All posts by Mick

Ira Raibon

“Shake it off”(live performance)  / “You’re my dream” (live performance)  

Label: Epsilon Records
Catalog: EPS007 
Release Date: 4th October 2021 
Format: 7’

Lead vocalist and saxophone player for Fabulous Souls Ira Raibon has been a Newport Beach/Irvine/South Orange County, USA, resident music teacher/writer/performer over decades. In 1974, as Woodwind Instructor he was an original faculty member of the now defunct, Newport Institute of the Arts in Corona Del Mar. 

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Mary Gresham

“Just me and you” / “Stay there and try to be strong”

Label: Hit & Run Records
Catalog: HR 1533
Release Date: September 2021
Format: 7’

Mary Gresham has always been a special artist for this label and for Soulscape.  It was her great ‘I’ll Never Let You Walk Alone’ from the CD  that convinced me to restart the label back in 2009; since then she’s become a much-loved lady amongst collectors worldwide and so I’m really pleased to be able to commit to vinyl another 2 of her unreleased cuts from the CD.  

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Sounds of Oakland

Label: Chump Change Records
Release Date: 2022
Format: CD 

The highly reputable and influential jazz drummer and record producer Paul Tillman Smith noted that the ‘Sounds of Oakland’ CD was inspired by a comment made by a former President of the United States, who called Oakland the worst city in America. “He said it twice on national TV,” said Smith. “Hearing those words from a sitting President was unbelievable to me.” The comment prompted Smith to share the truth as he knows it: “Oakland has been a creative hotbed for beautiful, original music for decades.” 

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Derek Damian

“Whatcha wanna do” / “In my life” 

Label: Izipho Soul Records 
Catalog: ZP68 
Release Date:30th September 2021
Format: 7’

In 2011, Dallas based singer, songwriter DEREK DAMIAN recorded the anthemic Whatcha wanna do”. Izipho aficionados will know that we released “Whatcha wanna do” in January 2019 and it sold out in 48 hours! On the flip ‘The Baritone of Love’ keeps the bar raised high with In my life” from 2013, this mid tempo winner glides along with soulful ease. Don’t spend £100 on the only copy on Discogs, grab this new release for the different B Side and label colours. 
Patrick Biggerstaff

Lady Blackbird

Articles
“Blackbird” Foremost Poets Remix
“Beware the stranger” Matthew Herbert’s Wanted Remix
Black Acid Soul:
“Blackbird” / “It’s not that easy” /“Fix it” /“Ruler of my heart” /“Nobody’s sweetheart” /“Collage” /“Five feet tall”
“Lost and looking”/“It’ll never happen again”/“Beware the stranger”/“Black Acid Soul”

Whilst reflecting influences as varied as Billie Holiday, Gladys Knight, Tina Turner and Chaka Khan, Los Angeles-based Lady Blackbird (aka Marley Munroe) possesses a style and emotional intensity that is very much her own. Her debut album Black Acid Soul presents a wholly fresh take on the jazz vocal idiom from an artist blessed with a bold, unmistakeable voice. 

Bettye Swann

Label:  Soul4Real Records
Catalog: S4R16 
Release Date: Sept 2021
Format: 7’

Bettye Swann’s heart has been broken lots of times; we know this because we’ve heard it break on many of her records. Bettye’s voice captures these moments perfectly, her delivery is soft and sensitive, almost country, giving it a realness that you can almost touch. 

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