The Magnificent Goldberg

Wow! Another Dakar Sound release I missed! This came out ten years ago. It's a two CD set. The first is studio recordings (ie made at the Sangomar night club during the day), the second is a live gig. All recorded between 1964 and 1974. Dexter Johnson was a Nigerian saxophonist who was a leader in the transition of Senegalese music towards modern Mbalax. These recordings are mainly Latin-style. These are the first recordings of Dexter Johnson I've heard. You can't really tell that he was (as he obviously was) an admirer of a certain Bebop tenor player... Really good and interesting stuff. There's another volume which I've just ordered. MG

Several tracks of McKinney's Cotton Pickers - "Gee baby ain't I good to you" and "I found a new baby" in particular. MG

Here's one about the British company World Record Club, which seems to have started at about the same time as the Columbia club. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Record_Club RCA Victor also had a club, I think. And there was also Readers Digest, which was kind of the same. But I recall some reference to a very early record club before the war. Can't remember where it came from at present. If I think of it, I'll come back. MG

Jim Lad Black Dog Pew

In general I think the article contained a mishmash of good and bad points. To correct one common misconception - the stock market crash of 1929 was a key catalyst of the recession which evolved into the Great Depression, but it was not a cause in the fundamental sense. If it hadn't been for the Fed's foolish adherence to the gold standard and a series of catastrophic banking panics during 1930-33, it might have been simply a harsh but brief recession. Guy It's well known that governmental responses to the Depression were all wrong. And in fact, surely the key cause wasn't the Crash itself but the easy credit (through margin buying) that gave rise to the bubble? Bubbles burst. What makes the bubble in the first place is the root cause. Anyway, whatever, the result has been as forecast (Friedman-esque comment ) MG

I've got to say, though, that it took about thirty years for "Musart" to hit me. MG

You're right MG

I found this article in February last year and thought it was pretty good. So I bookmarked it to see if its predictions turned out to be right. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17145.htm It seems to have been right. MG

I guess they had to go for the less popular in order to avoid duplicating too many tracks that are on the Atlantic R&B set. There are some really great things on this - like Solomon Burke's "Stupidity", which I greatly regret selling on 45. But this is definitely "nice to have" compared with the R&B box. MG

Many happy returns! MG

Arrived some time today Orchestre No 1 - No 2 de No 1 - Dakar Sound Just caught up with this - it's been around since 2000 and I didn't know. Probably recorded around 1976. Unlike "No 1 de No 1", which had vocals mainly by Pape Seck (and was by Star Band No 1, the alternate name for the band), this has all vocals by Mamadou Allasane Sow and Mar Seck, whom I like very much, I have 2 of his recent K7s. Very nice stuff. Glad I've got "No 3 de No 1" coming in. MG

Interesting - thanks. MG

The March Hare The Mad Hatter The White Rabbit

The Consolers - Jesus I love you - Atlanta International Inez Andrews - Letter to Jesus - Songbird (ABC reissue) The Caravans - Just like him - Vee-Jay (Fontana UK) MG

Good Gracious, Everything I play is Funky were and I believe Hot Dog may have been too (I think it was part of that first series of RG's) or it could've been Pretty Things. Alive, too, was part of that first series that wasn't clearly marked as Rare Grooves (kind of like how the first series (1994) of Conn's weren't clearly marked either (except for the OBI strip). Those first RG's, however, did not have OBI strips so they were even harder to identify. Ah, I don't have "Everything I play" on CD. You're right about "Pretty things" being part of the same release as the others I mentioned that looked a bit different. They all came out in 1993; the earliest Rare Grooves I can find - I confess I haven't looked through them exhausstively - are from 1995. By the way - Jack McDuff's "Down home style" was a Rare Groove. MG

Oh right. But those manufacturers do recognise British unions, by the way. So it looks as if what they're saying is not that they're against unions, but against your type of unions. MG

You're wrong in relating the lowering of tariffs and barriers to the increasing inequality in Britain and the US. You can have one without the other. And having increasing inequality is no reason to have trade barriers. One of the problems that Britain has in terms of preventing inequality from rising inexorably is the fact that you all speak English (more or less ) and that it's therefore very easy for a brain drain from Britain to America to develop; much easier than from other countries. Our Government has just proposed a 45% tax rate for earnings above about £150,000 a year, and there are already predictions of a huge brain drain arising. So effectively, our taxes have to be set in the knowledge of what yours are and adjusted so as to mimimise this effect. But that leads to greater economic inequality. MG

Why isn't "blow", in this context, the opposite of "suck"? MG

I don't think any of the Lou Donaldsons have been Rare Grooves, except "Scorpion". There were a few issued in Britain only, I think, which were kind of Rare Grooves - "Let 'em roll", "Alive", "Sweet honey bee" I can pull out and see had a kind of different design from the usual run of BN reissues, but also weren't Rare Grooves. MG

Rosemary June Julie Foster Augustus Caesar

I've downloaded those statistics to my disc and here they are (I hope) Days_lost_through_industrial_disputes_1891_2007.doc MG

I don't think that's true, Chris. British manufacturers had all the same sorts of problems with their unions as the big three have with theirs. (OK, few British cars were in the same market as the big three - some luxury cars and sports cars did well in the US, but the bread and butter British cars weren't suitable for the US market.) And the biggest British firm is now out and has been for the best part of a decade. I am pretty certain that the same union problems applied to continental manufacturers. As I've said before - even in this thread, I think - there comes a time when it is realised that the balance between unions and management is wrong and adjustments have to be made. They were in Britain. And yes, it bloody well hurt. Mrs Thatcher used to say, "if it isn't hurting, it isn't working," but she was gloating because she just hated the unions anyway. But we got over it after twenty or so years I don't know if you can get this link http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/TSDdownload2.asp edit - no, you can't I just tried it. It's a series of stats about the number of days (in thousands) lost in Britain through industrial disputes - annually from 1891 to 2007 and monthly from 1931 to September 2008. You'll see a big reduction after the early eighties. Which is not to say that there are no strikes; as Jim says, not all firms act reasonably; not all unions act reasonably. So there is still conflict, but at a very much lower level now, and more legal incentives for negotiation and better ways of handling negotiation now. You need all these things - not just a bash at the unions. But if government can put in place an all-round new deal that encompasses negotiation as well as reducing the unions' power, it seems it can work. MG

(Svartling - Hidden Star - a tribute to Tangerine Dream) MG

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