In a conversation a few days ago with my longtime friend and colleague Najee, the award-winning musician and 2023 recipient of the United States Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award (whose tenure as an active recording, performing and touring artist spans over 35 years), I was reflecting on a few topics of mutual interest. In wrapping up our chat, I said, “Well, that’s the DN report!” and in that moment, we both agreed that was a great ‘tag’ line for me to use for some of my Substack posts.
It brought to mind my earliest years in London writing for Blues & Soul and my very first regular columns for the magazine: the founder and editor John Abbey was really cool with me writing about whatever I wanted in the world of R&B and soul: I fondly recall the very first iteration, named after a Temptations’ 1972 tune, “Take A Look Around.”
Subsequently, when I began my decades-long tenure in New York and Los Angeles as the magazine’s US correspondent from 1975 on, my regular column for B&S went through a few name changes such as “Dateline USA” and “American Boogie” included. Check out this one from June, 1976.
They were essentially a wrap-up of show reviews, the latest news on happenings in NYC and LA and other spots and I loved writing them! Every one ended with my initials, ‘DN’ as did hundreds and hundreds of articles and features I wrote for B&S and it has remained my ‘signature,’ although not used as often.
So….here we are with the first “DN Report” which I’ll be creating - as the muse takes me - as part of my Substack offerings. And what better way to kick it off with…
THE SPINNERS: A SOULMUSIC RECORDS’ TRIUMPH…
I started the SoulMusic Records reissue label in 2007, initially working with my longtime friend, the esteemed Ralph Tee through his Expansion Records label: we put out a few titles until 2010 when I wanted to create a more regular flow of reissues, particularly of albums that had never been available on CD before. Thanks to an introduction by Clive Richardson, a fellow veteran of the R&B world in Britain, I had a meeting with Adam Velasco, the managing director of Cherry Red Records, the premier independent catalogue company in the UK and within a few months, we had our first few releases on SoulMusic Records’ in 2010 with CD releases on Mtume and The Dynamic Superiors.
Thirteen years later, I am so proud to say our SoulMusic Records label has emerged as the primary reissue imprint for classic soul, R&B and related genres. When I look at a list of the artists whose music we’ve made available again, I simply have to - as peeps say - SMH (as in ‘shake my head’) in wonder! Natalie Cole, Peabo Bryson, Syreeta, Brothers Johnson, Kashif, Nancy Wilson, George Duke…and glorious multi-disc box sets in the last few years of classic recordings by The Meters, Sister Sledge, The Weather Girls/Martha Wash, Phyllis Hyman, Dionne Warwick, Starpoint, Grover Washington Jr., and Gerald Levert among others.
Creating joy (and great memories) for those who buy the reissues of classic soul music from the ‘70s and beyond is truly a labour of love: to have our 7CD set by The Spinners - “Ain’t No Price On Happiness” (The Thom Bell Studio Recordings, 1972-1979) - chosen as No. 17 on the Top 20 list of the best box sets of 2023 by the influential SPIN magazine is really a win! Ever grateful to all who worked on our 216th release…and stand by for 2024 to be a banner year for SoulMusic Records!
THE AMAZING CYNTHIA ERIVO!
Referencing the afore-mentioned Spinners, the group (along with country singer Mickey Guyton) opened the musical tribute to Dionne Warwick at The Kennedy Center Honors in December with a rousing rendition of “Then Came You”.
Within the same tribute to Dionne was a performance that left me (watching on a very irritating constantly-’buffering’ streaming playback!), the audience at the prestigious event and seemingly everyone who has seen it on YouTube blown away: I refer - with much pride, since she was born and raised in Stockwell, the area of London I’ve called home for some years now - to Cynthia Erivo whose stunning rendition of the Hal David/Burt Bacharach musical chestnut, “Alfie” - was truly show-stopping and utterly amazing! Can’t wait to see Ms. Erivo create more musical magic soon.
A short back story for the song (which was one of the tunes that were included in the Kennedy Center tribute to Dionne, along with Gladys Knight singing “I Say A Little Prayer” and Chloe Bailey with “Walk On By”): although it was a major US hit for Dionne in 1967 (who performed it at The Academy Awards that year), she was not the first but the 42nd artist to record the song, the original being cut by Britain’s Cilla Black in 1965 for the film of the same name!
AND…ESTHER PHILLIPS: A FOREVER ‘DN’ FAVOURITE…
Her voice is an acquired taste, much like that of Nina Simone. Not ‘sweet,’ not ‘bitter’ and not often the kind of voice that appealed to mass mainstream audiences, back in the day.
The co-founder of Atlantic Records, the late Ahmet Ertegun told me in a comment for one of the reissues I have done on her work, that he considered her “one of the greatest singers I’ve ever known.” What he knew - and what I discovered over years of buying her albums (starting in 1965 with “And I Love Him!”) - is that Esther Phillips could literally bring her very distinctive sound to an incredible range of material, from standards (“Autumn Leaves”) to blues (“You Could Have Had Me Baby”), pop (“Native New Yorker”) and country (“Release Me”).
In honouring the “Capricorn Princess” (whose 88th birthday would have been on December 23rd and who made her transition on August 7, 1984 at the age of 48), I have a truckload of often-hilarious memories: from our first encounter in 1965 when I was a London teenager and I naively asked Esther about what seemed like a ‘strange object’ on the table in her hotel room that turned to be her platinum blonde wig on a wig stand; taking her at her request along with some of my friends to see the horror film, ‘The Omen’ in New York on one of her days off; watching her cuss out the organizers of an award she received at an industry convention in Antigua in 1976 after flying from Italy for the occasion and being told there wouldn’t be time for her to perform…and then her (unexpectedly) accompanying herself at the piano, getting a standing ovation and next day, taking over the hotel kitchen to make a whole load of fried chicken; her reaction to being told just moments before a performance to a packed house at New York’s Bottom Line club, circa 1977, that the club owner had given her fee to the US Internal Revenue Service for back taxes she owed (“Well, y’all are getting a free show tonight here at The Bottom Line tonight and you better love it, because the bottom line is I ain’t never playing at this fuckin’ club again!”) with a brief explanation as to why; and so much more including the face-to-face interviews we did for Blues & Soul in the ‘70s.
No doubt, Esther was a ‘character’ and she was a salt-of-the-earth, sharp, witty, saucy, sassy and ‘don’t mess with me’ kinda woman for whom I felt a real bond, from ‘another time, another place.’
One of my greatest joys is having worked on “Brand New Day,” the SoulMusic Records’ 5CD anthology of her recordings for Atlantic, Roulette and Lenox and being able to re-create in full the shows she recorded for her 1970 live LP, “Burnin,’” which really give the essence of Esther in a real-as-real-can-get way in front of an L.A. audience. Check it out…
I miss Ms. Esther a whole lot. I’m so grateful that our paths crossed in this lifetime and am happy that she finally received some long overdue with her induction into The Blues Hall Of Fame this year.
WRAP UP…
I’ve loved writing this first ‘DN Report’ in years and one of my ‘new year resolutions’ is making this a regular part of my Substack offerings.
If you like what you read, I’m inviting you to subscribe to my ‘British Ambassador Of Soul’ newsletters - and for the price of a cuppa tea (!) at your preferred cafe, a mere $6 a month will make a difference! Paraphrasing Ms. Esther P.’s massive 1976 I could say ‘what a difference your subscription makes!”
With thanks for your support and wishing one and all a thrive-and-shine 2024! (DN)
© 2023, David Nathan/Blue Butterfly Entertainment Ltd. (UK), All Rights Reserved