The Magnificent Goldberg

An interesting interview, but very sad news. It was Ozzie who first had the idea of getting gospel groups and choirs to record at Rudy Van Gelder's; first for Savoy, then for Prestige's TruSound label. And he made Rhoda Scott's first recordings. And he ran the Choice label on which he produced those marvellous Early Charles Earland albums, much of which were reissued on Muse. And in the early seventies, he produced classic Soul Jazz albums: Houston Person's "Sweet buns & barbecue"; Boogaloo Joe Jones' "Snake rhythm rock" and "Black whip"; Melvin Sparks' "Akilah"; Leon Spencer's "Bad walkin' woman" and "Where I'm comin' from"; Maynard Parker's "Midnight rider"; Rusty Bryant's "Friday night funk for Saturday night brothers"; Funk Inc's "Chicken lickin'" and "Hangin' out"; and Gene Ammons' "Big bad jug". I think I've just put together today's playlist. RIP Ozzie. Thanks for such well-loved music. MG

Yes, we have those on some trains - but not commuter trains. No point really; when I commuted it was sardines all the way, and tighter sardines as we got nearer to town. No room to use a mobile phone MG

YAY!!!!!!! I don't object so much to paying the VAT, it's the goddamn Royal Mail standard handling charge of a fiver that REALLY gets me. Quick calculations in head, that's about £110, ain't it? MG

I tried for over a year to dissuade my son-in-law not to go in for a self-build house in beautiful rural Wales, to no avail - they'll be laying the foundations in a couple of weeks. I think the eventual tears might be ours. You can't tell kids anything, can you? MG

Billy Larkin & the Delegates - Ain't that a groove - World Pacific orig mono MG

Have another real good 'un!!!! MG

Grammy award winner - does that make a difference? I think it's a pretty good set with a few wonderful tracks. MG

If enough people think the same way as you, these things will change - eventually; perhaps not soon enough, though. MG

Whoa...never noticed that before! :blink: Nor did I. What a strange thing... MG

There are two, related, answers to that, as far as I'm concerned. The first is that everyone should, and does, as far as I know, decide what risks, personal and third party, they're prepared to put up with in their life. There is no such thing as risk free living. I am moderately unhappy contributing to people's passive smoking - though they also have options they can exercise, such as get the fuck out. MG And yet before smoking bans came into force, there were large numbers of employees who really didn't have the same rights to remove themselves from the premises, and it is debatable how many reasonable alternatives there are for workers who wish to avoid smoke. Smoke free coffee shops started doing pretty well in the 1990s but smoke free bars usually failed if their competitors allowed smoking. Even further back, if the boss wanted to smoke, well there was smoking in the office, and on the train, even in airplanes at one point (talk about inflicting your choices/freedoms on others). Personally I find it tragic that adults smoke in homes with children (again those with almost no rights) and the logical conclusion is that one day it will be considered child endangerment to smoke around children. (Probably about the same time that the RealID finally gets switched on.) By and large, society decides, from time to time, what kind of behaviour is acceptable in public. People who don't like that, have to put up with it - note the thread about the guy on the commuter train. And, as you note, it's only recently that there have been smoking bans. These happened first, as I recall, in workplaces (I'm talking about Britain, of course), where you note correctly that choice is most limited. But I was actually avoiding smoking near others well before that. And I haven't smoked indoors at home for more than thirty years. MG

Me too. MG

Wake ME when it becomes a fishnet bodystocking. MG

There are two, related, answers to that, as far as I'm concerned. The first is that everyone should, and does, as far as I know, decide what risks, personal and third party, they're prepared to put up with in their life. There is no such thing as risk free living. I am moderately unhappy contributing to people's passive smoking - though they also have options they can exercise, such as get the fuck out. I would be a LOT more than moderately unhappy if I were to kill someone when I was driving a car; that's a risk I'm not prepared to take, so I've never learned to drive. The same consideration holds good for myself being killed in a road accident. Public transport is much safer; there are environmental issues, too. Second point is that I became addicted before the harmful effects were greatly publicised. Tobacco is a good deal more addictive than most hard drugs. I am inadequately motivated to give up, since I spend very little on tobacco - I smoke less than 3 grammes a day, which of course affects my perception of risk - and because I actually enjoy it MG

The position in Britain is different from the US, because we have a health service funded by taxes, but a health economist told me some time back that tobacco taxes are so high in Britain (eg retail price of my tobacco is about three times as high as in Belgium) that smokers have paid for their treatment many times over by the time they need it. To me, that negates the argument for legally imposed health warnings and bans. As a general rule, the law of unintended consequences bites hardest when governments most overtly try to manage people's behaviour. Leaving it to people to decide for themselves what risks they're prepared to put up with; to publicans, restaurateurs etc to decide whether they want to ban smoking or not; and so on, seems to be the route that is likely to have the fewest, and least dispersed in terms of the general population of innocent bystanders, unintended consequences. MG

And personally, I like playing in bars without that shit making the air unbreathable. And coming home smelling like somebody's ashtray (not to mention the smell of all my gear, and thus my vehicle, etc.) I can sympathise. I hate that atmosphere, too, and I'm a smoker! MG

Emily Bishop Leonard Swindley Mr Popadopolous

Sounds like there should be an R&B Guide. If the Blues Guide included all the r&b that's out there, it would truly be unwieldly. Looks like I should go for this Penguin guide. Whatever you do in relation to a guide to R&B, you're going to run into definition problems. Basically, R&B is black pop music and, like any kind of pop music, it absorbs stuff like crazy. And it changes like the wind. So you have problems about what is blues/R&B, what is Ska/R&B, what is jazz/R&B, what is R&R/R&B, what is Soul/R&B, what is Funk/R&B, what is Disco/R&B, and what is R&B (now)/R&B? MG

What the pack should say is "I'm stupid." That it's written down on the t-shirt we wear when we buy cigarette. No harm, I see it only when I stumble into a mirror. Is it written backwards, like the word "Ambulance" on the front, so people can read it in their rear view mirrors? MG

MG

You amaze me, as ever, Chuck. I had no idea Americans understood this kind of English (the English kind). MG Hey - Chuck can speak English, as well as American. Astonishing MG

And finally, a big hello to Denis, if he's still listening. Are you French? MG

Exactly what I thought, Allen MG

You amaze me, as ever, Chuck. I had no idea Americans understood this kind of English (the English kind). MG

Ace, along with ZYX and N other record companies, lost the distributorship of Fantasy material when Concord passed it over to Universal. However, the three Roy Milton CDs issued by Fantasy on Specialty, along with a "Profiles" album, are still available from Concord. http://www.concordmusicgroup.com/artists/Roy-Milton/ Roy's output was astoundingly consistent. If you like him, you need all three of those Specialty CDs. MG

Jimmy Ponder Boogaloo Joe Jones Melvin Sparks