The forthcoming release, at last, of Ginny Arnell’s best work on CD prompted our last
post and makes me ask just what is happening in the re-issue market.
I was asked the other day why an ‘official’ release of Jean Thomas’s
work hasn’t happened. I couldn’t explain it other than the fact that the tracks
may not exist now as masters and vinyl dubs are all that would be available.
And then , of course there is the ‘old nutmeg’ of when are we
going to see the unreleased Four Seasons…. Philips and Motown tracks pulled
together for us.
But from the 60s there seems to be a dearth of companies prepared
to ‘go for it’ in terms of early/mid sixties work anymore. With many tracks now
no longer existing as ‘masters’ or with the difficulty of licensing the only chance we have of getting the music
to enjoy ‘in this lifetime’ is via the Spectropop e-group or
various download blogs which in the latter case are clearly breaching
copyright.
Why can’t record companies be more prepared to do what
Marginal did a decade ago but with one
difference and that is to pay the royalties.? Goldmine have also been prepared
to dub from vinyl with their Northern Soul compilations with great success.
There is a failure to see the long-term potential of sales
year on year as the www establishes the story of the music for everyone to
access and discover. These songs have the potential to earn royalties for
decades as successive generations discover them.
With I-pod listening also so prevalent……..and destined to be
the future collectors medium for their music management, low cost CD’s of vinyl
dubbed tracks would find a market just as Marginal and Goldmine found out.
Only ACE continue to lead with great compilations but they generally look for master tapes and they are only scratching the surface of the lost
music libraries .
Then there is the lack of compilations of composers work.
One customer review of a recent Brill Building
compilation
asked… “Why is it so difficult to find good compilations by songwriters? While
the fame and glamour go to the people who sang the songs, some respect is well
overdue for the backroom boys and girls who wrote them. After all compilations
by artists are two a penny. Although there are some excellent collections of
the works of David-Bacharach and Jimmy Webb, where are the decent compilations
from Goffin-King, Mann-Weil, Barry-Greenwich, Leiber-Stoller or Holland-Dozier?”
At least ACE have tackled
producer/arranger JackNitzsche
‘s work in 2 volumes so far and the recent Goffin-King
release is more than welcome. But a ‘Producers’ genre on their web site would
be a start.
And take for example Bob
Crewe’s or Sandy
Linzer’ s BMI database listing of songs and there is a wealth of great
material for compilations. Even as vinyl dubs the material is well worth
collecting. And then there are the ‘lost’ tracks produced by Charles Calello through
the 60’s and 70s.
Collecting tracks for Jean Thomas based on her logs of songs
she appeared on or did demos for has unearthed not only a great source for
compilations but some virtually lost songs not available on CD.…..well if ‘Phil’s
Spectre’ can succeed (with 3 Volumes) it shows the interest in the early
60s New York sound……and Mick Patrick’s ‘On Broadway’ compilation should have been
the first of a series but Westside’s demise prevented that.
The figures for Motown’s re-issues on the likes of Kim
Weston, Chuck Jackson and Billy
Eckstine show sales in excess of
35,000 each on Amazon alone so the
market interest is clear on oldies artists and their ‘Cellarful
of Motown’ tracks from the vaults has now reached 3 volumes. There are some
terrific compilations if you search them out, but there is no cohesive release
strategy amongst any of the record companies to get the tracks …from vinyl if
necessary. When is someone in a ‘visionary’ record company going to pledge to
support the archiving of early 60s vinyl or is it down to us to preserve what
we can find ?. Sorry that was a rhetorical question.
As for the Four Seasons catalogue, the Partnership missed
the opportunity to keep it in the marketplace back in the 1990s when they
failed to ‘partner’ with ACE. Now however their relationship with Rhino(
and through them ‘Collectors
Choice’) may eventually lead to the release of unheard Philips material
from 1970. And with Universal Motown having a contractual relationship with the
Partnership (even though ‘Romancing the 60s’ remains a huge disappointment) they
might just ‘negotiate’ a deal to release the Motown Anthology. As Brook Benton
famously sings….’It’s just
a matter of time!’.
Be sure to check out the links in this post
Chameleon
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