By david, glasgow, scotland (62.252.128.5 - 62.252.128.5) on Monday, July 08, 2002 - 09:08 pm:

Would anyone like to hazard a guess at the volume of Soul 45's released in the sixties?

To the nearest 10,000 will do!

By Greg C. (209.71.79.209 - 209.71.79.209) on Monday, July 08, 2002 - 10:01 pm:

I can't even fathom that. When you take into account releases that were national and those releases that were local (Detroit, NYC, Chicago,etc.) you're talking about at least a quarter of a million recordings! That would include albums and 45's.

By keith hughes (195.92.67.74 - 195.92.67.74) on Monday, July 08, 2002 - 10:24 pm:

I did hear say that there are more sixties tracks available right now in the shops than there were at any time in the sixties.

Here are a couple of "real" stats.

Tamla-Motown-Gordy-Soul-VIP-Miracle-Melody put out approx 800 45s in the sixties. Not all soul, even remotely, of course.

Years ago, I made a discography of all the US blues/soul/R&B 45s released **IN THE UK** in 1964. Total? 326. And 1964 wasn't the high point of Soul in the sixties in the UK, by any means. (well, it was in quality, of course, but that's another thread!)

But say it was average for the decade - there wasn't that much soul issued before 1964. And say a fifth of the US output was released in the UK.

20,000 would be a safe lowest possible guess. It would mean that for every Motown label release there were 25 non-Motown releases.

By acooolcat (61.222.95.58 - 61.222.95.58) on Tuesday, July 09, 2002 - 03:35 am:

David, I don't know. I've heard that Detroit was doing more recording than New York. I wish I had data to confirm it.
Graham

By DAvie Gordon (213.18.222.35 - 213.18.222.35) on Tuesday, July 09, 2002 - 03:59 pm:

David,

That's a really difficult question in that
nobody knows exactly how many singles of all
genres were issued.

I once had a note of the supposed total number
of US singles for various years during the sixties
the peak was 1966 when around 7500 were issued
but - as we've discovered over the years almost
every city in the US had at least a few labels
and many of these releases have never been
documented centrally.

What's surprised me is that R&B / soul releases
seem to represent a higher percentage of the total
than might be expected - of course my perception
is bound to be biased in that I'm not really
interested in independent country labels etc.
so I doin't pay as much attention to them as I
do to labels that issued records that interest me.

I wouldn't hazard a guess at the total number of
soul releases as I'm continually finding out "new"
labels but 10,000 between say 1962 - 1970 seems
a ballpark figure. That's a hell of a lot of
music.

By Ed Wolfrum (165.247.228.23 - 165.247.228.23) on Tuesday, July 09, 2002 - 06:44 pm:

Just add in all the jingles and industrial music (which easily was 3 times the music session volume at United), as well as the music sessions and I thinks Detroit was at least as busy as N.Y. If you were not booked at least 3 weeks in advance at United (during the late 60's), you cound not get time in the studio.

By Davie Gordon (213.18.222.34 - 213.18.222.34) on Thursday, July 11, 2002 - 04:23 pm:

Hi Ed,

Detroit was amazingly prolific in the sixties
I don't know about being as busy as New York
but certainly not far behind.

Something that puzzles me a bit is that hardly
any middle of the road stuff sems to originate
from Detroit - I can only think of Don Rondo
and even then that's only one or two singles in the sixties.

All the released Detroit records that I'm aware
of are either soul or garage bands with the
exception of Dearborn Records output.

Is that because all Detroiters are hard-core
rockers ?

By Greg (192.147.58.6 - 192.147.58.6) on Thursday, July 11, 2002 - 05:47 pm:

There are a LOT more polkas to be found on Detroit labels than just those on Dearborn. I should know, I've bought a few by mistake. There are some really abominable records out there! (No offense meant to any of the polka fans here.) Maybe there should be a polkadetroit.com site?

By Ian W (213.122.122.57 - 213.122.122.57) on Thursday, July 11, 2002 - 09:08 pm:

Or polkadot.com?

By Joe Moorehouse (152.163.189.129 - 152.163.189.129) on Friday, July 12, 2002 - 01:15 pm:

There are a lot of polkas (big Polish community in Metro Detroit) and a healthy number of country records that came out of the city in the '60s. But there's relatively little middle-of-the-road stuff; with few exceptions, crooners, lounge-style, orchestral pop, etc. just weren't Motor City sounds. It's also interesting to look at the kinds of soul records that were made here: lots of mid-tempo and uptempo Northern style, a smattering of deep soul, and very few beat ballads and big-city sounds.

As a record collector it's usually easy to avoid the polka records (they tend to have the word "polka" in the title), but not so easy to avoid the country 45s. (You see a 1965 ZTSC record on an unknown label with a Detroit address. The artist's name is something like William Jackson. The titles are along the lines of Come Back to Me b/w Dancing with My Baby. You get it home and, full of anticipation that you've found a great unknown soul record, put it on. TWANG, TWANG, TWANG. The first two seconds are heartbreakingly, undeniably country. Sigh.)

By Davie Gordon (213.18.222.34 - 213.18.222.34) on Saturday, July 13, 2002 - 10:27 am:

Joe,

Thanks for the info.

At least we know now to avoid the William Jackson
single. If you can find it could you post the
artist's correct name and label / no. for future
reference ( And of course the ZTSC numbers)

Davie Gordon at the Home for Old Matrices