The Magnificent Goldberg

Ja. MG

Jim, most times, things you post make complete sense to me, but at other times your posts just make my brain hurt. A number of your posts in this thread fall into the latter camp. Guess I'll just have to wait til you're finished here and move on. I know what you mean, though I get what Jim said. Tribalism is a means of dividing people; usually for political benefits (though Jim's not wrong about financial benefits and maybe that happens more in the USA than in Europe or Africa). Tribes are relationships, a means of linking people. Creating tribes is a process that takes hundreds of years. In the end, the tribe WORKS internally, whatever its culture might look like from the outside. In fact, most foreign cultures look pretty bad (or maybe just very strange) from the outside and it's that that makes it easy to tribalise - to demonise the foreign culture. It also makes it easy to gain financial benefits. If you think about the current dance scene, it's borrowing bits from here, there and everywhere, putting them together with great skill, and making a pile of loot out of music that doesn't sound like or express anything in particular. Contrast that with the MUCH less skillful music we call Doo Wop - a music that always sounds like itself but about which all kinds of complaints can be made - except that it doesn't express anything in particular. But these guys borrowing bits and pieces for dance music are either unaware or don't care that they're exhausting a limited resource, since it takes so long for the traditions to develop, and that what they're doing has an impact back in the tribes. Not in all tribes; one of the things that's interested me in the last few weeks is that some peoples in Africa have been able to develop their own contemporary music, and are doing so even now, without being affected by western music to the extent that theirs becomes virtually indistinguishable from Euro/American popular music, while even their close neighbours have been affected that way. I am inclining to the view that the 'tribes' that have been able to do this are those that have a great imperial past in their history; in other words 'tribes' that were 'nations' as we know them, though since colonialism they aren't. MG

Not much vinyl today Blue Mitchell - The cupbearers - Riverside (Ace UK) That's a pretty strange sleeve; a set of 13 cups and saucers, all, apparently, different, so they were individually painted as a set - a set of 13? MG

Depends. A lot of music isn't just music, it's words, too. So if you're listening to a musician and band reciting an incident from history, you can get as caught up in it as listening to a play on the radio, or in a church, listening to a sermon. The difference between African historical recitals and radio plays is that there's no music in the play. There's sometimes music in a sermon. But then, when you listen to a story being told, you're using a different part of your mind from the bit you use to listen to purely instrumental music. I think. MG

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But, but, but....he's Canadian. (Or was.) So he's American - all you lot on the other side of the Atlantic are American, whether you're from Argentina, the Antilles or Alaska. The problem US citizens have is that your ancestors didn't pick a proper name for your country. MG

Gospel today The Loving Sisters - A new day - Peacock (ABC) Mildred Clark & the Melodyaires - I can't give up now - Savoy Aretha Franklin - SOngs of faith - JVB (Chess Vogue France) Swan Silvertones - Love lifted me - Specialty Barrett Sisters - What shall I render unto God - New Birth MG

Yes, like all Hip-O-Select releases. In this case, 3,000 copies I believe. Thank you - I had a feeling that was a limited edition company. MG

Is this a limited edition? MG

Today's fine records Gene Ammons in Sweden - Enja Willis Jackson plays around with the hits - Trip Kenny Burrell & Jimmy Smith - Blue bash - Verve (stereo) Sonny Stitt - Soul girl - Paula Hank Crawford - We got a good thing going - Kudu (Pye UK, as illustrated, without US cat no) Barney Rachabane - Blow Barney blow - Jive Afrika MG

That book I cited interviews Jimmy Savile, who talks about starting playing records for a chain of dance halls called Mecca and how it grew from just him in one hall (the Mecca Locarno) to 52 halls and 400 DJs across the country. He makes it sound like he started around the late-40s/early-50s and kept building all through the 1950s, into the 1960s. The next guy the book goes to is Ian Samwell...the name "Mecca" comes up again, as does the Lyceum & 1962. I know nothing about this, so these guys could be totally bullshitting for all I know. It seemed interesting to me, though, that, from this telling, the "beginnings" of DJs/dance clubs were in actual established dance halls that had been hiring live bands. Should I toss the book for being a bunch of lies or should I keep reading? I don't know about this at all. My stepfather was manager of the Odeon in Bradford, then the Majestic, in Leeds - Top Rank cimema/ballroom/restaurants - then the Tower Ballroom in Leeds, an indie. This was in the period from about '55 to '58. I know they both had bands; I used to go to them sometimes during the daytime and play about with the drum kits or the electric piano in the Tower. There were music stands and seats for the band on the stage; no room to move; no room for a DJ that I can remember. But the Top Rank circuit was the great rival of the Mecca circuit and what happened in one didn't necessarily happen in the other. MG

