Results for “black america”

They say that character is destiny, so, make of it what you will, but I don't seem to have had 'adventures' in the field of black American music, so much as 'magic moments'. I remember my first-ever encounter with a recording artist was when I was still an early teen, and I also remember it to this day since it also taught me a lesson in life. When it was first issued, I had gone potty on Dee Dee Sharp's Mashed Potato Time, and, when she came to do a short promotional tour, to the mockery of my mates, I decided to miss the first part of the show and wait at the back entrance of the theatre to catch a glimpse of her in person. Eventually my patience paid off, and she arrived (with her mother, as it turned out), and I shyly introduced myself. She couldn't have been sweeter, warmer or friendlier, and before we parted, she bent over and gave me a big kiss on the cheek! I blushed to my very bones!

While the physical world is in lockdown we're working to meet your listening needs over on Spotify and Deezer.

Release date: 04/09/2020

Rationals: Punchy garage and blue eyed soul from the Ann Arbor group that should have ruled the world. (Compiled by Dean Rudland)

Mirwood: From1965-1968 Mirwood produced the best uptempo Northern Soul dance records, bar none. (Compiled by Dean Rudland)

Goldwax: The ultimate label where soul and country meshed and made musical magic. (Compiled by Dean Rudland)

Release date: 13/08/2020

Funky Blues: The blues never died and in the late 60s and early 70s some of the best musicians mixed in contemporary funk to create an explosive fusion. Here are 24 of the best cuts. (Compiled by Dean Rudland)

Doo Wop Girls: Female vocal groups from the Golden Age of American Rock’n’Roll. (Compiled by Mick Patrick)

Millie Jackson: An incisive introduction to one of the greatest soul singers, a snapshot of her finest work recorded for the Spring label. Southern soul deepies, funky dancers and disco grooves.

Release date: 17/07/2020

Mellow Cats And Kittens: Cool Cats, Crazy Cats, Top Cats, Hot Cats and Mucho Mellow Cats (and Kittens)! Strictly the Hippest R&B Anywhere. (Compiled by Tony Rounce)

James Carr: Possibly the greatest voice in Southern Soul with his definitive work. It doesn't get any better than this. (Compiled by Dean Rudland)

Disco Grooves, Dancefloor Moves: The sound of the dancefloor, from proto-disco moves and the roots of modern dance to full on hands-in-the-air classics. (Compiled by Dean Rudland)

Release date: 03/07/2020

Female R&B: Three dozen feisty examples of early 60s female R&B. (Compiled by Mick Patrick)

Rock'n'Roll: Thirty top-notch rock’n’roll floor-fillers from the 50s, 100% guaranteed to please your ears and treat your feet. (Compiled by Mark Lamarr & Tony Rounce)

Breaks, Beats and the Birth of Hip Hop: The roots of hip hop taking in block party classics, jazz, funk and other beats. (Compiled by Dean Rudland)

Release date: 19/06/2020

R&B: A Playlist that's a Party - the Rockin’est 1950s Rhythm & Blues selection you’ll ever need! (Compiled by Mark Lamarr & Tony Rounce)

Vocal Groups: An Ace Street Corner Serenade Special! 1950s Black American Vocal Groups, Doo-Woppin’ what they do best. (Compiled by Mark Lamarr & Tony Rounce)

Teen Pop: Clean-cut pop rockers and teen ballads from the late 50s and early 60s. (Compiled by Mick Patrick)

Release date: 05/06/2020

Southern Soul: The sublime Sound Of The Soulful South – Memphis, Muscle Shoals, Miami and more. From deep to dancers, and definitely much more besides! (Compiled by Tony Rounce)

Sister Soul: Sweet Girls, Deep Girls, Southern Girls, Northern Girls, Funky Girls, 60s Girls, 70s Girls – but always 100% Soul Girls! (Compiled by Tony Rounce)

Gil Scott-Heron: Politics as art and poetry with cross generational impact.  Gil’s formative work is as relevant today as it was when it was recorded. (Compiled by Dean Rudland)

Release date: 22/05/2020

Doo Wop: Rockin’ n rollin’, mambo, strollin’, and some real cool school doo wop from the finest sharp-dressed Californian vocal groups of the 1950s. (Compiled by Roger Armstrong).

Big City Funk: 'Sunroof top, Diamond In the back..' the sound of a cruise through mid-70s New York, Chicago or LA. Heavy grooves, funky horns and power to the people. Discos are getting started but they're the gritty kind. (Compiled by Dean Rudland).

