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IanLevine uploaded a new video
(1 month ago)

I tremble with unmitigated pride as finally, after eight long years, we have a video, a proper beautifully shot video, to my unequalled BIGGEST Nor...
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I tremble with unmitigated pride as finally, after eight long years, we have a video, a proper beautifully shot video, to my unequalled BIGGEST Northern Soul record of this decade. The stunning Sidney Barnes, and the monster song we wrote together in 2001, "Standing On Solid Ground". Sidney Barnes was an important part of early Motown, being part of their New York operation, with his partner George Kerr. He recorded solo stuff such as "Standing In The Safety Zone", which didn't come out till years later, and became a cult northern Soul favourite. In 1964, on the V.I.P. label, he was the lead singer of The Seranaders, who recorded the Motown classic, "If Your Heart Says Yes". But it's his two Northern Soul smashes that he became most well known for, "You'lll Always Be In Style", on Red Bird records, and "I Hurt On The Other Side", on the Blue Cat label. My 2001 production of "Standing On Solid Ground", however, became his biggest Northern record ever. Sidney was born in Welch, West Virginia in 1941 and grew up in Roanoke, Virginia. After forming several vocal groups in Junior High and High School (while living in Washington, D.C.) with school mates including a young Marvin Gaye, Van McCoy and Herb Feimster (of "Peaches and Herb" fame), Sidney felt ready for the big time. In order to increase his chances of success, the Barnes family moved to Newark, New Jersey - as close to New York City as they wanted to be. Sidney formed The Seranaders and landed a recording contract with Riverside records. Their only release on Riverside was a song called "Adios My Love". Then 1962. Sidney heard through the music grapevine that Berry Gordy was opening a branch office of Motown records and Jobete Music in New York. Sidney, always the leader, was knocking on the new Motown office door just as the desk and furniture was arriving. After auditioning for Berry Gordy, the Serenaders were signed to a contract and flown to Detroit. There they found themselves in the now legendary Detroit Hitsville recording Studio, with many of the early Motown stars. To make a long story short - Sidney and George Kerr became head songwriters, producers and talent scouts for Gordy's New York office.Over the years he released so many records, joined the Rotary Connection, on Chess, and sang lead on classic disco group Arpeggio. I tracked down Sidney to re-record "I Hurt On The Other Side" for our Strange World Of Northern Soul project, and then two years later we cut Standing On Solid Ground Together, never dreaming it would finally open the way on the Northern Soul scene for artists to record something new instead of just forty year old records.
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IanLevine uploaded a new video
(1 month ago)

This is the absolute premiere of a brand new song from our brand new album, "Northern Soul 2009". Along with the DVD, there are twenty ei...
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This is the absolute premiere of a brand new song from our brand new album, "Northern Soul 2009". Along with the DVD, there are twenty eight stunning floorfillers on our latest and most difficult album we have ever completed. Having already released "Northern Soul 2007" and "Northern Soul 2008" on Centre City Records over the last two years, I began to record the songs for "Northern Soul 2009" in February of 2009, with my long time producing partner Clive Scott, until that awful unspeakable day of May 10th, when Clive passed away. just two weeks after suffering a terrible accident, caused by falling off a ladder, and left us all devastated. Fifteen of the songs were finished. Clive and I had started the music for six more, and now, in honour of his memory, I have compiled a further seven songs which Clive and I had written for various projects but had never been released. It seemed only right that Clive's last ever project, "Northern Soul 2009", should contain all songs that he had written with me, so with a heavy heart, we have set about the task of completing this monumentally important project to keep his skill and talent alive forever. Here, our favourite diva, Tammi Lavette, returns back to the fold to sing a song that Clive and I originally wrote with Peter Andre, way back in the year 2000, a great little funky Michael Jackson number for an album that sadly never got released, so the song has never been heard to this day. And doesn't she just look fabulous singing it. My fabulous Tammi performed at the Blackpool Mecca Reunion in 1998 and wowed everyone, and we filmed her there singing "You Tore Apart My Broken Heart", and the video of that song captures it for posterity. Although Tammi was so very young when I first discovered her, I have watched her blossom into the most fabulous soul diva. Her version of "No Way Out" is my favourite track off my album "Yesterday And Tomorrow". Tammi also sang that huge 1970s Northern Soul classic recorded by Bettye Swann on Atlantic, "Kiss My Love Goodbye", as great a Philly song as you could ever wish to hear. It had such a dreamy, timeless, smooth orchestrated feel, that I always planned to cut it on someone one day. And also she tackled Barbara Acklin's timeless classic "Am I The Same Girl", all of which can be seen here on YouTube. Tammi Lavette's real name was Tamla Dhani, and when I first met her in 1993, we cut a wonderful song called "My Heart Keeps Saying No", and I initially named her Tamla Tyrrell, which, on reflection, sounds quite nice in itself. But in the end we settled on Tammi Lavette. But I discovered her in time for the Blackpool Mecca Reunion in 1998, and we took her up there to perform on the Saturday night in the Highland Room in front of a thousand people. She was actually born in Africa, but from the age of four, she spent most of her life in New York, but now lives in England, and at the Mecca, she performed "You Tore Apart My Broken Heart", and also sang the actual theme song for the massive DVD box set "The Strange World Of Northern Soul", a song called "Seven Days", and the video for that can also be seen on here. We also cut a song called "Too Much Too Late" on her, a song which was discovered by my mentor Chris Hill when he was head of Arista records. It was an obscure single in the early nineties by a group called Rufus Doors, a brother/sister act, but he left Arista before ever signing them, so I snatched up the song and did it on Tammi. That video can also be seen on here too. We cut a whole album on Tammi, but it's never yet been released on CD although it is on iTunes.
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IanLevine uploaded a new video
(1 month ago)

