ace records catalogue 2011
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What have we been up to these last couple of years besides the usual round of cocktail parties? The much-acclaimed songwriter series has expanded considerably (it has its own section on pages 251-254). Besides adding the essential names of Barry Mann& Cynthia Weil we have searched further afield, adding such diverse tunesmiths as Chip Taylor, Neil Diamond, (more) Randy Newman, Lee Hazlewood, Ashford, Simpson & Armstead, Van McCoy and proved conclusively that “Bo Diddley Is A Songwriter”, if indeed that wasn’t already obvious.Though it was inevitable that we would eventually get round to the London American story, the Ace twist to this tale sets the series well above other attempts in the past. London American was the academy of rock’n’roll with a semester in R&B for many of our more mature readers, and had a huge impact in the 50s and 60s on the budding beat musicians, helping the development of fine talents such as Georgie Fame, who we are pleased to add to the Ace roster as one of the supreme interpreters of black American music of his generation.Talking of labels, one of the earliest Ace licenses was the other Ace Records (of Mississippi) and back at the dawn of re-issue we produced five volumes of the “Ace Story” on LP. We have now embarked on re-issuing the re-issues with extra tracks for CD and it gives us a nice warm glow to see them available again.I fear we have neglected the blues in recent times and so, besides some nice sides on the Ace Story CDs, we were very pleased to issue Lightnin’ Hopkins’ “His Blues” as a soundtrack to Alan Govenar’s excellent biography. A couple of other book tie-in CDs were a musical journey through the Americas accompanying Garth Cartwright’s “More Miles Than Money” and “A Rocket In My Pocket” the companion to The Hipster’s Guide To Rockabilly written by Max Décharné - a rattling good read (Elvis did it) and a riotous listen. More CDs of the book of the T-shirt are on the way.Other compilations off the beaten Ace track were two further “Theme Time Radio Hour” double CD sets ranging wide across the vast open plains of the music landscape and herding fantastic records drawn from Bob Dylan’s fascinating radio show. Another DJ close to our hearts was the late and very much lamented Charlie Gillett, who gave us an impeccable selection of tracks featured on his seminal Honky Tonk radio programme of the 70s. Before he died he left the template for the second volume and we will be pleased to present that in the near future.“Where The Girls Are”, turned out to be France and Japan this time, as we went all International with some very chic 60s girl sounds from these two very diverse places.Thanks to the acquisition of the A-Square catalogue, Detroit’s finest psych’n’soul outfit the Rationals were comprehensively anthologised in a double CD with a side order of two long-players and one extended-play 45. A habit we will continue with in the future, so watch out for a wax attack.The Kent label sells more soul than just about anyone else and the presses were working overtime, turning out classy 45s for the discerning dancer. A big hit musically and visually was the Sugar Pie DeSanto compilation, with a centre page spread that has to be seen and even then you might not believe it. We stayed down south to further explore Goldwax and Sounds of Memphis/XL and while we were at it inked a pact with Fame Records, the last of the truly great Southern Soul labels to be given the immense r-e-s-p-e-c-t due to it.Also to look forward to is a new and exciting Latin series, much more from the recently acquired labels Music City, Flash andDoré and further rarities courtesy our good friends over at Tamla-Motown.So the future does indeed look bright, with a full programme of great music in store for all tastes and later in the year a whole new web site to find out more about it.ROGER ARMSTRONGTRANSCRIPT
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