Northern Soul: Timeless rhythms from geniuses of black music. Laid down in the 60s but still moving heart and feet today. (Compiled by Ady Croasdell).

Release date: 08/05/2020

Street Funk: Take an ounce of James Brown, a pinch of the Meters, and little more Dyke & The Blazers, then stir well. Real funk for party people, obscure 45s, hidden LP tracks and discoveries from old tape reels. Guaranteed to move your feet. (Compiled by Dean Rudland).

Surf Instrumentals: Boss instro sounds from the early 60s surf, drag ‘n’ hotrod scene – let there be twangin’ guitars, poundin’ drums and honkin’ saxes! (Compiled by Mick Patrick).

Release date: 24/04/2020

Girls with Guitars: A collection of guitar-wielding all-girl bands, drop-dead female frat rock, garage girls and axe-centric she-pop from the 60s. (Compiled by Mick Patrick).

Where the Girls Are: A cornucopia of heartrending 1960s Girl Group sounds from all corners of the USA. Think castanets, anguished teenage sirens, Svengali-esque producers and mini-sonatas about dreaming, dancing and boyfriends (sometimes deceased). Get the picture? (Compiled by Mick Patrick).

Mod Jazz: Razor-sharp soulful jazz, Latin beats and a touch of the blues for the ultimate Soho basement party. (Compiled by Dean Rudland).

Funk Soul Sisters: Heavy funk and breakbeat soul from the coolest singers on the block. (Compiled by Dean Rudland).

Spiritual Jazz: Progressive jazz for the mind and the soul. These 70s greats help you to find your spiritual centre. (Compiled by Dean Rudland).

Funky Jazz: Funky organ, blaxploitation themes and acid jazz grooves from the hippest players on the scene. (Compiled by Dean Rudland).

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In the beginning came Ric Tic and Mirwood. Obviously Tamla and definitely Okeh were huge and vital, but I think the small indies with the big punch epitomised what was then known as Old Soul. That would be around late ’68 to early ’70 before the music was known as Northern Soul.

Run by Randy Wood, a savvy music businessman with years of experience at the black-owned Vee-Jay company, and having hit from the off with Jackie Lee’s ‘The Duck’, the signs were good for the new Mirwood label. The genius young arranger James Carmichael gave veteran Los Angeles producer Fred Smith the impetus of his youth and that vibes-laden rhythm of the dance craze hit laid the foundation for the next two years of soul dance perfection. The final piece of the jigsaw was Sherlie Matthews, a brilliant arranger of backing vocals whose knack for capturing the “Swinging Sound Of Young Hollywood” would result in some masterly compositions for the label.

Fred Smith not only brought Jackie Lee and Bob Relf (aka Bob & Earl) to the party, but threw in veteran vocal group the Olympics, all acts he had worked with previously. It took the company two goes to make the charts with the Olympics when ‘Mine Exclusively’ went to #25 R&B in mid-66. Their biggest hit for the label was the next one, ‘Baby Do The Philly Dog’, the epitome of the uptempo soul groove – too slick for the average English teenager but perfect for the breed who hung out in smoke-filled basement dives, powered by pills and a love of the music of black America. ‘Philly Dog’ was released at the time on UK Fontana; those cherished copies acted as the swansong for the soul mods but became the revered soundtrack to the Old Soul religion.

Sherlie Matthews tried to get in on the act performing with the Holloway sisters, Brenda and Patrice, on the Belles’ ‘Don’t Pretend’ and providing ‘He’s Alright With Me’ for her good friends the Mirettes (previously known as the Ikettes). She found she was too busy composing and writing backing vocal charts to concentrate on a career of her own and it was a fact that Mirwood’s best-sellers were recorded by the guys.

Jackie Lee came back strong with the storming ‘Your P-E-R-S-O-N-A-L-I-T-Y’ and ‘Do The Temptation Walk’ while his partner in Bob & Earl, Bob Relf (aka Bobby Garrett), joined in with ‘My Little Girl’, whose backing track was erroneously issued on a UK release and became a Northern monster. The Olympics hit back with the double-sider ‘The Same Old Thing’ / ‘I’ll Do A Little Bit More’, the latter title being sampled by DJ Fat Boy Slim and grooved to unknowingly by trendy young Brits decades later.

There were interesting one-offs from Jimmy Thomas, J.W. Alexander, Chicago group the Sheppards and a jazz/soul keyboard groove from session men the Hideaways as well as odd little pop pieces scattered throughout.

