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Welcome to the other Great American Songbook.

Music publisher Max Dreyfus, the head of Chappell Music and dean of New York City’s allegorical Tin Pan Alley, once said, “Always take care of your writers. Without them you are nothing.” Dreyfus knew a good songwriter when he heard one – Richard Rodgers, George Gershwin and Cole Porter, to name but three – and we like to think we do too, although we specialise in a more recent era. It takes nothing away from the towering achievements of Rodgers, Gershwin and Porter to acknowledge that the 1950s and 60s produced their own fair share of brilliant songwriters.

Each CD in Ace’s Songwriter series offers an overview of a very specific artistic vision and personality, from the tongue-in-cheek playfulness of Leiber & Stoller to the soul stylings of Van McCoy and the earthy street-grounded rockers of Ernie Maresca. Randy Newman and Burt Bacharach are widely considered the embodiment of the word songwriter, but Neil Diamond and Jackie DeShannon are so firmly embedded in the public consciousness as star performers that many may be momentarily surprised to encounter them as the prolific tunesmiths they actually were. Great songs are all you would expect from a Bacharach set, but perhaps you’ve never stopped to think just how many great songs Bo Diddley wrote. Luckily, Ace have, and now you can enjoy hearing the proof.

The halcyon days of the Brill Building era are represented by the great writing teams of Leiber & Stoller, Pomus & Shuman, Goffin & King, Mann & Weil, Sedaka & Greenfield and Greenwich & Barry, who so dominated the Hot 100 during that golden age (although not all of them actually operated out of the Brill).

Those writers in turn influenced those who came along in their wake. The Sloan & Barri and Boyce & Hart teams added a folk-rock slant to the mix. Chip Taylor delved into a more country-flavoured sound. Nick Ashford, Valerie Simpson & Joshie Armstead borrowed from the church for their soul epics. All of them made tremendous contributions and more than earned the honour of being anthologised in the usual Ace fashion, with accompanying action-packed booklets filled with interviews, essays, rare photos and vintage clippings.

You’ll find big hits, fabulous near-misses, obscure LP cuts, interesting interpretations of hits and rarities, sung by a dazzling array of star performers, living legends, notorious characters, cult favourites and talented also-rans. The real stars here, though, are the songwriters. And, of course, their great songs.

It’s tempting to say that had these writers been the only ones working in the second half of the 20th century, the 50s and 60s would still be considered rock’s golden age. But one thing is certain: it wouldn’t have been a golden age without them.

David Quantick wrote for the NME for about 15 years, invented the phrase "pop will eat itself", became a comedy writer, and now writes for The Word, Uncut and Harry Hill's TV Burp. He has liked the music that Ace puts out since for ever.

In the roll call of 1960s garage band heroes, the Chocolate Watchband reside at the very top. Their notoriety derives from the handful of singles and LPs that they made, balanced between the Watchband’s own intense Anglophilic blues wailing, and mysterioso studio trickery on the half of producer Ed Cobb. Their best-known cut is probably ‘Let’s Talk About Girls’, which appeared on the seminal 1972 garage band sampler “Nuggets,”, but the Chocolate Watchband have many more such gems within their vintage catalogue, all of which is available to you in fully remastered sound on Big Beat Records.

The original Chocolate Watchband was formed in the autumn of 1965 at Foothill College on the San Francisco peninsula, with a six-man line-up that featured guitarist Mark Loomis and drummer Gary Andrijasevich. Playing the R&B and folk rock of the day, the outfit did some recording, but outside of their unusual name, made little impression beyond local gigs in the San Jose area. The draft and the departure of key personnel rent the group asunder late in the year, but Loomis determined to reassemble the band with a new line-up, including rhythm guitarist Sean Tolby, bass player Bill Flores and on lead vocals, San Jose State student David Aguilar.

Though it had been Loomis’ group up until this point, Aguilar was the spark that moved the Watchband to the top of the class. Within weeks of this line-up getting together, they took San Jose by storm, blasting their way to the top of the local circuit with a scintillating, mesmerizing set of Americanized Stones, Yardbirds and Animals covers. Aguilar in particular was a master of dynamics, and the singer directed his mod-togged combo through sets that made the new Watchband the talk of the local circuit. In the summer of 1966 the group signed with manager Ron Roupe, whose connections included Ed Cobb of Green Grass Productions, then riding high in the chart with the Standells. In quick succession Cobb inked the Watchband and ushered them to Los Angeles to record.

Technically, the first release was ‘Blues Theme,’ a pseudonymous instrumental cover credited to The Hogs, but the Watchband’s debut proper was the Cobb-penned ‘Sweet Young Thing’, perfectly suited to the group’s arrogant punk stance. It was released in December 1966 on Tower Records’ R&B imprint Uptown, an unusual choice of label which meant that the group was subsequently perceived by some agents as a black act. The single’s flip was an atmospheric reading of Dylan’s perennial ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’. 

Moving into 1967, the Chocolate Watchband was constantly at work, either at the plethora of teen hotspots and psychedelic ballrooms in the Bay Area, or at clubs and ballrooms up and down the California coast, leaving a trail of ardent fans and wrecked cloakrooms in their wake. They continued to record with Cobb, and made a remarkable and unforgettable appearance in the classic teen rampage flick Riot On Sunset Strip. The upbeat, undeniably commercial ‘Misty Lane’ became the next single, coupled with an orchestrated ballad, ‘She Weaves A Tender Trap’, a choice the group openly questioned, and only recorded under duress. It was a harbinger of things to come.

