The tracks featured here embrace both big Motown hits and relatively obscure titles, almost all of them cut with a view to becoming hits where the original versions had stalled. Motown's initial lack of success here made it's early catalogue fair game for any UK artist looking to score a hit with a quality song.
Remastered as always from the finest available sources, the CD booklet features copious annotation and a wealth of period illustrations, record labels and everything else you would expect from an Ace release. Incredibly, not one of the forty 45s issued from their catalogue, across an assortment of labels, breached the UK charts in the company's first five years of operation.
It's been part of the uk's musical dna for so many years that it's hard to imagine a time when Motown was struggling to make an initial impact here. Shrink-wrapped. Not all of those homegrown versions were artistically successful, but Ace's "On The Detroit Beat!" brings together two dozen that were, by some of our best-known and best-loved singers and groups of the Beat Era and beyond.
After the beatles recorded three Motown songs on their second album, local artists were queuing up to put their own spin on Motown copyrights.
Where The Girls Are Vol 10 / Various
. Spanning the years 1962 to 1968, this is the tenth and final volume in our long-running compilation series of girl group treasures from the USA. Many are making their first appearance on CD, including 'Top Twenty' by the Delicates, previously unissued in any format. The collection comes with a picture-packed 24-page booklet featuring in-depth notes by Ace's in-house girl group buff Mick Patrick.
The tracks were recorded in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, New York, Nashville and Cincinnati.
This Is Lowrider Soul / Various
The lowrider tag comes from their love of classic US automobiles modified to cruise the city streets customised in the coolest fashion of the day. More esoteric picks are provided by the Endeavors, Aesop's Fables, Jimmy Conwell, the Vows and the Interpreters. Being kent, we suggested some previously unreleased masters to the selectors and they were knocked out to include the Lovers Bay Area-recorded 'When You're Poor' and the Billy Terrell, Ray Dahrouge and Tony Camillo-written-and-produced gem 'I'm Just Passing Time'; their inclusion has caused a buzz around the scene.
It is a musical phenomenon collectors are eager to learn ore about and this release will be picked up by all types of black music collectors. In recent times the collecting scene has intensified and spread to soul fans around the world who, already sympathetic to the music, were intrigued by the titles that were finding such favour among this very hip scene.
Shrink-wrapped. The music on this cd stretches over nine years and moves from late doo wop to sophisticated sweet soul harmony ballads. Molina has written the old barrio guide To Lowrider Music and works in a DJ team called the Southern Soul Spinners around their southern California heartland.
She Came From Liverpool! Merseyside Girl Pop 1962-1968 / Various
With this latest compilation, rather than spotlight a particular company, the focus is on a location: the music hotbed of Merseyside. Guitar-toting cover girls the liverbirds, who released no records in the UK but were stars in Germany - where their repertoire of Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry numbers made them favourites at the Star-Club - also appear twice.
To illustrate the point, here are 25 hand-picked girl-pop artefacts from thereabouts. While male beat groups ruled the Merseyside roost in the 60s, the area was also home to it's fair share of female talent. The breakaways, the vernons girls and Beryl Marsden - three other acts intrinsically associated with Liverpool - are also featured.
Liverpool's pop queen cilla black is featured with her two most Merseybeat-oriented tracks, including a terrific version of 'A Shot Of Rhythm And Blues', the first song she ever recorded at Abbey Road. Along with a selection of proven fan favourites, the collection contains many lesser-known gems, Cindy Cole and, Nola York, among them new-to-CD tracks by the Three Bells, Tiffany, Samantha Jones, not least, Lyn Cornell, whose hitherto-unreleased-in-any-format 'I Don't Want To Lose Him' was recorded with visiting American producer Teddy Randazzo.
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Heart Full of Soul - The Motown Anthology
The second disc premieres over 20 never-before-heard recordings, both in original Motown stereo mixes and brand-new mixes by Kevin Reeves, that showcase the depth and breadth of Blinky's remarkable voice. Over two cds and almost 50 songs, gil askey, don hunter, blinky's motown journey is chronicled with songs written and produced for her by the label's greatest talents including Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, Clay McMurray, Jerry Marcellino and Mel Larson, Hal Davis, Frank Wilson, Deke Richards, and Stevie Wonder.