Back to the timeless wonders of Motorcity Records, for one of the most beautiful songs ever written in Motown's history, written of course by Smoke...
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Back to the timeless wonders of Motorcity Records, for one of the most beautiful songs ever written in Motown's history, written of course by Smokey Robinson. Carolyn Crawford sizzles with fire on this version we remade with her of her classic that she sang when she was just fourteen years old, "My Smile Is Just A Frown Turned Upside Down", the song which Smokey lyrically re-used three years later when he wrote "Tears Of A Clown". For years now, people have enjoyed the video we filmed in 1989 of "Timeless", one of my personal favourites of all the Motorcity recordings, and a song that meant everything to me, and into which I poured my heart and soul writing it. Carolyn was only thirteen years old when she signed to Motown, releasing three wonderful singles, "My Smile Is Just A Frown Turned Upside Down", "Forget About Me", and "When Someone's Good To You", all written and produced by Smokey Robionson. But some of the unreleased tracks were amazing, like "Until You Came Along", and "Keep Stepping And Never Look Back". Then her three Philadelphia International releases are worth a fortune, and I still adore "Just Got To Be More Careful", and "When You Move You Lose". Following her time with Gamble and Huff, she joined Hodges James Smith and Crawford, before signing to Mercury, and then she became the voice on Bohannon's "Lets Start The Dance", one of the all time disco anthems. Because she was so young at Motown, therefore she was the youngest of all the Motorcity artists, being 39 when she first recorded "Timeless" and "Which Way Do I Turn". She was feisty and had a flaming temper, but I adored her, and still do. I still treasure her entire "Heartches" album that we released in 1990.
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IanLevine uploaded a new video
(1 month ago)

