Fortuitously #6

 

I like old-school flyers. I especially like the ones you hold onto for whatever reason. I have one here. It’s for a film, a work in progress, called Soul Searchin’, a documentary by Jesus Cruz and Alex Vigano. The flyer shows someone holding a copy of an old 45 on Emulate Records of Oakland, California. The single is ‘These Are The Things’ by The Emulations. I had to look it up. I had to listen to it carefully. It’s not that old Pale Fountains song, no, but rather it is a sublime slice of sweet soul from the very early 1970s which I like to think Michael Head might have been tempted to cover if he’d heard it back in the day. Anyway, I am glad this flyer turned up again out of nowhere as it is a lovely reminder of a very special day.

The 22^nd of June last year was a ridiculously hot day in London. The intense heat prompted a late change in plans, and unexpectedly I found myself looking for somewhere called All Is Joy on Dean Street. It turned out to be the old De Lane Lea studios, which in latter years were owned by Warner Brothers and housed their screening room, and it was these intimate surroundings that turned out to be the setting for a special screening of Soul Searchin’, hosted by the Color One Tear Black collective.

I have to admit I wasn’t too sure what I was heading to see early on a Sunday afternoon, except that it was a film about collectors on California’s Lowrider Soul scene. That was enough to pique my interest. And, anyway, tickets were ridiculously cheap. Plus, it seemed a very pleasant way to escape the heat of the city. It turned out to be an inspired way to spend an afternoon, and while the documentary may not be a cineaste’s fantasy it very much passed the test I have for this sort of thing which is: “Does it tell me something I don’t know?”

When I got there DJs from the Color One Tear Black crew were spinning the sort of exquisite soul sounds much-loved on the Lowrider scene, that is, generalising wildly, spinechilling spectral ballads, with unearthly falsetto vocals, way beyond gender, drenched in the anguish and ecstasy, the joy and pain of human experience and romantic love, with celestial harmonies, glistening strings, and the crackles of care-worn 45s.

It seemed to be a lovely, friendly crowd too, many of whom knew each other, so they seemed to assume I was a DJ or rabid collector, which made me smile. Some seemed to have come a long way for the occasion, and to be honest I felt like a bit of an imposter. I soon adapted, though. After a few people had asked if I was into the ‘sweet soul scene’ I got the idea. I had no idea there was a ‘sweet soul scene’. I was completely unaware organisations like Color One Tear Black put on events to play the sort of sounds Chicano youths have listened to down the years while cruising in East L.A. I was oblivious to the fact that there were nights here in London dedicated to sweet soul and deep soul.

To be honest, I would have been happy to stay listening to the ridiculously rare and gorgeous soul sounds the DJs Claire Kalvis and David Hill were playing in the tiny upstairs Private Members Club bar space. And it was only days later that I realised that the very dapper gent I identified as David Hill was someone whose name I knew from the Ballistic Brothers and Nuphonic Records back in the day and from the Soul Revivers more recently. It’s just as well I didn’t know as I might have been tempted to burble on gushingly, which might have been embarrassing.

What might have made it even more embarrassing is that until recently I assumed that the Ballistic Bros’ Dave Hill also recorded with Mark Broom as Midnight Funk Association who I first came across in the Mo’Wax Excursions series. I was convinced circa 1996 that this sort of experimental electronic / instrumental hip-hop musical activity was the future (where did that go?). Steve Picton’s Stasis work was part of that too. I loved all that stuff. I still do. The rest of the world didn’t take much notice. And we had to wait until 2002 for an MFA full-length set on Domino, Coffee Shop Rules, which is one of my favourite things. Anyway, apparently that was a completely different Dave Hill in MFA. You live and learn.

The Soul Searchin’ film itself featured California’s Southern Soul Spinners team of Ruben Molina, Arlene Sepulveda (aka Soulera5150) and Josh Whittemore, collectors and connoisseurs of rare soul 45s and hosts at many an event in Los Angeles and elsewhere at which they share their sweet soul sounds. The screening, which was very appreciatively received, was followed by a Q&A session with the filmmakers and Ruben Molina, who over the years has become an ambassador, historian and evangelist for the Lowrider Soul scene, publishing enthusiastically received books (like the sought-after volume Chicano Soul) and travelling around the world to spread the word.

The whole Lowrider Soul culture is fascinating and it is easy to draw parallels with the UK’s own Northern Soul scene in terms of a specifically regional phenomenon based on a working class community, arguably a disenfranchised one, becoming obsessed by old soul music made primarily by Black Americans which was unheralded in its day. All this at a time when young people in other parts of the country are seeking out the latest sounds made by a new generation of Black Americans. There are similarities too in the way both the Lowrider and Northern scenes have endured and arguably thrived, finding new waves of devotees around the world.

