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Following years of no-show in the reissue stakes, the rights to the acclaimed Philadelphia labels Cameo and Parkway were finally licensed by Ace from ABKCO in 2010 and a wealth of material that hadn’t been available for decades appeared in the catalogue including albums by the twist king himself, Chubby Checker, the Orlons, Bobby Rydell, Dee Dee Sharp, the Dovells and even proto-screen star Clint Eastwood who crooned his way through some country favourites.

A similar deal with ABKCO also saw SAR material from Sam Cooke’s label gain release including the complete recorded output of his brother L.C. Cooke.

More vintage pop and soul appeared in 2011 when Ace bought the rights to record hustler Lew Bedell’s (slogan: who the hell is Lew Bedell?) Doré records, famous for cutting Phil Spector’s first outing ‘To Know Him is to Love Him’. Twenty-five of the 28 tunes on this first volume of “The Doré Story” appeared on legitimate CD for the first time, all taken from the original masters. 

There is nothing quite like the feeling of holding the master tape to a classic record, in particular when it is of 50s and 60s recordings; the tape that was inthe studio when the record was cut, the box annotated with all of the engineer's logs, comments on the producer's choice of take and doodling by a bored drummer. But more than the artefact aspect, open the box and there is the promise of hearing the original master and therefore the best possible source available. At first listen it may not even sound that spectacular. It will often be a little dull, in need of something extra to make it sparkle. And that is precisely why we then take it through a post production or mastering stage , just as it would have been for its original release.

Movie soundtracks and book tie-ins also began to play a definitive part in the Ace release schedule, starting in 2004 with the Pogues and Joe Strummer featuring on the original soundtrack of Alex Cox’s “Straight to Hell Returns”. Then in 2010 came a double CD to accompany Alan Govenar’s magisterial biography of Lightnin’ Hopkins. As Roger Armstrong suggested: “Read the book, enjoy the record.” Another book tie-in came with “A Rocket In My Pocket: The Soundtrack To The Hipster's Guide To Rockabilly” which accompanied the book by the same name by Max Décharné. Chock-full of classics such as ‘The Train Kept A-Rollin'’ by Johnny Burnette & his Rock'n'Roll Trio and the title track by Jimmy Lloyd, it was a pure delight.

I had visited Jerry Purcell in the 80s when he had an office in Manhattan and, while asking him about Debbie Taylor and the Persians, of which he had very little knowledge, could not stop my eyes wandering over to some old metal filing cabinets, intrigued by what might be hidden inside. The conversation did not get as far as “Can I just delve through your files for half an hour?” so they remained untouched by British hands. Twenty years on, I was contacted at Ace by Mr Purcell’s office who indicated that they were ready to make a deal to license their masters to Europe; the previous meeting had held us in good stead. A trip to New York was duly arranged but by then GWP was virtually dormant. Most of the publishing had lapsed and Jerry had relocated his office to his home in Bayside. There I met Ed Bland, a charming musician and arranger who had done the early work for the GWP label who, as Jerry’s right hand man, had been entrusted to organise the deal. After surveying the fascinating looking tape cache I caught site of one old filing cabinet and asked Ed what was in there. “Oh just old music sheets, record samples and contracts”, “Could I look?”, “Sure”. I pulled open a drawer and found that the container was a treasure trove of records and acetates. The company had filed their samples fastidiously and in between the cardboard dividers could be found four demos and two issues of September Jones’ 45, five issues of the Dynamics’ ‘I Need Your Love’, a Kenny Carter single in a German pic cover, Willie Kendrick’s ‘Change Your Ways’ plus many more vinyl singles: but oh, the acetates.