A couple of R&B EPs Shirley & Lee - Aladdin (Vogue UK) ('Let the good times roll' and 'I feel good' plus their B sides) Wynonie 'Mr Blues' Harris - Battle of the blues - King (Blue Beat) Hearing 'I feel good' by the Young Tuxedo band on the Mosaic Atlantic New Orleans jazz sessions made me turn up the Shirley & Lee version. And thinking about the old Blue Beat ska records I remembered this EP which was a surprising release for the label (though the company's West Indian customers would have lapped it up, I dare say). MG

Wow! I never thought! Just reading about Mole Jazz and thought about him, so I wrote it. Thanks. I think I'll get that book. MG

The sound systems were DJs in Jamaica in the fifties and sixties. They'd go around the streets with a truck and play records in whatever public space they could find. The scratch & Hip hop DJs of Brooklyn were their lineal descendents. A number of the main movers in the early Hip Hop scene had experience of the Jamaica scene. I don't recall a DJ 'scene' over here back in those days. There were DJs, who played for parties and private dances and so on, but it wasn't a scene. I used to do that Tuesday nights at Ealing Common Lawn Tennis Club (admission 1/6d) MG

Back in the late 70s and early 80s, I used to get records from a guy called Sailor Vernon (real name Paul; I think he was Mike Vernon's brother), who put out a blues/R&B/gospel list several times a year in a little mag called 'Sailor's delight'. There were 78s, 45s and LPs, used and new, for auction and at set prices (which he used to call a 'set sail') arranged by genre (so you could find what you wanted) and different price bands for the set sails. In addition, he'd have little articles in the mag; well researched. And sometimes there'd be interviews. One I was very interested in was with Dr Demento (Barrett Hansen) who was recalling his days working for Art Rupe at Specialty, running his LP reissue programme. (Apparently Rupe was a moderator of the UCLA music degree course and picked up Hansen through his main paper, which was a history of R&B with a pretentious title so it would get through the academic hierarchy.) Another was with a Jamaican guy, whose name I forget, who worked for one of the big sound systems in the fifties, and was talking about the way things were done behind the scenes. The origin of 'Blue Beat' was, according to this guy, that record labels would be pasted over with a piece of paper, so people wouldn't know what records were being played, labelled 'Blues Beat # whatever. That gave rise to Melodisc's Blue Beat label, on which some of the earliest Ska records were released in Britain (we had a pile of them on the juke box in the cafe my friends and I used to frequent). I lost touch with him decades ago. Anyone know anything about him? MG

OK, look...this is like wondering why you can't find anything like the Hope Diamond at your local jewelry store - even if it is Graff Diamonds. You have some rare or limited things that aren't going to show up, so, apparently, you're gonna have to fill in the info. When you take the title Takussaanou Ndakarou and it doesn't even show up in Google(!) - except for 4 cases of a variation on that, then you know that you've got something rather limited and off-the-radar. Rare kalindula or exotic radif and tasnifs? - some of these will be hard to find (but not all because I usually have good luck with them). Zani Diabate's Tientalaw, on the other hand? - no prob. Here's the website for Song Sergeant which is the main one that I use for big jobs. Yes, it checks for artist variations - giving you what it thinks should be correct, but you can change this if you don't agree (Imagine the different ways that, for instance, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, might be shown in your library). "latin" and "Latin" are different if you're an exacting piece of software which is very helpful in most instances. I have another, even more detailed piece of software for things like "genre" and "BPM" a.o., but I can't remember its name at the moment and I need to check with this soon anyway. When I come across it during a spot of time, I'll let you know. Also, I wanted to mention that sometimes I pick up Ethiopian and Eritrean discs in small shops during my travels and about 40% of them don't show up in the database either, so... I'm not, of course, complaining that I've got all this stuff that's off the radar; it's stuff I want and love listening to. But ripping a lot of it to my hard drive takes a lot of time. I know I need to do it, because when they wheel me into the old folks home and I expect them to accommodate all my LPs, K7s and CDs, I can easily imagine the answer I'll get. Trouble is, there are other things I want to do with my life than spend all day correcting errors and typing in info; and I still feel like I'm 18; it'll never happen to me. Song Sergeant looks pretty good, but I note that it's for an Apple; I have a pair - of PCs MG

