By padgburyman (195.93.49.10) on Saturday, November 16, 2002 - 06:21 am:

Can anyone help me here?

On the AMG All Music Guide, James is credited with Drums on the Pointer Sisters 1977 'Having A Party'. He also has a couple of credits with 'Vocals'.

Does anyone have any knowledge of any of these?

By N2U (63.188.32.129) on Saturday, November 16, 2002 - 06:55 am:

Padgburyman except for a few writers All Music Guide is a joke, especially when it comes to soul music. Many of the reviews and bio's are done by 20 year olds who don't know soul music from shoe soles. I hear Stephen Thomas Erlewine cranks out hundreds of reviews every week assembly line style that are so esoteric you don't know what he's talking about or what point he's trying to make. Did you know that Motown's Shorty Long played on Elvis Presley sessions? All Music Guide says so.

By padgburyman (195.93.49.10) on Saturday, November 16, 2002 - 07:00 am:

N2U

Many thanks.

By Steve L (209.100.86.4) on Saturday, November 16, 2002 - 10:30 am:

N2U,

I have the liner notes to Elvis' 1950's box set.
Shorty Long did play piano on a couple of his sessions. The liner notes seemed very well documented.

Maybe the credits in question were James Jamerson Jr.(The III actually)

By Ritchie (62.254.0.7) on Saturday, November 16, 2002 - 10:38 am:

Re the Elvis sessions, I understood that it was a different Shorty Long.

By N2U (65.132.79.212) on Saturday, November 16, 2002 - 10:39 am:

That's an entirely different "caucasian Shorty Long, Steve.

By Ed Wolfrum (165.247.228.73) on Saturday, November 16, 2002 - 10:39 am:

Hello Gang,

AMG is grossly inaccurate. We were looking the other day at George McGregor's credits. They only listed about 1/8th of them and they were highly inaccurate. Same with Dennis Coffee's and mine. I would trust not a thing. What is even worse is that when we tried to correct them, the information was ignored. Another example of youth at work!

Ed Wolfrum

By padgburyman (195.93.33.10) on Saturday, November 16, 2002 - 10:57 am:

OK Guys. Point taken, etc.......

But could James have played drums or vocalised?

Does anyone know?

By N2U (65.132.79.212) on Saturday, November 16, 2002 - 11:02 am:

Steve check All Music Guide's reviews of the Isley Brothers' Motown albums, most of their staff writers and editors dismissed them as being subpar to their earlier and later work. The only song they like is "This Old Heart of Mine."

But here is where they are inconsistant and a joke: Check one of these same Motown bashing Isley Brothers writers' review on their DO YOUR THING album. He gave it a rave review. That album was merely a collection of their Motown recordings that this and other AMG writers had labeled as subpar.

It's obvious the reviewer didn't listen to the album or even have a copy to see what songs was on it.

By N2U (65.132.79.212) on Saturday, November 16, 2002 - 11:07 am:

Pad... They probably have James Jamerson Sr. mixed up with James Jamerson Jr. just like the AMG writer mixed up Leonard Caston Sr. with Leonard Caston Jr. who sang in the Radiants and became a Motown songwriter and producer in a bio meant to be about the younger Caston.

By padgburyman (195.93.49.10) on Saturday, November 16, 2002 - 11:37 am:

Thanks all.

So James 111 plays the drums then. That's cool.

By Sue (64.12.97.7) on Saturday, November 16, 2002 - 11:53 am:

James Jr. is a bass player like his dad, and has played on many sessions in L.A. and elsewhere -- SisDetroit will know if he's ever dabbled in drums.

By Steve L (209.100.86.4) on Saturday, November 16, 2002 - 12:45 pm:

Ooops! My bad about Shorty Long. I didn't know it was a "Shorty Long" vs the "Shorty Long".

By padgburyman (195.93.49.10) on Saturday, November 16, 2002 - 12:49 pm:

Sue,

Sorry, I well know that James Jr. (111) is a bassist (Brit. sense of humour). Thanks for your help. I love this forum. You are all so helpful.

