The Shades Of Brown 

“Searchin’ For Love” / “Black Woman” / “Teasin’ Woman” /“Girl In The Streets”

In 1969, a transformation in Albina was underway. Displaced by the Vanport flood two decades prior, an influx of Black residents had settled in the area after redlining practices among the city’s realty boards provided few other options. A local economy among Albina’s Black residents had flourished for a time, but soon declined due to chronic disinvestment by the city’s elites. As with many urban centers in America, the impending ghetto-ization of the neighborhood developed as the civil rights movement was in full swing. And the citizens of Albina had something to say about it. 

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Micky Gynn – Soulful Football

Soulful Football Update: 28/04/2024

Heart To Heart  “Tuff” (Raven Records) LP 1982
Although this once obscure album, was a real, collectors dream, in 2015, it got an official reissue. Why pay £1000 for an original, when you can get it for £50. The original, I would say, always sounds so much better though. Lol.
A soul group, out of,  Atlanta, Georgia. The standout tune on this 1982 album, Nowhere, To Go, is superb. My type of early 80s midtempo soul. Also, on the album is another mellow tune, Never, make A Believer of Me, which was also released as a 45.
These fabulous local labels, with this gem, out of Dothan, Alabama keep the soul world ticking along.

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Williams Brothers 

“That’s Life” / “Rap On”  

Label: Epsilon Records Co
Catalogue Number: EPS 030 
Release Date: Friday 10th May 2024
Format: 7’ Vinyl

The Exciting Williams Brothers Band got their start by their father and mother Mr Roscoe Williams Sr. and Mrs Esther Maude Walker Williams in the late 60’s.
They started out in Gospel music like their father and family of brothers before them whom you will see photos of “The Original Williams Brothers” throughout this site from time to time.

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Sharisma

“Trouble, Trouble” / “Something Wonderful” / “Love Is the Way” 

Label: Soul Direction Records
Catalogue Number: SD021  
Release Date: Tuesday7th 2024 Available to Order – Monday 29th May 2024 
Format: 7’ Vinyl

Available for the first time on vinyl courtesy of Emandolynn Music & Manny Campbell. 

Emandolynn Music did release the tracks, but in digital format only. This prompted Soul Direction to strike a deal to license the tracks for a 7” vinyl release and believed that showcasing all 3 tracks together was the perfect package. This being the way it was meant to be released. 

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Lawrence Beamen

“Thinking Of You” / “Been A Long Time”

Label: Izipho Soul Records
Catalogue Number: ZP100 
Release Date: 8th March 2024  
Format:  7’ Vinyl

Izipho Soul Records are incredibly proud to announce our 100th 7” vinyl single!

The unsurpassable bass-baritone voice of Lawrence Beamen originally recorded Think Of You in 2008. After years of pleas for a vinyl release; it’s finally here and sounding fresher than ever. The 7 remix has added a magic touch and beefed up this classic even further!

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Lady Lois Snead

“I Found Out” / “Until We Learn”

Label: Divine Chords Recordings
Catalogue Number: DCR001
Release Date: Expected 1st March 2024
Format: 7′ Vinyl

Divine Who are thrilled to announce an exciting collaborative release with the legendary gospel artist, Lady Lois Snead for the brand new year!
We’re launching 2024 with this back-to-back double sided slice of audio dynamite, available on collectable, limited edition 7” single. It’s primed and packed tight with goodness to spiritualize your club session for the more discerning dance floors around the globe.

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History of – Paul Tilman Smith……So Far

17/2/24
I basically started my music career as a starving avant-garde jazz drummer, 19 and almost penniless on the streets of New York’s Lower East Side in 1967. Jazz drummer Norman Connors and I were best friends and roommates for a while, the difference being he could run home to his momma in Philly to eat and my momma was way in California. Rent was like 40 dollars a month, and I was lucky if I had that. Kenny Dorham and Cecil McBee whenever I would see them on the streets always bought me food. Playing the angry experimental jazz of that era mainly with saxophonist Sonny Simmons, Pharaoh Sanders and Albert Ayler was definitely economically dangerous.

