R.I.P. Sanford Clark, 1935-2021

Sadly, singer Sanford Clark, best known for "The Fool," has died from COVID-19. Listen to his version of "It's Nothing To Me" 

It's official, Quentin Tarantino is now a novelist

Quentin Taranatino's Once Upon A Time In Hollywood novelization was inspired by other pulpy film cash-ins he grew up loving. 

LINKS

L.A. Times Quentin Tarantino flips the script with 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' novel

Open Culture Quentin Tarantino releases his first novel

Variety Quentin Tarantino's 'Once Upon a Time  in Hollywood' novel is a Cineaste-baiting blast

Philip Tabane's South African jazz gem from 1969 getting reissued

The Indigenous Afro-Jazz Sounds of Philip Tabane & His Malombo Jazzmen LP is being reissued by We Are Busy Bodies. 

Toronto label We Are Busy Bodies are reissuing a tough-to-find 1969 South African jazz recording The Indigenous Afro-Jazz Sounds of Philip Tabane & His Malombo Jazzmen – remastered by Noah Mintz – in a limited-edition pressing of 500 copies on Friday, July 9. Although the album, originally released on South Africa's Atlantic City label (which notably issued  by the Mankunku Quartet's  classic Yakhal' Inkomo album also recirculated by We Are Busy Bodies) – has seen a couple of repressings over the years, it's not something that typically turns up at your local shop. While supplies last, you can pre-order a copy via Bandcamp right here but you'd better act fast since there are only a few left.  Get it while you can. Have a listen below. 

Quarantunes: Shirley Collins performs at home

Celebrating the birthday of British folk living legend Shirley Collins with a short home performance recorded in November. 

Bob Stanley revisits late 60s country on Choctaw Ridge comp

Here's the scoop...

Choctaw Ridge – New Fables of The American South explores a new country sound, one that emerged at the end of the 60s in the wake of Bobbie Gentry's 'Ode To Billie Joe', a shock number one hit in 1967. When singers like Gentry, Jimmy Webb, Michael Nesmith and Lee Hazlewood moved from the south to Los Angeles to make it in the music business, they were not part of the Nashville in-crowd and they forged a new direction. 

'Ode To Billie Joe' was the tip of the iceberg, and it's success helped a bunch of singers and storytellers to emerge over the next three or four years. Some of the tracks on this collection bear that song's stamp more clearly than others: Sammi Smith's moody 'Saunders' Ferry Lane' had a similar mystery lyric, and Henson Cargill's 'Four Shades Of Love' is a portmanteau, with one (or possibly two) of the theoretically romantic situations ending in death. 

Suddenly, character sketches of southerners became a lot more rounded - women didn't have to stay home, or take abuse at the office, and darkness wasn't only found at the bottom of a bottle. Storytelling is the link between all of the songs on this collection. We have cautionary tales about what could happen to someone who heads for the bright lights and doesn't make it, ending up in the grasping hands of 'Mr Walker' (Billie Joe Spears), or on the 'Back Side Of Dallas' (Jeannie C Reilly), or on a mortuary slab in the case of the songwriter with the 'Fabulous Body And Smile' (Robert Charles Griggs). And there are stories about wanting to go home - Nat Stuckey's 'What Am I Doing In LA?' and Charlie Rich's 'Feel Like Going Home' - and others from Ed Bruce and Lee Hazlewood, who know that their home isn't home anymore. 

The tracklist and fulsome sleeve notes have been put together by Bob Stanley (Saint Etienne) and Martin Green (Smashing, The Sound Gallery), who have been collecting these records for decades. The voices are resonant and relatable, and the productions take in the best of what pop had to offer in the late 60s and early 70s. Before the factionalism between smooth pop-conscious Nashville and the hedonistic 'outlaws' made it look inward again, this was a golden era for an atmospheric, inclusive and progressive country music. It began on the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day.