By Bob Olhsson (68.32.101.228) on Saturday, November 16, 2002 - 01:04 pm:

The way AMG works is that somebody (It can be anybody) sends them a copy of each CD they want listed along with a press release. The credits and other information is compiled from those materials and turned into a web page and a listing for their books. Unfortunately they seem to have no mechanism for correcting or appending any information once it has been entered. In my case, they list almost all of the stuff I wish I didn't have a credit on and they don't list most of the stuff I'm proudest of.

Even with all of its shortcomings, to me AMG is still an absolutely amazing resource to have.

By padgburyman (195.93.49.10) on Saturday, November 16, 2002 - 01:35 pm:

Bob, Sue, Steve and all.

You are the 'Tops'. Never mind if James (1,2 or 3) ever played the drums on anything, in private or public, no matter. He (James Jamerson) did play a mean Bass on anything he connected with.

I am looking at a photo of him now, Fender on his lap, cigarette in his mouth - Mr Bass Man, yes. Drummer, I doubt it!

By N2U (65.132.79.78) on Saturday, November 16, 2002 - 03:58 pm:

Bob, are you sure that's how AMG work? I heard different.

Much of their material is submitted by freelance writers who send wish lists in for CDs or albums they have that they wish to write about. The list is then either approve or disaprove by the person in charge of this. A 10 CD wish list may result in 7 of the 10 being approve. The writer then writes and submits the review. The stuff under writer's reviews and bio's are done by the staff at AMG; the writer has no control over this at all. Wish lists for bio's are submitted and approved the same way.

CDs are sent in of course by some and those are probably done by staff members who don't have to canvas for stuff to write about. Since AMG freelancers are independent contractors AMG can't tell them what to write, supply CDs or albums, or structure their work hours in any fashion.

AMG is really a front for a music distributor and outlet for their reference books. The material, of which, is gathered from submissions by freelance and staff writers who don't share in the book royalties or CD sales.

AMG's content is licensed to online retail outlets and in is made available to retail outlets at no charge. This prompted a lawsuit from a similar company called Muzik who cited unfair competition. Barnes and Noble, Amazon, etc. agree to purchase their CDs from the distributor owned by AMG in return for the free content: reviews, bio and song descriptions.

A few AMG freelance writers research their biography subjects quite well: Ed Hogan and Andrew Hamilton (both I believe are African-Americans) come to mind. But most don't and only supply little frustrating capsules. Hamilton was the first writer at AMG (I don't believe he writes for them anymore) to write extensively about obscure soul artists, writers, producers, musicians and even background singers. Hogan and some others followed his lead. If not for Hamilton, Hogan, Ritchie Unterberger, and some others, the AMG site would be lacking much of its soul content.

By dowoplady (24.46.200.124) on Saturday, November 16, 2002 - 05:08 pm:

Jim Dunn(my "partner") and myself write for AMG as freelance writers. We have sent in ten articles (so far) and seven are now listed. You sign an agreement with them in advance which includes how much they will pay you for your articles. Once they agree by compensating you with their contracted fees, they can choose or not choose to list the article(s). We generally specialize in 50's and 60s vocal groups. Much of our articles (Four Sonics, Nolan Strong, Pyramids, Royal Holidays, and Elgins - West Coast grp) are taken mostly from interviews with one or more of the actual group members. Some others we have done (Five Keys & Four Vagabonds) we have seen and heard these groups perform at UGHA (or other) venues and have had some contact with one or more of the members. (In the case of the 4 Vagabonds, we refer here to the "current" configuration" of this group.) In all the articles we submit, information is carefully researched thru a variety of sources to be (hopefully 98%)sure we don't post innacuracies. The 2 % is allowed for occasional human error!! Some of our articles that are on AMG now are replacements for some of the many inaccurate ones, done by "writers" who have/had no clue about these groups and/or artists! And it does seem that often they don't make corrections even when you let them know. For example, in our Nolan Strong article, THEY show Nolan's D.O.B. to be 1950. Nolan started singing with the Diablos in 1954. Obviously, that date is incorrect. We have advised them of this in writing several times, but it goes ignored.

