News — soul labels

  Stuart Cosgrove's trilogy, Detroit 67 The Year That Changed Soul (2016), Memphis 68 The Tragedy Of Southern Soul (2018), and Harlem 69 The Future Of Soul (2018) are prodigious feats of research and scholarship – musical, political, social – and are best read, considered and reviewed as a whole. It is a trilogy to match any written work on music. Cosgrove sees in the story of each complete year in Detroit (1967), Memphis (1968) and Harlem (1969) pivots in black music, politics and society that shaped not only the histories of those years but the decades to come. In the era of Black...

E. Mark Windle  29 November 2020.   Just received some news via "Man from Soul" Alan Kitchener, regarding an exciting new vinyl release on his Soul-Direction imprint, planned for early 2021: Eddie Holman – “Ready Willing Able” B/W “Too Young for Love” (Soul-Direction SD002) "Until recently this unknown Virtue acetate was unearthed from the belongings of legendary Philly producer/musician/songwriter John Stiles, and recorded around the same time as "Stay Mine For Heaven Sake" at Virtue Studios in Philadelphia. Eddie's rendition of "Ready, Willing and Able" was something that was thought to have been written for another singer which was to...

OK folks, be sure to look out for some fantastic upcoming soul releases from the new Scotland-based North Broad St Records, launched this month. Project manager Colin Law and director John Buckley are familiar names on the soul scene. The aim of the label is to present an extensive catalogue of previously unreleased material, sourced from acetates and master-tape, alongside very selective reissues of rare or hard to find 45s from the soul arena. Let's be clear, there are strictly no pigeon-holing or restrictions on sub-genres here, just damn fine soul music. Whether deep, modern, sweet, northern, crossover, dancers or ballads are...

The passing of Edwin James Balbier a couple of years ago went virtually unnoticed in UK northern scene circles: indeed few outside of the industry will recall his name. Yet, this individual would be the unwitting driving force behind one of the most popular soul re-issue (if brief) label imprints of the 1970s, even if it was the company’s younger soul music enthusiast employees who shaped the nature of the label arm of the operation. Balbier’s initial interests did not lie in soul music, but more generally in the oldies market. Born in 1930, the Philadelphian had an early career...

It's a bit of a tradition these days for me to provide progress reports of writing projects at particular milestones, partly to inform of course but also for personal reflection on the process and to praise contributing individuals who help 'make it happen'. So then, here we have the Spring update now that The Tempests book is nearly complete. On the whole, the majority of the book is there and the main text has now been proof read. Still-to-dos include some final image copyright permissions and heaps of boring stuff (indexing, pagination etc). The manuscript will be heading to the...