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THE STAPLES

“Take This Love Of Mine” / “Precious, Precious”

Label: Soul4Real Records
Catalogue Number: S4R34
Release Date: 1st March 2024  
Format: 7’ Vinyl

With the collapse of Stax Records, The Staple Singers signed with Warner Bros in 1975, leading to a brief and fruitful collaboration with Curtis Mayfield. Their first work, the OST ‘Let´s Do It Again’, became the Staples’ all-time best seller. Such was the success that the major decided that Mayfield would also produce their next work, ‘Pass It On’, in 1976.

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TOMMY TATE

“I Can’t Do Enough For You Baby” / “Hold On (To What We’ve Got)”

Label: Soul4Real Records
Catalogue Number: S4R33
Release Date: 1st March 2024  
Format: 7’ Vinyl

Tommy was born in 1945 in Homestead, Florida, and after his first foray into music in a church choir, he launched his secular recording career in Jackson, Mississippi, working mostly with Tim Whitsett and his Imperial Showband in the latter half of the 1960s. After a short stint with the Nightingales, he signed with KoKo in 1971 and had six impressive singles released, followed by records on Sundance, Juana and Urgent Records.

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Sharon Shares 

Updated 10-01-24

Sharon was born in Sevierville, Tennessee but raised and musically disciplined in Detroit, Michigan.

Sharon began her career, as a teen in Detroit, Michigan. She wrote her first songs at the age of 12. After auditioning her, Ollie McLaughlin launched her writing career by publishing and producing and releasing several of her songs on his own record lables, KAREN, CARLA, MOIRA & RUTH Records. McLaughlin recorded Sharons songs on major artists, Barbara Lewis, Deon Jackson, Gracie Darnell and Johnnie Mae Matthews. He also secured a UK release for Sharon’s song, Someday We’re Gonna Love Again, recorded by the London based group, The Searchers. It charted to #11 in Billboard, in several countries and to #23 here in the United States, in 1964/65. Thus, Sharon has a tremendous fan base in the UK and Western Europe.

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Atlanta – Hotbed Of 70s Soul

Label: Kent Records
Catalogue Number: CDKEND 518
Release Date: 29rd March 2024  
Format: CD

The GRC Records set-up in Atlanta produced a wealth of great soul music. Because of the sudden curtailment of the company, due to owner Michael Thevis’ incarceration, so much of it never saw a release.

The tapes were preserved though and with many tracks being issued. This latest batch of tape discoveries is of shockingly high quality. Sam Dees’ presence is a major cause of this.

Standouts include Miss Louistine’s original version of ‘Con Me’ – surely a contender to be a Deep Soul Treasure, had Dave Godin heard it. Her take on Dees’ ‘Extra Extra’ is possibly the opposite emotion – sheer joy at finding her lover; equally well expressed. ‘Paperman’ is a classic mid 70s Dees’ composition, well sung by Wes Lewis with his group Alpaca Phase III. Dees collaborated with another major GRC talent, Joe Hinton, for the funkier ‘Shouldn’t I Be Given The Right To Be Wrong’. Hinton co-penned two songs with backing singer Louvain Demps who left her job with Motown’s backing girls the Andantes to move to Atlanta with Hinton. Their ‘Grant Me One More Day’ is a beautiful track and ‘Depend On Me’ is another worthy find.

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Jazzroom Records

Label: Jazzroom    
Catalogue Number: LP JAZZR 031
Release Date: February 2024 
Format: LP Vinyl

A Jazz Dance Favourite that Jazz Room Records Head Honcho Paul Murphy was hepped to by Brownswood and 6Music Jazz Supremo Gilles Peterson at the 20th Birthday Bash of London’s most Underground of Clubs: Shiftless Shuffle.

Murphy: “I’d quite forgotten all about it, but when I saw the reaction on the dancefloor it was “Mental Note Time, get on the case for a full investigation and let’s see some Vinyl re-issue action!”

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