Good stuff! Couldn't understand Wiki. Can't drive a car and don't know anything about them. MG

I'm not sure what CDDB is but, when I imported the CD into iTunes, all the tracks came up as per the sleeve of the CD. It wasn't wrong from the point of view of what was on the CD sleeve; it was the sleeve note that was different to what was on the disc. Another of the five from my recent batch that I've imported so far had the correct titles on the sleeve, but what came up in iTunes was different. I know you have lots of African recordings and I'm sure you appreciareate that accuracy is the least of the concerns of the record companies in the African recording industry (well, the African indies, anyway, which represents almost all of what I buy - as in jazz, I buy hardly anything on major labels). I'm just about to import two CDs by UCAS Band de Sedhiou - 'Takussaanou Ndakarou' vols 1 & 2 and find that there's nothing at all coming up on iTunes; just track number and timing - but it said it was accessing Gracenote database. Obviously this isn't CDDB. How do I get iTunes to access CDDB (and maybe give me a better chance of getting correct information)? What software do you use to check for duplicates, title inconsistencies, orphaned or missing tracks? Can it check for artist inconsistencies? Does it recognise an inconsistency between 'latin' and 'Latin' (because iPods think they're different genres)? MG PS I see from Wiki that Gracenote is the new name of CDDB, so I'm not going to get any better info out of it. MG - Gracenote and CDDB are the same thing. They have always been. I think that Gracenote may be the company that runs CDDB. The database is very useful, but is indeed incomplete and contains errors of various sort. The errors can be corrected mannually in iTunes (Use the "Get Info" function to edit single or multiple tracks)). In cases where you don't know the correct information, you will have to search for it. Yes, I know how to do all that, thanks. It may well be that a lot of the music I buy is more error-prone than stuff other people get. I've ripped 6 CDs to my hard drive this afternoon and 3 of them weren't on the database at all; errors on all the others. So doing this is a slog, not a breeze. MG

Is it the cogged edge of that round thing or the round thing itself? And is it an early version of automatic transmission? MG

You could be right, but I think it's on CD somewhere. Yes, it is. The LP trax are Side 1 Return of the prodigal son Ain't no mountain high enough New time shuffle Side 2 Blues for Del Manha de carnaval Here's that rainy day What, NOW my love? Side 1 trax are all in the CD 'Return of the prodigal son'. Side 2 trax are all in the CD 'A bluish bag'. MG

I agree with Steve, though the chrome's a bit manky. What is 'fluid drive', (as mentioned by Chuck Berry, but I never knew)? MG

I thought it was called a thingamajig...... Nah, it's a dongle, 'cos it sticks out. MG Maybe not exactly on topic but I can't help but link Sony Releases New Stupid Piece of Shit That Doesn't Fucking Work A pity, but it seems that Onion sketches aren't available for the UK - all I get is an ad. MG

Interesting to revisit this list nearly 7 years later and see how much I would change... (new selections in red) Only 6, I see. Well, there are a dozen extra people now... HERMAN FOSTER - THE EXPLOSIVE PIANO OF HERMAN FOSTER VON FREEMAN - HAVE NO FEAR DAKOTA STATON - MADAME FOO FOO ERNIE ANDREWS - LIVE SESSION AL GREY - JATP 1983 COLEMAN HAWKINS - HAWK EYES BILLY LARKIN & THE DELEGATES - BLUE LIGHTS BUDDY TATE - MIDNIGHT SLOWS VOL 4 GEORGE BRAITH - MUSART MJQ - THE SHERIFF JOHNNY HODGES - IN ATLANTIC CITY RAY BRYANT - SOUL MG

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