Shrink-wrapped. Gospel, and the classic motown sound all come together with the distinctive voice of Motown's greatest 'lost' artist, jazz, R&B, Blinky. The story of sondra 'Blinky' Williams has long been shrouded in mystery. The soulful singer came to motown records in 1967 following stints at Vee-Jay and Atlantic, bringing her passionate and powerful deep soul sound to Hitsville, USA.
Heart full of Soul has to be heard to be believed.
Goodbye, Boys, Goodbye! Girl Pop Gems Obscure & Unreleased 1963-1967
. The cd is presented with a full-colour 20 page booklet featuring liner notes, annotations and historic photographs. Expect lavish production, romantic lyrics and heartfelt vocalism found wrapped in two-minute boquets.
Jon Savage's 1969-1971: Rock Dreams On 45 / Various
. That was my tribe. They were new once, like we all were. Shrink-wrapped. Thus streamed, i hunted the bins all over London for singles on Island, Elektra and Track. Rock in the us and the uk encompassed male braggadocio, sincere if not naive protest, anguished reflection, stonking riffs and loud, distorted guitars.
While many songs from this period have become generational clichés, it is hoped that this collection will help you in hearing them afresh. Unlike the previous volumes in jon savage's series of double cd compilations, which featured music from an expansive mixture of genres, this latest edition is 100% rock, as Jon elaborates in the customary bumper 28-page booklet: "In the late 60s, British pop and youth culture began to fragment into tribes.
Much of it was blues-based, but a year or so later some of it became wilder, particularly in 1969 as the back-to-the-roots impulse of 1968 worked it's way through the sharp end of rock, stranger and even more basic - looking forward to what a truly 1970s white teenage music could be: that groundswell that eventually burst out in mid-decade onwards.
There was no real name for this period but, mindless yet heartfelt protest, goblin chants and a general mood of questioning, just before glam, overloading guitars, it was an era of massive riffs, exploration and disillusion.
Reggie Young: Session Guitar Star / Various
During his six-decade career as a session man, predominantly in Memphis and Nashville, Reggie Young's unique guitar work has embellished 45s and albums by just about every major artist who cut tracks in those two hotbeds of recording activity. To reggie it didn't matter; he always did his best to provide what he felt was right for the song, very often just some personalised licks and fills here and there, but he would cut loose on a scorching solo if he thought it added to the overall performance.
Our overview shows reggie young completely at home in all the various genres that have provided top class material for so many Ace LPs and CDs for the best part of forty years. Reggie young's guitar work has been heard on many ace compilations over the years, and none more so than our still available CD "Memphis Boys: The Story Of American Studios" CDCHD 1330 released in 2012.
. There were plenty of lower profile names, too, who made great records without necessarily over-working the chart compilers. A-sides, b-sides and album tracks have been carefully selected to sit comfortably together while simultaneously illustrating the development of Reggie Young's armoury of guitar stylings from the 1950s and into the present century.
We have therefore avoided any duplication of tracks here, even though several of the same artists are featured.
She's A Doll! Warner Bros Feminine Side / Various
Better yet is ramona king's recording of the song 'Chico's Girl', which is previously unissued, full-stop. Shrink-wrapped. The collection opens with 'contact' by the three degrees, and closes with lorraine Ellison's 'In My Tomorrows' from the same year, a slice of cool Philly soul issued as the glamorous trio's one-off single for Warner Bros in 1968, one of the many fine records she made under the auspices of producer Jerry Ragovoy.
This addition to the ace records catalogue comprises polished soul, pop gems and more from the female roster of 1960s Warner Bros and the company's Loma subsidiary.
Yesterday Has Gone: Songs Of Teddy Randazzo / Various
The definitive recordings of randazzo's songs are invariably the ones he himself produced, and it's significant that he did so on most of the tracks here. Shrink-wrapped. With sumptuously produced classics such as 'goin' out of my head', 'it's gonna Take A Miracle' and 'Hurt So Bad' to his name, 'I'm On The Outside Looking In', few would disagree that he became one of the finest American songwriters of his time.
. Spanning 1964 to 1979, dionne warwick, this collection features 25 of his best compositions, esther Phillips, Timi Yuro, performed by Little Anthony & the Imperials, the Royalettes and Derek Martin - the artists with whom he worked most prolifically - and top-tier names such as Frank Sinatra, Billy Fury and Mel Tormé.
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Complete Man: 60s NYC Soul Recordings
. 25 in all! Kent. Shrink-wrapped. After first making his mark with the Flamingos, Tommy started recording for Scepter and delivered some out-and-out soul classics.