For me the company peaked with Jackie Lee’s magnificent ‘Oh My Darlin’’ which, although it still had the on-the-fours rhythm, was so much more than a dance record with a pleading vocal over the perfect backing track – a three-minute musical masterpiece. The adjacent release was Jackie’s duet with Dolores Hall, ‘Whether It’s Right Or Wrong’, a gorgeous, heartfelt soul ballad.

But these releases did not sell and Randy Wood tried outside sources for further success. The main one was Hank Graham’s Hangra stable which used Jimmy Conwell, Len Jewell Smith and Goodoy Colbert’s writing and producing talents. There were two releases on Jimmy Conwell, the second under the alias Richard Temple. The first was the instrumental ‘Cigarette Ashes’, which famously fetched the highest price ever for a 45 in the early 70s and was released in the UK within weeks; the vocal version, ‘That Beatin’ Rhythm’, grew into the epitome of Northern Soul. This production team also worked two excellent releases on Bay Area group the Performers.

That’s the American side of the story. The UK picture was possibly even more enthralling. Collectors knew the first releases from the early UK Fontana singles and the belated 1968 issue of “The Duck” LP on London. Odd Mirwood imports would slowly filter over to the UK and gradually a picture of the label built up in DJs’ and collectors’ minds. The releases weren’t super-scarce but hard enough to locate to become precious and beautiful to behold. The cachet of the vocal and instrumental versions of ‘My Little Girl’ and ‘That Beatin’ Rhythm’ added to the wonder and mythology of Mirwood. It became one of the first labels to be cherished but also one of the first to be exhausted, although the brand was kept alive by a series of dubious early 70s pressings made from the master tapes accessed by LA-based UK Northern Soul wheeler-dealer Simon Soussain. Those pioneering initial finds would also be among the first records spun in the hugely popular Wigan Casino oldies room Mr M’s and the later Friday Oldies All-Nighters.

Ace Records purchased the label in 2003 and we found unissued masters such as Bobby Garrett’s ‘Keep It Coming’, Jackie Lee’s soulful ‘Trust Me’ and the Belles’ cute ‘Cupid’s Got A Hold On Me’. We were able to unravel some of the mysteries that Soussain had initiated with his misinformation. The Belles ‘Let Me Do It’ was actually the Mirettes singing ‘I Wanna Do Everything For You Baby’ and Jackie Lee’s ‘I’ll Do Anything’ was really called ‘Anything You Want, Any Way You Wanna’. They were issued on the two volumes of the “Mirwood Soul Story” CDs and the correct writers credited at last. We found many relevant documents in the paperwork and were able to recount the history of the record company for the first time in any depth.

Back in the day no black American ever said, “Let’s make a record for all those upcoming teens in the north of England who in a few years will like dancing to uptempo soul while bombed on speed”. Admittedly a few “tailor-mades” did happen but these were a mere footnote to a scene that spent its life scouring record lists, oldies shops, auctions, warehouses and lofts for the next big sound.

Northern Soul is any record that has been played at a Northern Soul dance. That is a ridiculously large number of recordings that stretch from the late 50s to the present day and can vary between Charles Sheffield’s 1961 R&B mover ‘It’s Your Voodoo Working’ to some recent housey thing by Bob Sinclair called ‘Tribute’. The epitome of Northern Soul is 1965-66 uptempo Motown such as ‘It’s The Same Old Song’ by the Four Tops. It has the tempo, the production and Levi Stubbs’ emotion-drenched voice telling us how his girl has legged it; misery often features in the happiest sounding songs. Motown was the benchmark of this music but it was the following crowd that aped their sound and came up with myriad variations that are the essence of Northern.

Take ‘That Beatin’ Rhythm’ by Richard Temple on Mirwood, for many the first Northern label. It wasn’t released in theUKin the 60s and did not reach these shores until the early 70s. Some keen English youth would have found a copy on a US sales list, or in a UK junk shop that a few imports had sidled into, played it at his local club and created a stir. When the big-time DJs got to hear about it, the sharpest and richest charmed it into his own DJ box and regaled the eager dancers at the biggest club of the day, thereby creating a monster sound. It got bootlegged and even legally reissued, sold in the tens of thousands and can still be heard at venues every weekend around the now global Northern Soul world. The sound later embraced 70s shufflers, big-beat ballads, some Latin boogaloo and R&B stompers but it’s that mid-60s sophisticated soul with the on-the-fours beat that is the bedrock. 