Another exploitation movie, The Love-Ins provided the third Watchband single, ‘Are You Gonna Be There (At The Love-In)’, written and recorded in just one day in order to make the filming schedule. The freaky flip, ‘No Way Out’ was an equally off-the-cuff recording, evolving from a studio warm-up jam. Both sides of the single – this time on the Tower label proper - captured the Chocolate Watchband at the peak of their powers. Sadly, it was also to prove this line-up’s swansong, for shortly after the release of the single in June 1967, Aguilar, Loomis and Andrijasevich all suddenly quit the group, principally over musical direction. Flores and Tolby were left the lurch with a month’s worth of bookings, but the pair quickly assembled an interim Watchband, with personnel that included Tim Abbott on guitar. However, this line-up was to struggle through only until the end of 1967.

That September, shortly after the Loomis/Aguilar line-up had imploded, Tower Records had released the debut Chocolate Watchband album, “No Way Out”, following it swiftly in February 1968 with another long-player attributed to the combo, “The Inner Mystique”. The label had given both albums pop-art sleeves with little identification of the band or its members, while the contents of each mixed bona fide outtakes from the band’s sessions for Green Grass, with trippy instrumentals and overdubbed tracks, many of which did not feature the band at all. Most worryingly, in several places Aguilar’s original lead vocals had been replaced by those of a faceless sessioneer.

The group’s members were outraged, but despite, or perhaps because of, these disingenuous releases, interest in the Chocolate Watchband remained strong, prompting Green Grass to approach Tolby and Flores in the autumn of 1968 and induce them to reform the band for a third album. Loomis, Andrijasevich and erstwhile members Ned Torney and Danny Phay returned to the fold. The mostly original “One Step Beyond”, was the brief and somewhat diffuse result, with nary a trace of the Watchband of old. Some desultory tours followed in its wake, with Tolby the only visible original member of the group, and in 1970 the band finally split for good. In the late 1990s, the band reunited and have since intermittently returned to both the studio and the stage, thrilling fans both old and new.

Their live power brought them notoriety back in the day, but it was the band’s mysterious catalogue that spurred the growth of a posthumous cult reputation for the Chocolate Watchband as psychedelic punks par excellence. By the 1980s the group’s catalogue was getting regularly reissued and, with a degree of irony, the records were venerated as much for the duplicitous instrumentals and studio fill, as for the authentic snarl of David Aguilar. Big Beat is proud to be foremost amongst the champions of the Watchband, beginning with our original Best Of, “Forty Four”, followed by repackages of the band’s three vintage albums, and finally and most definitively with the “Melts In Your Brain . . . Not On Your Wrist” anthology. This double disc set not only contains their complete studio recordings, but also features demos, backing tracks and for the first time, Aguilar’s reclaimed vocals for ‘Let’s Talk About Girls’ and other tracks, along with detailed notes that explain which cuts are real Watchband and which are the fake.

The vaults of Scepter, Wand and Musicor were the first to which we gained unlimited access. The great thing about that from a personal point of view was that my co-founder of the 6Ts soul club, Randy Cozens, had championed Scepter and Wand since the mid-60s. Wand’s main acts, Chuck Jackson and Maxine Brown, were the most played and revered artists to feature at our dances.

Florence Greenberg had formed the labels in the late 50s, recording mainly black acts from the New York area. The success of the company was guaranteed once the Shirelles began a string of hits in 1960 with the chart-topper ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow’. An astute businesswoman with a great feel for the music, Florence knew to employ the cream of producers, arrangers and songwriters available and could hustle with the best of them. This was shown with her purchase of Maxine Brown’s contract from the major ABC label when her career there stalled.

Florence’s ability to get some of the best songs from the Brill Building and 1650 Broadway writers was demonstrated in the stream of pop-soul masterpieces that she secured for Dionne Warwick from the hottest composers in town, Bacharach and David. Scepter also boasted Tommy Hunt, whose record ‘Human’ was a big R&B hit, and later pop singer B.J. Thomas, who sold millions of records in the second half of the 60s. Those major talents were augmented by acts such as Rosco Robinson, Freddie Hughes and Nella Dodds, as well as great one-miss-wonders Jack Montgomery, Wally Cox, the Ivorys and the Gentleman Four.

The first few various artist compilations Kent issued featured mainly the lesser-known acts whose discs had been adopted by the Northern Soul scene. There were also solo sets from Chuck Jackson, Maxine Brown, Tommy Hunt and the Shirelles. In 1984 we gained access to the Nashville-housed master tapes and unearthed a slew of wonderful unissued recordings. To British soul fans’ ears it was almost criminal that they had been deemed not good enough for public consumption. Tracks from Maxine, Chuck, the Shirelles, Tommy, Bettye Lavette, Maurice Williams and others helped revitalise a sub-culture that had struggled through the early 80s.

Playing an equal part in this belated New York soul explosion was the Musicor catalogue. Musicor sported the Platter’s stunning mid-60s period, Porgy & the Monarchs, Jimmy Radcliffe, Sammy Ambrose and a single by the young Melba Moore. By the mid-70s, Melba’s 45 had enjoyed enough plays on the UK’s soul dance circuit to warrant bootlegging, but it was the discovery of the third track from the session, the soulful original version of ‘The Magic Touch’ (as recorded by the Bobby Fuller Four), which shook the rare soul world. With all the qualities of the best Wigan Casino dancers, it became massive across the UK’s Northern scene and quickly spread via scooterists and mods right across Europe. Coming at the peak of that first Euro soul movement, it was one of the key records to convert so many devoted soul fans. 

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.