This is the absolute premiere of a brand new song from our brand new album, "Northern Soul 2009". Along with the DVD, there are twenty ei...
more
This is the absolute premiere of a brand new song from our brand new album, "Northern Soul 2009". Along with the DVD, there are twenty eight stunning floorfillers on our latest and most difficult album we have ever completed. Having already released "Northern Soul 2007" and "Northern Soul 2008" on Centre City Records over the last two years, I began to record the songs for "Northern Soul 2009" in February of 2009, with my long time producing partner Clive Scott, until that awful unspeakable day of May 10th, when Clive passed away. just two weeks after suffering a terrible accident, caused by falling off a ladder, and left us all devastated. Fifteen of the songs were finished. Clive and I had started the music for six more, and now, in honour of his memory, I have compiled a further seven songs which Clive and I had written for various projects but had never been released. It seemed only right that Clive's last ever project, "Northern Soul 2009", should contain all songs that he had written with me, so with a heavy heart, we have set about the task of completing this monumentally important project to keep his skill and talent alive forever. Here, after nineteen long long years, we are reunited with the lead singer of the Monitors, Darrell Littlejohn, for the first actual Motorcity recording for a very long time. We recorded the music in London, and Darrell sang it and filmed himself in Detroit for us. Darrell sings "Glad You're My Lady", a wonderful piece of 1960s type classic Detroit soul. The original line up of the Monitors at Motown consisted of Richard Street as lead singer, with Warren Harris, Maurice Fagin, Sandra Fagin, and Hershel Hunter. When we got them reformed for Motorcity, Richard Street was with The Temptations, and Sandra Fagin had passed away, but we succeeded in getting the other three back together. They brought in Smokey Robinson's nephew, Darrell Littlejohn, as lead singer and added a girl singer called Beverly, who was a Detroit policewoman, and then another male singer who has now passed away, called Robert. One of my treasured memories was getting Wanda Rogers of The Marvelettes back to performing live, at the Pontchartrain concert in Detroit, with the Monitors backing her up, all dressed in sharp white tuxedos. Warren Harris, who has now passed away, was the comedian of the Motorcity Project, and had us all in stitches constantly... "Heyyyyyyyyyy - Come into my office". Hershel Hunter also passed away early this decade, and it's so sad to think that the bulk of this wonderful group are no more. I so so wanted to work with Darrell again, and he's still got the magic, he still looks good, and now he is the lead singer on this classic. Treasured memories of a wonderful vocal group with the best harmonies ever, as they show every time. So after seven long months work, the album is finally released on September 21st 2009. And, as with "Soul Steppers" earlier this year, our new albums are being distributed by Wienerworld, who have put out all our Northern Soul DVDs, and this time we look certain to get it sold in all the remaining major record shops around the country. A bittersweet loving tribute to the much missed Clive Scott.
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IanLevine uploaded a new video
(1 month ago)

This is the absolute premiere of a brand new song from our brand new album, "Northern Soul 2009". Along with the DVD, there are twenty ei...
more
This is the absolute premiere of a brand new song from our brand new album, "Northern Soul 2009". Along with the DVD, there are twenty eight stunning floorfillers on our latest and most difficult album we have ever completed. Having already released "Northern Soul 2007" and "Northern Soul 2008" on Centre City Records over the last two years, I began to record the songs for "Northern Soul 2009" in February of 2009, with my long time producing partner Clive Scott, until that awful unspeakable day of May 10th, when Clive passed away. just two weeks after suffering a terrible accident, caused by falling off a ladder, and left us all devastated. Fifteen of the songs were finished. Clive and I had started the music for six more, and now, in honour of his memory, I have compiled a further seven songs which Clive and I had written for various projects but had never been released. It seemed only right that Clive's last ever project, "Northern Soul 2009", should contain all songs that he had written with me, so with a heavy heart, we have set about the task of completing this monumentally important project to keep his skill and talent alive forever. Here, Milton Brown sings "Thief In The Night", a real slab of classic style soul music. Milton Brown made his return to us for last year's "Northern Soul 2008" album with the utterly fabulous "Losing My Sense Of Direction". And it was truly more like a reunion after twenty two years. Both Milton Brown, and his lovely wife Debra, were recording for me in the 1980s, and although she now records under the name of Laverta Lewis (real name Debra Brown), his wife first recorded with me back in 1986 as the lead singer of the group Dark Secret on the track "Liar Liar Liar", when they were signed to MCA Records - and she returned last year with a mid-tempo groover, sounding like a true mid-70s Blackpool Mecca floorfiller with a fine string arrangement. Laverta comes from California and moved over to England in the mid 1980s together with husband Milton Brown. I met Milton through Laverta, and recorded two singles on him in 1986 and 1987 for the Nightmare label. Twenty one tears later we're all reunited. In the interim period, Milton had visited his home in Norfolk Virginia, only to find himself denied re-entry to be back with his wife and kids, a problem that took a long period to sort out, but all's well that ends well, and both husband and wife are back singing with Centre City Records. This is Milton's third solo song since we reunited, and we have also done a duet with both husband and wife, called "How Can I Take Another Chance". Milton is just fabulous, like Levi Stubbs and Edwin Starr in style, so willing, so helpful, so co-operative, and such a warm hearted person, and it makes me proud to have artists of this calibre on Centre City Records. So after seven long months work, the album is finally released on September 21st 2009. And, as with "Soul Steppers" earlier this year, our new albums are being distributed by Wienerworld, who have put out all our Northern Soul DVDs, and this time we look certain to get it sold in all the remaining major record shops around the country. A bittersweet loving tribute to the much missed Clive Scott.
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ralphe from leeds saying hellohope your well
Chris
liza