I suspect I first became aware of the Lowrider Soul sphere of activity during that wonderful period in the early years of the new Millennium when record obsessives were sharing lost sounds via mp3 blogs, most of which themselves are now hopelessly lost and undocumented. Among the deluge of music revealed in this way were lovingly put-together compilations of what I now recognise as Lowrider Soul with distinctive DIY artwork. One that particularly stuck in my mind was a series wonderfully called Lonely Town Rolas, compiled by an East LA collector called SOLOE. I think there were 13 titles in the series, featuring rare old soul tracks.

My original downloads may be lost to the mists of time, but this being the modern world it is easy enough to track the Lonely Town Rolas collections down with inevitably enthusiastic endorsements in the comments like “Firme!” There are a few reasons the series stuck in my mind. One being the artwork. The first volume had a striking photo of three young ladies dressed in a very Amy Winehouse-way with the white vest tops and attitude, posing by a lovely old car in front of a heavily graffitied wall. Some of the other covers in the series make me uncomfortable but the final one in the set is great, with another set of three young ladies with attitude posing in rather mod-ish matching stripey knitted button-up jerseys and cool hats. Were they the same girls? Maybe.

Another reason this series is so memorable is the consistently high quality of the music, though I suspect these compilations are not for purists, as for instance Cornel Campbell’s ‘Queen of the Minstrel’ appears on Volume 1, joining the dots in a way I am sure The Coral would approve of. At times tracks take the listener back to the days of doo wop and the birth of soul, while others are rare tracks by the soul harmony groups of the 1970s that I grew up with, like The Moments, Whatnauts, Manhattans, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, Delfonics, and so on.

Primarily, though, there’s that bedrock 1960s soul sound. There are some of my all-time favourites, like Ann Sexton’s ‘You’ve Been Gone Too Long’, The Poets’ ‘Wrapped Around Your Finger’, The Impressions’ ‘I’m Still Waiting’, plus plenty of familiar names, if not overly-familiar selections, such as the Marvelettes, Carolyn Crawford, Johnny Adams, Brenton Wood, Gino Washington (i before e and far from tame), Precisions, Billy Stewart, Cynthia & the Imaginations, Brenda and the Tabulations, Royalettes, TSU Tornados. And there’s an amazing Maxine Brown track that was new to me, ‘Seems You’ve Forsaken My Love’.

Mostly the choices are hopelessly obscure, and these mixes contain so many lost gems, like ‘Look A Little Higher’ by The Up Tights and The Sensations’ ‘It’s A New Day’, to name but two. Oh, and ‘Hook, Line & Sinker’ by Gloria and the Relations is devastatingly deep. There are some surprises too, such as the early Freddie Fender doo wop cut ‘Holy One’, which you might imagine was in Alan Vega’s mind when he wrote ‘Be Bop Kid’. You can imagine him standing in front of a mirror singing along to this one.

And another surprise, shock even, was discovering Jimmy James singing Captain Beefheart’s ‘I’m Glad’ on Volume 1 of Lonely Town Rolas. It totally blew me away. Here was the spiritual embodiment of Peter Meaden’s fevered dreams, and it turns up on a collection of Chicano Soul favourites. I still don’t know the story behind the recording, but it is one of the most perfect things ever. And, as far as I know, it didn’t surface until early in the new Millennium.

A big part of the central attraction of the Lowrider Soul scene in L.A. and the Sweet Soul scene over here is the seeking out of old 45s, that whole cratediggin’ collecting ethos. But I think I am right in saying there is no way there can be a dusty vinyl holy relic of Jimmy James singing ‘I’m Glad’. I have it now on a 2007 double CD set on Outta Sight called Tears Full of Soul where it is a bit of an anomaly as most of the tracks are from 1970s Black America. ‘I’m Glad’ opens the set and the liner notes claim it is the first time it’d been released. I am sure I’ve seen it on another Castle or Sanctuary soul compilation, but for the life of me I can’t remember what it was, and I certainly don’t have a copy.

That Tears Full of Soul collection has plenty of tracks linked to Sylvia Robinson’s All Platinum stable, including the gorgeous ‘What Can I Do’ by Val Martin. This was written by one D. Elbert, who I assume was Donnie Elbert who certainly had links to All Platinum. He also had connections to Peter Meaden and his New Wave organisation, and if you have read Norman Jopling’s memoir Shake It Up Baby! you will know this connection took quite a dramatic twist. Incidentally, Donnie’s early recording ‘Tell Me So’ is included in the Lonely Town Rolas series. Indeed, Donnie appears on many a Lowrider Soul compilation, mix or playlist, and one way and another there are an awful lot of them.