Choctaw Ridge – New Fables of The American South, 1968-1973 is out July 30. Pre-order a copy directly from ACE Records right here. Watch Jeannie C. Riley perform "Back Side of Dallas" and listen to Sammi Smith's delightfully dark "Saunders' Ferry Lane" and Jim Ford's epic "Harlan County" – which is among the best of the bunch – following the track listing below.

Choctaw Ridge – New Fables of The American South, 1968-1973

01  The House Song - Lee Hazlewood

02  If Only She Had Stayed - Chris Gantry

03  Endless Miles Of Highway - Jerry Reed

04  The Back Side Of Dallas - Jeannie C Riley

05  Way Before The Time Of Towns - Hoyt Axton

06  Strawberry Farms - Tom T Hall

07  Down From Dover - Dolly Parton

08  July 12, 1939 - Charlie Rich

09  What Am I Doing In LA? - Nat Stuckey

10  Mr Stanton Don't Believe It - Rob Galbraith

11  Saunders' Ferry Lane - Sammi Smith

12  Four Shades Of Love - Henson Cargill

13  Drivin' Nails In The Wall - Waylon Jennings & The Kimberlys

14  Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town - Kenny Rogers & The First Edition

15  Why Can't I Come Home - Ed Bruce

16  Mr Walker, It's All Over - Billie Jo Spears

17  Harlan County - Jim Ford

18  Widow Wimberly - Tony Joe White

19  Belinda (Alt take) - Bobbie Gentry

20  Joanne - Michael Nesmith & The First National Band

21  Mr Jackson's Got Nothing To Do - John Hartford

22  Alone - Lee Hazlewood & Suzi Jane Hokom

23  Fabulous Body And Smile - Sir Robert Charles Griggs

24  I Feel Like Going Home - Charlie Rich

Deke Dickerson remembers Hollywood's Pete Korelich had the stuff

For years, the late Pete Korelich ran a record pressing/printing shop on Santa Monica Blvd frequented by Deke Dickerson.  

Deke Dickerson writes...

Here's one of the things I stumbled across in the warehouse yesterday:  Back In the 1990s I had my own record label called "Ecco-Fonic Records."  I also had a few offshoot labels like Bucket-Lid, Teen Rage, and Bop Pills.

I really disliked the way that modern records looked and felt In my hands--thin, wobbly vinyl with tapered edges, and record labels made with an offset printer.  The album covers and 45 sleeves of the 1990s were terrible things, cheaply made and would come apart after a short time.

I set out to make my records look as much like "old records" as I could.  I found that United In Nashville had one 45 RPM pressing die with a "Flat Edge," obviously something that had been leftover since the 1960s.  Much better than the tapered ones with a lip, and thicker vinyl, too.  I found that Stoughton printing In Los Angeles could make beautiful old-school record sleeves (and they still do, even though they are expensive, they look fabulous).

I was stuck on the labels, though.  I couldn't figure out why old record labels looked so GREAT and new ones looked so terrible.  I finally figured out that old record labels were done on a letterpress printing machine, and new ones were done with an offset printer.  But where to get the old style ones made?

One day I happened to notice a brand new 45 release by a piano player guy in L.A. named Bobby Mizzel.  The record label looked PERFECT.  How did he do it?  Bobby was an older guy who started In the 1950s, and he used to sell his records at the Pasadena City College swap meet.  I went to the swap meet a month or so after seeing his new 45 and I asked him where he had done the labels.  "You liked those, huh?  Boy, I hate the way new labels look.  If you want to get them old type labels, go see Pete Korelich In Hollywood."  He gave me Pete's number.

Someday I have to write a 30-page blog piece about Pete Korelich and his record operation.  It was too incredible to detail here.  When I met Pete, he was in his 70's, and still operated out of the front part of a building on Santa Monica Blvd that at one time had been a large record pressing plant.  He had a fire In the back part of the plant In the 1980s, and the back 3/4 of the building was open to the sky, with 20 or so record pressing machines with fire damage just sitting in the sun.  It was crazy.  The front 1/4 of the building held a mastering room, with the Neumann lathe that used to be at Motown Los Angeles a few blocks away, and the rest of the space was dedicated to Pete's record label making equipment.  And a lot...of junk.  I mean, a hoarder's delight world of the best stuff ever!

