Results for “THE”

Elaine grew up in Bury and moved to London in her twenties where she became one of the most successful fashion photographers in the world; even getting our compiler Ady Croasdell into Italian Vogue as a model. She branched into video making for the music industry for likes of Moloko and Richard Hawley. The labour of her life has been in writing and directing the film Northern Soul which took many years but was finally released to great acclaim in October 2014. Our soul compiler Ady Croasdell assisted with the licensing and several Ace-controlled tracks feature in the film.

northernsoulthefilm.com

Almost 50 years later, the seismic rumbles from America’s West Coast 60s renaissance have yet to subside. It was a revolution, a cultural tsunami that had a deep and profound effect upon the rock music of that period, and continues its presence, for better or worse, in music to this day. But for the astute listener, the real magic remains in that mythical five-year span between the arrival of the British on American shores, and the implosion of the counter-cultural dream at the dawn of the cynical 1970s. A considerable tranche of the Big Beat catalogue is devoted to late 1960s “left coast” rock, thanks to both its historical import, and the fact that the era remains an endlessly fascinating and entertaining subject. Oh, and the music is pretty spiffy too. We lean a little more towards the Haight-Ashbury than the Sunset Strip, but all the hues of California’s multi-coloured rock’n’roll rainbow are represented.

The majority of Big Beat releases devoted to chronicling vintage West Coast sunshine fall under a series we began nearly 20 years ago, Nuggets From The Golden State, and it is still going strong. Many are various artist volumes that celebrate different tributaries of the era, whether they be the grass roots rock scenes surveyed in discs such as “The Sound Of Young Sacramento” and “You Got Yours: East Bay Garage 1965-67”, or illuminating and instructive excavations of the alchemical transition from folk-rock to psychedelia heard on “A Pot Of Flowers” and “Someone To Love: Birth Of The San Francisco Sound”. The Nuggets mandate is to shine a light both upon the early movers, shakers and instigators, as much as the cult acts that continue to intrigue. We’ve prised open many a previously locked vault to gather together the historical and the entertaining, for a comprehensive and ongoing overview of this important chapter in popular music history. Whatever your psychedelic predilection, there is plenty to explore. Here are a few highlights.

The mod is an important figure in the world of youth cults. Originally emerging from darkened Soho basements of the late 1950s, they have continued to reappear to such an extent that they are now a permanent fixture on the cultural landscape. In 2012 mod culture could claim the winner of the Tour De France and the leading actor in one of the year’s highest profile films. While the music associated with mod is now wide and varied, you have to look back to its roots as a club culture to see where its heart lies.

The original mod protagonists could be found listening to the sharpest late 50s jazzNew York could provide, and we pay tribute to this mythical beast with our “Mod Jazz” series, which now runs to seven volumes, each one full to the brim with a bluesy jazzy mixture heated up with a touch of Latin.

The mods then moved on to American soul and R&B. These sounds were initially brought to them by DJs such as Roger Eagle and Guy Stevens and then by sharp record labels – usually the UK versions of American greats such as Chess or Atlantic, but also Guy Stevens’ British Sue logo.

Mods went away for a few years but their legacy lingered on in Northern Soul and southern clubbing, before a revival based around the Jam and Quadrophenia led to a new generation of mohair-clad lovers of jazz, R&B and soul. It is this legacy that is touched on in compilations such as “Looking Good” and our “New Breed R&B” series.

The selection here would provide you with the backbone of a very good mod collection. 

Where soul and R&B are concerned, Ace’s mostly male A&R team makes make no secret of its total admiration for the music of the fairer sex. We like to release as much of it as we can, as often as we can. If you don’t believe us, take an in depth look at the Ace website or our printed catalogue. You’ll find the titles of dozens of great compilations by some of soul’s foremost females from the past 50 years. That great declaration of admiration made by the Impressions and Jerry Butler almost 50 years ago is as true today as it was in the mid-60s – “The Woman’s Got Soul”.

The women we love recorded up north, down south and from coast to coast – as can be seen from the cross-section of releases just across the page – and always with an excellence to match and often exceed their male counterparts. There are no two ways about it, when it comes to singing about “the good, the bad, the hurt”, women have never been the weaker sex in soul music.

We could probably fill a whole edition of Sure Shots with fantastic packages by our soul girls, and still have plenty left over for the next one. Rather than do that, we’ll tantalise you with a representative selection, and leave the rest of the voyage of discovery to you. It doesn’t matter if you prefer your lady soulsters to sound sweet’n’teeny like Nella Dodds, sassy’n’saucy like Millie Jackson or gritty’n’gospel like Mitty Collier, we definitely have lots to suit you.

Let’s hear it for the girls!

One of the reasons why these CDs are so cheap is that no royalty is paid to the artists or producers of the masters utilised and so your bargain is in part funded from money that would normally be paid to the talented people who created the music in the first place.

Another major saving in the cost of production is the audio is lifted from other companies’ releases, including those of Ace. In doing this, the labels exploiting the copyright law are saving themselves the trouble and expense of dubbing original 45s and 78s, cleaning them up and EQing the resulting masters to make them sound good. By the very nature of their business these companies are unlikely to have access to master tapes and essentially they are dependent on companies like Ace to produce high quality audio that they can steal. In gaining access to masters, we can maintain high standards of audio and often turn up great previously unreleased material.

So the money you save in buying these CDs is in part due to theft of top quality digital masters from the companies who have done all the groundwork in locating and post-producing the audio. 

Ace also releases music that was recorded after 1962 and this has to be licensed from legitimate copyright holders. These companies cannot be expected to look kindly on us if we issue their pre-1963 recordings without paying for them. So, on that practical basis alone, we cannot benefit from the free ride on royalties, even if we wanted to. And we don’t want to, as we own many pre-1963 recordings on which we continue to pay artist and producer royalties.

As owners we are contractually liable to artists and producers for royalties, since early contracts did not make allowance for expiry of copyright. In any case, as most of these artists are US-based (where the copyright term is longer than in Europe) they would expect to be paid royalties anyway. It would not be helpful for our relationship with them to withhold royalties on sales outside the US.

So we still pay royalties to artists and producers of pre-1963 recordings, not only because we think we should, (and we have numerous examples of gratitude from older artists for whom even the smallest amount due is extremely welcome) but also because we are running a business and have practical considerations to take into account.

Furthermore the copyright in the songs embodied in the masters is protected for 70 years after the death of the songwriter, and without being recorded the income from these songs would be very limited. So the artists and record companies who provide the vehicle for income to the songwriters are denied the same copyright protection and ability to earn.

We like to think that we issue well-annotated, good looking CDs that sound as good as they can and the truth is, it costs money. We have been running a business since 1976, so have a pretty good idea of what it takes to survive in a tough market place and we fully intend to do so as honestly and fairly as we can.

So we ain’t cheap, but that’s because we ain’t cheapskates.