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It was Ace’s very good fortune in 2009 to become the first independent record company in the world to acquire from Universal Music the rights to license previously unreleased material from the classic Motown era, 1959-1969. With ten CDs now in catalogue (one of them a double), this seems a good moment to review the artists we’ve covered so far, and present our version of The Motown Story.

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To be born blonde might be a good indication of bloodline but not necessarily of character. To dye one’s hair blonde, or to don a blonde wig, on the other hand, can be statement of intent – blonde ambition. To quote Heidi Klum, “Going blonde is like buying yourself a light bulb.” It worked a treat for the some of the former brunettes here, for sure.

Black blondes are not unusual on the music scene of today but it was a different story in the 1950s and 60s. The first was likely Joyce Bryant, the steamy “Black Marilyn”, who, in a bid to stand out above the competition, resorted to upending a tin of silver radiator paint over her head. “Joyce caught all kinds of hell for having blonde hair,” wrote Etta James in her memoir. “I dug her and copied her style.” Other black women singers followed suit, including a number of those in the James Brown Revue.

There again, a change can be as good as a rest. “I felt depressed and had to do something about it,” the newly blonde Dionne Warwick told the press in 1965. “It’s a lovely honey shade. Next time I get depressed I may change to a redhead.” Today they’d call it reinvention.

In any event, the hair colour, natural or otherwise, of the women featured in this article is of no real significance. What is important is they all have recordings available on Ace … because they’re worth it. 

Darondo 1946-2013

William Daron Pulliam – better known as funk and soul icon Darondo – passed away from heart failure on Sunday June 9th.

There was a time not so very long ago when true credibility in pop and rock music came only from success within the American or British marketplace. No matter how accomplished or innovative they might be, foreign acts and their attendant music scenes were frequently viewed with condescension, and anything not sung in English was deemed a novelty. As the development of rock music in other countries during its first two decades comes increasingly into focus, such cultural imperialism has been proved wrong time and again. Even when its native practitioners were aping American or British acts, each country added something of its own indigenous identity. In many cases it was as much the melodic approach that came with the translation of rock and pop, as it might have been simply singing in a foreign language. There were different levels of energy too. The raucous fire-fuelled abandon of Thor’s Hammer or the Antipodean beat groups contrasts with the sophisticated pop class oozed by a French chauntese. In 60s Japan, you got both sides of the coin – sometimes even within the very same record.

The meat and bones of Ace Records’ catalogue, since the company’s inception, has traditionally been American music. But we also have a divergent palate, as witnessed by our Globestyle imprint, which was a pioneer in the world music field, and is still going. Subsequently Ace developed a taste for continental cuisine of the vintage variety, and we were amongst the first UK or US reissue labels to take the subject seriously. Starting with a compilation of Uruguay’s Los Shakers (now sadly deleted), the Big Beat International sub-division set out to champion vintage 60s rock from other continents. We’ve subsequently hopped from Asia to Australasia to the far-flung reaches of the north Atlantic in the search for the wildest and wackiest rock’n’roll the planet had to offer. In more recent years a complementary subsidiary, Ace International, has emerged, focused on the distaff side via two enchanting collections of swinging mademoiselles, with similar of Italian and Australian girls planned for the very near future. Join us now for a rockin’ trip around the globe.

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.