14 November 1944 - 21 December 2019

Even before Peter Gibbon started to work with Ace, he would turn up at various studios where I was transferring tapes anxious to jot down every date and number from the tape boxes. In particular when I was copying the Stax tapes, he was totally in his element, not only getting to hear fantastic music every day but all those dates. Among the tapes was the motherlode of unissued sides from the early “blue” period and he finally got to compile CDs of Ruby Johnson and his all-time favourite, Carla Thomas. Peter did enjoy a female soul singer.

He was also very good company with an immense knowledge of doo wop and soul music in particular. I learnt a lot from him. At the time he was flying high with IBM, but was also one of the top discographers of American music of the post-War period. When he eventually left IBM, he joined the Ace team and built our fantastic US Singles Database, still invaluable to this day, even with the advent of 45cat and Discogs.

He could be irascible and did enjoy a drink, but it was all part and parcel of a man with a passion for the music that he not only documented but collected avidly and responded to emotionally. He was very much part of a generation of mainly middle-class British men who were in awe of these remarkable records wafting their way across the Atlantic. Peter was a perfect match for Ace, mixing a desire for as much information he could glean from the records while at the same time engaging in them musically.

One nice anecdote is that when we bought the Doré catalogue and the paperwork was shipped from the US, it contained boxes of shipping orders for records as well as the contracts. Under T for Teddy Bears, however, was an empty folder. We were going to ditch the pressing orders, much to Peter’s outrage – so much information to be had there. One day he came up from the warehouse with a contract. It was the Teddy Bears paperwork hidden by Lew Beddell in the middle of the pressing orders.

We have missed him for a while now as he had been getting progressively more ill, but I am sure he is logging the Celestial Choir’s repertoire up there somewhere. – ROGER ARMSTRONG

Peter and I met at Oxford University in the early 60s. As I recall, he was attending Wadham College and I was at Magdalen College. He was studying Maths and I was studying Chemistry. We met through a mutual interest in record collecting and discography. I had been listing record labels since my mid-teens and he had compiled similar lists. We used to compare notes and help each other improve our listings. Mine still contain some updates handwritten by Peter.

When we left University, Peter regularly visited my first wife and me in our flats in Wanstead and South Woodford, where Ray Topping and Norman Jopling were also frequent visitors. Later on Peter used to stay weekends with us in our cottage in Hatfield Peverel near Chelmsford in Essex. Amongst many other weekend and party guests at that time were Tim Rice and Storm Thorgerson, who photographed the “Atom Heart Mother” cow on the way home.

When Peter married Mickey and moved to Staines we didn’t see so much of him. Later on when I had remarried he became godfather to our second son, also named Peter. When he retired from IBM he became a consultant at Ace Records. – TREVOR  CHURCHILL

Peter came aboard at Ace Records as a consultant about the same time as me in the early 1990s. The label was expanding rapidly in the CD era, and Ray Topping and Ady Croasdell couldn’t handle it all.

Peter was an Oxford University graduate and former IBM executive who had a spell living in the US in New Jersey. He was a very serious record collector and discographer. I still recall being in awe the first time I saw his collection, including an enviable run of Golden World singles.

It was no surprise that he used his keen intellect, computer knowledge and discographical expertise to build an unparalleled database at Ace. He supervised many soul and doo wop releases. What a great time we had at the Ace consultants’ meetings – hard work and hard play, where we all bounced ideas off each other. Peter always came armed with a library of discographies. I also recall fondly his visits with Mickey to Shelley and me in Long Island on their annual trips to the US Open Tennis Championships in Flushing Meadows. His work in helping to elevate Ace to become one of the world’s leading reissue labels will always be treasured.

It is entirely appropriate that his life is due to be celebrated at The Bells in Staines, Middlesex, where he entertained many of us royally over the years. Please raise your glasses, everybody, in Peter’s honour. – JOHN BROVEN

I corresponded with Peter about soul label listings and discographies for Shout and Soul Bag magazines in the 1970s and we met up at various record fairs pursuing those elusive 45s. In the 1990s I was delighted to help Peter set up the Ace database and assist him on several compilations for the company. Peter and I took every opportunity to attend live music gigs, especially Ady Croasdell’s Cleethorpes Soul Weekenders. Our first visit there featured the amazing line-up of Barbara Lewis, Lou Courtney and Betty Lavette, all on top vocal form, sounding just like their records. We lost touch for a while due to his illness, but Bob Dunham and I managed to re-establish contact a couple of years ago. Bob will tell you more. – ROB HUGHES

I first met Peter Gibbon when I joined Ace Records in the late 1990s. In his consultancy role Peter was instrumental in training me up for the grand position of Tape Administrator and Archivist, a job that continues to this day, some 23 years later. I’ve also had the pleasure of working from the US Singles Database he instigated at Ace. I thank him.