Back In the day before I even knew what that stuff was, I would walk past racks of Pultec EQ's, Universal Audio compressors, Westrex cutting amps, I barely remember them but he had THE STUFF.  And it was all covered In piles of records, record labels, covers, and random detritus from the last 60 years.

I befriended Pete and wound up doing a bunch of record labels with him.  Good lord, they turned out FABULOUS.  Nothing made me happier than going to visit Pete In his world of junk, and seeing him fire up the linotype machine from the 1800's to produce type for the letterpress machines to make labels.  He'd be up there in steam-punk operators chair, typing on the linotype machine's small typewriter keyboard.  "WHAT DO YOU WANT IT TO SAY?" He would yell, in his Polish accent, over the din of the machines.  "ECCO-FONIC HIGH FIDELITY ON THE LEFT HAND SIDE OF THE HOLE, 45 RPM AND EF-1004 ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE HOLE, LINES ABOVE AND BELOW EACH ONE!"  I would yell.  It was the mid-1990s, but it was like going Into a time machine.  It was the greatest thing In the whole world.

Eventually, Pete died, and his valuable slice of Santa Monica Blvd real estate needed to be emptied.  I got a phone call from a guy who asked me if I wanted to haul off the 20 Finebuilt record pressing machines FOR FREE and I said no...*&%&(!!!!  (at the time, we all thought vinyl records were going the way of the dodo birds, nobody had any idea that record pressing machines would be worth their weight In gold during the boom of the last few years.  I don't know what happened to Pete's machines, but I hope that they got saved and not melted down).  I did ask the guy, however, "could I come and get my linotype for future pressings?"  Come on over, he said.

Quickly, I grabbed what I could of my own record's linotype, and also a bunch of stuff I knew was bound for the dumpster: the original linotype for "Hollywood Records" from the 50's, and "TOPS" Records from the 50's, and a few others.  Then I took one last look at the majestic cacophony of Pete Korelich's operation and said goodbye.

Last night, I stumbled across these trays of linotype and all the memories came flooding back.  I still put out vinyl records, but the labels have looked terrible since ol' Pete Korelich died.  Letterpress record labels (and all the fabulous label paper that was used In the process--but that's another long story that Involved me driving all over Los Angeles to get the last remaining stock of "flint glazed paper" and the old Chess and King-style blue and maroon record label paper, which I still have) are one of the things from the past that are truly dead, and that's a shame.  I'm glad that I caught the tail end of it.

Norton celebrates July 4th with Stones tribute singles sale

Buy any three singles from Norton's Stones cover series and get the fourth free – geddit?

PLAY WITH FIRE JULY 4TH BLASTEROO 

All references to "no more hotdogs" and "greasy chicken" aside, we simply had to repurpose this smokin' snapshot of Keith and Brian playin' with fire for the first of our special July 4th declarations of independents, despite the fact that we're all celebrating the 245th anniversary of our split from Britain this weekend. 

And say, 28 years ago, Norton started asking bands that we dug from around the globe to cover fave early tunes from the Rolling Stones catalog. We ended up with 69 tunes by 69 artists spanning 34 seven inch singles, packaged with London-inspired labels and one-sided Londonesque company sleeves, hand screened by our genius artist pal Art Chantry!

This summer, Norton celebrates our 35th anniversary, and we'll be swinging bonus goodies to you all season long, starting today with our Norton Rolling Stones series offer.

So here's your holiday deal - purchase 3 singles and we will add a complimentary FREE fourth seven incher during July only, and while supplies last. As Mr Jones would ask, "Do you have them all?"

Find out which singles in the series are available and order them directly from Norton right here.  

Best wishes for a big. boss, beat-filled barbecue this weekend! – Norton crew