This is an ex-blog

I have some bad news and some good news. The bad news is that the time has come to bring down the curtain on this blog. The reason posts have been far less frequent lately hasn't just been because of my newly-minted fatherhood, but also because I've been running out of gas for a while. I've been doing this for over two years now and I think I've said all I can say about old soul records. There are still lots of them out there but I've run out of interesting ways of writing about them. In those 2+ years this blog has been mentioned in USA Today, The Boston Globe, The Guardian (several times) and The Word magazine, and I've averaged around 1700 visits a day which isn't too shabby. When I first started this there were few (if any) mp3 blogs covering vintage soul, now there is Feel It, The Stepfather Of Soul, Awful Thom, Two Minutes of Bliss, Soul Sides and Funky 16 Corners, to serve your listening needs (usually better than me too) – and those are just the ones I know of.

But the good news is I'm not leaving the world of mp3 blogging, another reason for the lack of activity here lately is I've been working on a new blog called "Crying All The Way To The Chip Shop" which is now open for business. It will be very different to this one and I'll probably lose a lot of visitors, but that's OK. One thing I learned doing this is that you shouldn't do what you think will make other people happy. Do your own thing no matter how esoteric it might appear – believe it or not I originally thought not a lot people would be interested in this blog but I did it anyway because no one else was doing it (at least not from an English persective.)

So thanks for all the comments and I hope to see you all at the new digs. I can't think of a classier or more beautiful way to go out than with this tune.

[Download]
Kiss And Say Goodbye - Manhattans

Bigmouth Strikes Again

Three years after her brilliant first album, Amy Winehouse finally stopped drinking long enough to produce the follow-up "Back To Black." I was worried that she might have shot her bolt with her debut but the new album is well up to that standard. She's mostly dropped the smokey Jazz vibes of the previous album in favour of classic soul, R&B, and 60s Girl Group stylings, and at first it doesn't seem to have much on it that's as head-turning as "Fuck Me Pumps" or "Take The Box" but it's a richer, more mature effort overall - well, as mature as an album with lyrics like "What kind of fuckery is this? You made me miss the Slick Rick gig" can be. Apart from the terrific single "Rehab" the tune that's floating my boat at the moment is the lovely "Love Is A Losing Game". This is a slinky ballad with Amy turning in a beautiful, melancholy vocal that shows she isn't just some mouthy tart and can be soft and vulnerable when need be. You can hear more of the album at her official site.

Like her debut this hasn't been released in America and there's still no sign that Amy or her records will ever make it over here. So if you're in the USA, CD Wow looks like it has the best deal. Amazon's price is just ridiculous.

[Download]
Love Is A Losing Game - Amy Winehouse

Baby Overload

Sorry to inflict another baby post on you but there's not much else going on in my world right now. These few tunes should keep y'all happy for a while.

Unfortuntely I couldn't find a song called "I Haven't Slept Properly In Weeks" (scroll down to the bottom) but I'll keep looking. Thanks for the plug Chris, my daughter is famous now (thanks to Matthew for the link, too).

[Download]
Baby Mine - Thelma Houston
(From "Talcum Soul Vol 3")

Nothing In This World Like My Baby - The Originals
(From "A Cellarful of Motown Vol 2")

Loveable Girl - James Carr
(From "The Complete Goldwax Records Singles")

Look what I made!

How did an old git like me help create something so beautiful?

[Download]
New Girl In The Neighborhood - The Attractions

Expectancy

Apologies for the increasingly erratic nature of posts lately but I do have a very good reason. My wife is expecting a baby this week so my brain isn't exactly able to focus on this blogging lark.

In the meantime however, this track pretty much sums up how I feel right now. A song that's also been done by Baby Washington and Dusty Springfield, but this is my favourite version.

[Download]
I Can't Wait To See My Baby's Face - The Montcellos

Big Chief Smokey

Smokey Robinson is about the last singer on Motown you'd expect to wade into the waters of racism and social commentary as he was usually more concerned with conflict and strife on the field of romance, but the majestic "Just My Soul Responding" is so good it makes you wonder why he didn't do more stuff like this (I can't recall another song of his like it). Taken from his 1973 solo album "Smokey" - his first since leaving The MIracles - this is a sweeping historical epic of a record, starting out from the angry point of view of a soldier returning home from Vietnam ("though that war he sent me to didn't claim me, if I'm bitter don't blame me") then reaching way back to the appaling treatment of Native Americans and painting a portrait of an America built on blood and injustice. There was something of a "Red Power" vogue at the time and the record sounds like a tribal wardance as written by Curtis Mayfield with a marching beat and chanting courtesy of Tom Bee, the Dakota Sioux leader of the Native American rock band XIT who'd just signed to Motown subsidiary label Rare Earth and put out an album called "Plight Of The Redman." I don't know what he's saying but everytime I play this it rains outside.

The album "Smokey" isn't available anymore (which is a shame as it's very good) but you can get this on "The Solo Anthology"

[Download]
Just My Soul Responding - Smokey Robinson