Among these are two volumes of This Is Lowrider Soul on Kent which came out in 2019 and 2021 respectively. As you would expect from Kent, these are exemplary collections. And, if you know these CDs, then Ruben Molina and the Southern Soul Spinners will be familiar names to you. Being slow off the mark, as ever, it also finally dawned on me that I had a couple of earlier Kent releases, In Perfect Harmony and More Perfect Harmony, the titles of which implicitly reference one of my earliest musical loves, coincidentally or not, and collect together many recordings by “sweet soul groups”. I didn’t make that connection when I was at that screening last year and people were talking about sweet soul, which is pretty typical. And plenty of the tracks and artists on these two CDs crop up on the Lonely Town Rolas compilations. It all fits, as the old saying goes.

Those other stellar salvage operators at Numero Group have also released a series of Lowrider Soul-related sets, South Side Story Vol. 23, Southwest Side Story Vol. 19, Rust Side Story Vol. 24 and Mid-Atlantic Story Vol. 3. Aesthetically these sets deliberately reference the East Side Story bootlegs started by LA entrepreneur Anthony Boosalis in 1978. The original 12 titles in the series celebrated the old soul music that was the soundtrack for the Chicano Lowrider community and the compilations’ influence reached far and wide.

The graphics were particularly striking with the lo-fi photos of people on the scene with their incredible cars and the crude lettering that looked like something carved on your arm with a rusty fountain pen. Coincidentally or not, this was the punk era with its DIY ethos. Many years down the line the covers of those Numero Group collections and the Lonely Town Rolas mixes directly paid homage to that East Side Story artwork.

There are plenty of familiar names and tracks on the East Side Story compilations, which is fine as seemingly the thinking behind Boosalis’ collections was to gather together some of the favourite sounds among the customers who bought the old or reissued singles from his market stall or shop. I don’t get the impression he was driven by a need to demonstrate one-upmanship in his choices. So, we get plenty from the most beloved names on the Lowrider scene like Gene Chandler, Brenton Wood and yes, Donnie Elbert, and that holy trinity of Barbara Mason, Barbara Lewis and Barbara Lynn.

Also featured across the titles are some of the Motown acts, more Moments and Delfonics, Manhattans and Chi Lites, James & Bobby Purify, Eddie Holman slowing things down, Bloodstone, Shirelles, Baby Washington, Jerry Butler, Dells, Maxine Brown, Etta James, and plenty of the greatest recordings ever, such as ‘I Love You For All Seasons’ by The Fuzz and ‘Color Him Father’ by The Winstons.

There are also the occasional tracks that might raise an eyebrow or two, such as ‘Donna’ by Ritchie Valens and Pete Wingfield’s ‘Eighteen With A Bullet’. The latter is an intriguing one and must make Pete smile sometimes: someone in the UK who when very young was obsessed by import soul and R&B records from the States, someone who ran a fanzine called Soul Beat as a kid, someone who produced Searching For The Young Soul Rebels, someone who had a massive hit in the summer of 1975 with the doo wop homage ‘Eighteen With A Bullet’ which somehow became an enduring favourite among the Chicano population of East Los Angeles. You couldn’t make it up.

I only recently found out that the track listing to some of the East Side Story volumes I was familiar with are very different than the original versions. So, for example, the edition of the first in the series I knew had only two tracks that were on the original iteration. These were Van McCoy’s ‘Mr DJ’ and Tony Allen’s ‘Nite Owl’, the original of the Bobby Paris Northern Soul treasure which it is now obligatory to mention here that I first became aware of reading Barry Gifford’s Wild At Heart. Incidentally, one can imagine Barry enjoying all this Lowrider Soul enormously.

That first pressing of Volume 1 of East Side Story included ‘Are You Angry’ and ‘Making Ends Meet’ by Thee Midniters, a group from East L.A.’s own Chicano community, who were supremely adept at coming up with the sort of sweet soul ballads that were so well-loved in their neighbourhood where in the latter half of the 1960s they became kings in the arena on a Beatlemania scale, even if that success did not breakout nationally. The Midniters’ ‘Dreaming Casually’ is a particular favourite of soul oldies devotees, and rightly so. The arrangement and especially the vocal performance by Little Willie G. is so sublime one imagines Reggie King raising a glass to them in tribute. I love the way the word ‘casually’ gets drawn out into four syllables.

