heard before even if they are not to my liking, because I know I am always bound
to come across that new record that I will end up playing time and time
again.
But I must
say that unless you are a real collector, soul lover or connoisseur, I
suspect you will have never heard of most of these tracks, which I suppose
is obvious really, but I think it makes it that bit more
interesting, a bit like when we used to go down to London in the
seventies to search the junk shops looking for labels and known artists.
We played them in the shop to see if they were any good before buying them
usually armed with a machine called a " Disc-cassette " [does
anyone remember those? It was a cassette player with a slot in the top to
stick in and play a record,' little did we know at the time that it used
to wreck them'. has anyone got one?]
As a great fan of Tamla Motown as
well as Northern etc, I particularly liked the section on previously
un-issued Motown tracks. I would love to hear some of these,
specially J J Barnes' version of 'Martha Reeves - Show me the
way'. There is a great mouth watering list of scheduled Motown
albums [hopefully] due for release, I would love to sit and
skim through these baby's.
Well I read the magazine
through which has nice little black and white photo's of most of the record labels
that are being reviewed in each article [essential to collectors and
dreamers like me I think] each article has a piece about the artist,
label and the song with some really interesting facts, it also has
the current value and an honest opinion by Tim of the track .
I thoroughly
enjoyed reading the magazine, I find Tim's writing well informed and
as you would expect from a leading collector and dealer of soul,
he has a deep affection for his soul music. But I have to say that when
reading about rare soul you do not know what the records you are reading
about sound like although they are described very well, so I think it might be a good idea to add a few
[un-downloadable] real
audio files of certain tracks to the "raresoulvinyl" site coinciding with each issue so
people can play them, [Specially the Tamla Motown stuff eh!] or how
about playing a few on one of the net radio stations? I'm sure one
of them would oblige. Well I ought t to shut up now before I create more
work for Tim than he already has, I'll finish on saying; I myself
think the magazine is well worth subscribing to.
brief summary;
"A must for
soul & funk fanatics and collectors."
The subscription price
for the magazine is £15.00 in the UK [£24.00 overseas] for 4
issues and will be at least twice a year or maybe more.
Subscriptions;
Please make payment to
"ANGLO-AMERICAN [one stop] ltd" also Visa, Access and
Mastercard etc accepted.
Send to;
Anglo-American [One Stop]
Ltd PO box 4 , Todmorden Lancashire, OL14 6DA, Tel 01706 818604 or
Fax 01706 819280
or e-mail; postmaster@raresoulvinyl.demon.co.uk
website; http://www.raresoulvinyl.co.uk
DO IT NOW !!
[the soulsurvivor.]
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MY REVIEW
The northern Soul top 500 by kev Roberts
First of all I have to
say (although it sounds bad) that the cover really caught my eye, my mum
always used to say "don't judge a book by it's cover" and that
maybe is very true, but these publishers really know how to get a book
noticed, not least with this one.
It charts the top
500 Northern Soul tracks that made the scene into what it is today. Not
only this but it also gives estimated values to the vinyl itself with
records from
"Frank Wilson-- Do I love you" for £15,000 down to, (but no
more a classic than) "DobieGray's --Out on the floor" for a
tenner. The listing is not in value or alphabetical order but in order
of it's merit according to Kev.
I really enjoyed reading
about not only the value but a brief history of each artist on each record
which unfortunately even occasionally tells us of their death, it's hard to think
of these classic singers whom we have been dancing to all these years as
being dead, but they were around a long time ago and were probably quite
an age even then. When I was
dancing or listening to these tracks I often used to wonder who the
singers were, apart from the well known ones of course. I
read for example that the MVP's were actually a rock band "would you believe
"
and that a lot of the artists were in fact white; for example the
O'kaysions of girl watcher fame and the Australian singer "Lynn
Randell". This doesn't matter to me but
it's funny how you perceive somebody and when you actually get to see them they are totally different.
In the book Kev has also
added little comments by various people from the scene, not only
famous people but also just everyday Northern Soul characters who are
probably quite well known locally. Kev has put a value for Demo's
and issue copies and sometimes has also given you a slight insight as to
the origin of the producers, writers and the labels.
The book has a
black and white photo of every record it has in the top 500 list but has
a few at the back in colour although these colour ones are not in the
top 500 list. The rear of the book is a hive of information including
some great photo's of the old casino and even mentions the good old
Howard Mallett in Cambridge my home town.
A section in the
book remembers a TV programme that was shown in the seventies called
"This England" about Wigan Casino and the Northern soul
scene, I remember it well and how it made us look like a load of eccentric
pill popping fanatics, "Oh hang on! that's exactly what we, were
wasn't it?", well we didn't think so at the time did we, it was
every one else that was weird as far as we were concerned.
The front of the book has
some in-put from the great Frank Wilson himself and it has some great
little pieces of very interesting information about the venues going
back to the Twisted Wheel right up to the Togetherness weekenders that
are currently being staged.
An brief summary ;
" A brilliant book
with real deep research which I found really difficult to put
down" Buy it!
" J.T "
Here is some Trivia !
Did you know? That;
Anna Ford,
Dale Winton, and Carole Decker ( from the band "T'pau") were
all Northern Soul fans and visited some of the top venues, also George
Best was once seen at the Twisted Wheel... Also
"Carole Ashton" informed me that Steve Davis has a great
collection of Northern Soul records, [Perhaps he's not so boring after
all eh!] thanks Carole! Does
anyone know of anybody else Famous who was a Northern soul fan?? e-mail
me.
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I'm sorry;
But I love this
picture of Tammy Terrell so much. I could not think of a better
way to fill this space up than with this Sexy little picture of
her.
[wow what a babe she was]
click here for;
Tammi Profile
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