Peter was bedevilled by leg problems which steadily worsened to the point he was unable to continue working, and contact was lost for some years. He was eventually confined to a wheelchair and mostly housebound, with wife Mickey becoming his main carer. On top of that, arthritis in his fingers prevented him from using a keyboard, a telephone and, heaven forbid, his trusty record player. Peter’s mental strength and sharpness got him through such challenges, and those powers continued undiminished.

These troubles all came to light when former Ace staffer Rob Hughes and myself eventually re-established contact with Peter, and in recent years we made a number of visits to Staines. Not to his house, mind you, but to The Bells, his local pub, to where Mickey would wheel him the two minutes from home. Occasionally she would stay but usually tended to disappear and return some three or four hours later to take Peter home after he’d treated us to an excellent lunch and stimulating conversation to go with the liquid refreshment. Despite the arthritis he still found a way to raise the elbow.

To add to Peter’s woes Mickey sadly passed away in late 2018. Without his main carer, Peter subsequently booked himself into a care home in Virginia Water where he would spend the last period of his life. However, our visits to The Bells were by no means over. Peter tracked down a cabbie with wheelchair access, and myself and Rob were able to meet up with him a few more times during what turned out to be his final months. A further visit was planned for early this year, but it wasn’t to be. – BOB DUNHAM

Although he never had any book or major work officially published that I am aware of, Peter Gibbon was to my mind one of the great discographers. He was the ultimate denizen of the dead wax, a man to whom you could throw the title of an arbitrary 45 release, and off the top of his head he’d immediately and knowledgeably respond with “Money 215”, “Arock 1006”, or “Stax 243”. While I’d hesitate to equate Peter’s mind with that of the fictional savant in the film Rain Man, he wasn’t far off in his grasp upon the runes and hieroglyphs of deep record collecting, particularly when it came to its black American tributaries. People consider me a nerd who purportedly might know who made the tea on the session, but while I have always loved collating discographical info – about the only maths I can stomach – I am nowhere near Peter’s league as a record scholar.

Of course, myself and the other consultants who work for Ace Records have been for many years the beneficiaries of his expertise. In the days before Discogs and 45cat, there were few readily accessible resources to assess what and what hadn’t been released on vinyl from the golden era of the 1950s-1970s. Peter’s computer skills collated all the then-available info from books and elsewhere into a series of tremendous databases that are still an effective tool for compiling. I would happily pass on my findings in the field to him at a regular basis, and we could talk labels all day long, no doubt to the exasperation of those within earshot.

Before his physical health prevented him from participating, I would often see Peter on the Ace team’s Stateside visits, beavering over his laptop as myself, Roger or whomever else was along for the trip pulled reels from a vault’s shelves and threw them on the tape machine. He seemed genuinely happy entering the relevant data while we worked. Like Roger, Peter did a lot of time at the Stax coalface when that particular catalogue was owned by Fantasy Records in Berkeley, California, just down the road from where I lived. We’d get together not just to talk Ace business, but also to make jaunt outs to record fairs and stores on the farther-flung reaches of the Bay Area. It was there that I first caught sight of Peter’s trusty, dog-eared notebook with endless and copious listings of labels in which he would furiously jot throughout the crate-digging.

I got to know Peter a little, and discovered that as well as an old salt at the record collecting game, he was somewhat of a foodie. Although my wife Cindy remembers the time we served him dinner at our apartment and he rhapsodised about the apple pie – she didn’t have the heart to tell him it came from the freezer at the local Safeway. He also knew his ale, and many of our conversations were conducted over a jar or three at a pub down the road from Ace Towers, or indeed the bar at whatever hotel was hosting the consultants meeting – a wonderful tradition that sadly no longer occurs, where everyone got together to discuss their latest repertoire leads and talk turkey on all matters Ace. It was at some of these post-dinner reveries that Peter would confide highlights from his youthful days as a fan, including the time he visited the London hotel room of a beloved American soul chanteuse and sat quietly agog while she nonchalantly changed outfits in front of him.

I hadn’t been around Peter since he had had to withdraw from Ace activities due to illness, so my memories remain of how he was. There is a wonderful photo that Roger took at one of the above-mentioned meetings that sums up Peter’s personality. He is leaning forward with a crooked finger upraised, making a point in inimitable fashion. That’s how I will always think of Peter Gibbon: a feisty, irascible, but always kind man. – ALEC PALAO