I wondered on seeing there was a track called ‘Sad Girl’ on The Coral’s wonderful 388 whether it would be a cover of Thee Midniters favourite of the same name. Well, it’s not but it’s close. In fact, The Coral’s song sounds like the missing link between Thee Midniters’ ‘Sad Girl’ and the good Captain’s ‘I’m Glad’ which is fine by me. Oh, and there is an incredible version by Thee Midniters of ‘It’ll Never Be Over For Me’ which comes after Baby Washington but before Timi Yuro. I love that song. I suspect I am the only person in the world who conflates the opening of this special ballad with the line from ‘Shot By Both Sides’ about how they must have come to a secret understanding. But, well, who knows? Dave Formula was in St. Louis Union who connect to that time, and for fellow addicts of connectivity St. Louis Union did a fantastic cover of Bob Seger’s ‘East Side Story’.

Thee Midniters have an enduring appeal: just look at the names of some of the acts of modern times who draw on that sort of music, like Thee Lakesiders, Thee Sinseers, Thee Sacred Souls. The group have a special connection to a specific place, even if they transcend time. They were particularly prolific and most of their records in the late 1960s came out on the independent Whittier label, the label’s name referencing their neighbourhood. Shrewdly they also had a hit with a cut called ‘Whittier Boulevard’ a celebration of where all the kids would cruise down the street in their fantastic cars with the oldies playing on the radio.

Perversely perhaps, Thee Midniters’ ‘Whittier Boulevard’ is actually a punky soul blast and all the better for it. What I love most about Thee Midniters is their willingness to try out different styles, and they were particularly adept at wild R&B garage howls, especially ‘Love Special Delivery’. Another punk gem is ‘Jump, Jive and Harmonize’ which is like Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels’ ‘Breakout’ meets The Saints’ ‘Know Your Product’. It’s even been the title track on a Teenage Shutdown CD of “pounding, pulverizing, all-out garage punk dance ravers”. Trading Standards are not going to have a problem with that description!

Then just when you think you have got things straight in your mind, there are late recordings of ‘Goin’ Out Of My Head’ and ‘Walk On By’ where the band stretch out into extended soul jazz workouts which are gorgeous. In a slightly similar vein but with more of a punky sneer is their (mainly instrumental) anthem ‘Chicano Power’ with some great early Subway Sect clanging guitar amid the Latin Soul rave-up. That single’s title would later be borrowed by Soul Jazz for one of their earliest CD collections, a set of Latin Rock tracks from the period 1968 to 1976, which oddly I have never heard. I think it was that word ‘rock’ I shied away from.

I have to admit that I am intrigued by the side of Lowrider Soul sounds made by artists of Latin origin. The DJ team Los Hitters who have a regular show on NTS play some incredible stuff in this vein, some ridiculously rare stuff too. And maybe a little surprisingly on a recent John Gómez show on NTS he played an old Fania recording of Ralfi Pagan singing the Lovin’ Spoonful’s ‘Didn’t Want To Have To Do It’, which dates from 1973 I believe. I’d not heard it before but it is exquisite.

Dr Kruger is another regular host on NTS with his monthly House Call show where he plays some wonderful old sweet soul sounds, though he varies things which I can understand. I believe he is also involved with the Color One Tear Black collective, and I have certainly heard him mentioning their events, which normally finds me gnashing my teeth at being unable to attend. I do seem jinxed with their sessions. There always seems to be a good reason why I can’t get there. I had intended to end this piece with an account of going to their event at the end of May at Next Door Records in Stoke Newington, but it wasn’t to be. Ironically that was an incredibly hot day, too.

So, I am left wondering what happens at Color One Tear Black events. What do people do?  Who goes? What do they wear? Presumably, it would be similar to the time I spent at All Is Joy last year. Maybe. Maybe some people who have grown out of the Northern Soul scene, who don’t feel like dancing so much now, or who wish to avoid any element of cosplay. I don’t know. I guess there would be a lot of talk about record collecting. But is that the right thing to do?

These sweet and deep soul sounds are the sort of thing I tend to listen to alone at home. It doesn’t feel like music for social gatherings. Maybe these events have an existential edge, with punters sitting solitary, silently, at a bar or coffee table, nursing a drink which they’re staring down into, trying hard to forget, like figures in that famous Edward Hopper Nighthawks painting. Perhaps it’s like the cover of Frank’s No One Cares where Sinatra sits alone at the bar while young couples dance slowly in the background. Does anyone dance at sweet soul events? I don’t know. Maybe my luck will change and I’ll find out some sweet day. Maybe I’ll see you there.