We will continue to submit articles, and hope that more get chosen. Like all of you here, it's very frustrating to see info about artists whom you KNOW and whom you KNOW WHAT THEY SANG and WHEN, listed incorrectly!

The more reliable information we can get out to the public, the better it is for "OUR" music to survive!

In harmony,

Nikki
http://www.harmonytrain.com

By Bob Olhsson (68.32.101.228) on Sunday, November 17, 2002 - 01:26 am:

I think we're probably all correct only looking at AMG from different vantage points. I'm glad to hear at least some attempt is being made to correct misinformation. I know many people who have tried to get misstatements about themselves corrected to no avail.

By N2U (63.188.33.66) on Sunday, November 17, 2002 - 07:27 am:

All AMG writers are not paid per piece, many are hourly, which is the best deal. About a year and a half ago many of their hourly freelancers were changed to per piece or a certain amount per review and song description, and a very low rate per word for biographies, which cause many to stop associating with AMG.

It's difficult for anybody except the writer of the piece themself to correct any error; when a writer contacts AMG about an error in something he wrote it's usually corrected, the problem is most of their writers never do this because they don't know their pieces contain errors.

Check out the Norman Whitfield biography. Eddie Holland is credited with co-writing songs with Whitfield that Barrett Strong wrote. An obvious error that remains unchanged.

Most of these inaccuracies, though not all, come from their inexperienced staff writers not the many freelancers they use. People like Hogan, Unterberger (who was staff at one time), new kid on the block Bryan Thomas, Hamilton and others have contributed thousands of biograpies, reviews and song descriptions to AMG. Do a Lycos search on some of the names and see for yourself. And most of the soul and reggae writers contributions don't even show up in an internet search because they wrote about obscure artists and writers.

AMG is not a good deal for writers. They're considered work for hire, don't own the rights to their work, and get no additional compensation for income made when the work is licensed out, or for the many books AMG compiled. Many excellent writers turned the deal down upon reading the contract, which can be for piece work or hourly. All are different as to rate or pay per piece or hourly rate depending upon your experience or coziness with AMG.

AMG don't like the long bios many of their freelancers submit. They're not into detail. Their staff writers and most of their freelancers never contact the subjects they write about. When what is expected is a 500 word or less capsule bio you really don't have to. Listing every recording somebody made along with the writers and matrix numbers in the bio is not their schtick. AMG only want the highlights. Bios: 500 words or less, unless you get permission to do a longer one.

As far as albums missing from an artists' page, usually AMG doesn't know an obscure album by someone even exists until someone send a request in to review said album.

Negative reviews of new albums released on major labels is taboo. You can slammed some old out-of-print vinyl LP that probably won't see the light of day on a CD but don't be too critical of the new releases they're distributing.

Nobody understands their rating system. You can read a positive review of a CD and see a low rating beside it. The writer has nothing to do with ratings.

The albums credited to, and the other info underneath the biographies are computer generated. So, people with the same names are often confused.

Below is a thread copied from an forum about AMG written by a staff writer about Thomas Erlewine and his ability to turn out hundreds of reviews a week.

I like Tom Erl's straightforward, no BS nature, and he's entirely opinionated on everything that comes his way. Our format isn't conducive to being 100% personal opinion, but Tom's not lacking any liveliness or ability to distinguish good from bad. I've never encountered the problem that Tim has in his reviews. (Perhaps you just hit a bad patch, Tim? I know for a stretch he was writing hundreds of reviews and bios per week.) He doesn't get too academic and he's obviously knowledgeable, so he can be equally engaging for the novice and the smartypants.
For a while, I had to skim or read through every submitted review (he's the head pop editor, btw), so it's definitely not on a selective basis that I've read his writing. If anything, he's the epitome of subjectivity. He's extremely fair with everything, whether it's Badfinger or Bad English. Plus, he's as affable and humble as they get. I swear the man must absorb records and movies in his sleep. Either that or he's inhuman, which I'm increasingly suspectful of with each conversation.

-- Andy (andykellman@home.com), February 15, 2001.

Can't do much research or listening when you do hundreds of reviews and bios per week can you? Now do you see why there are so many errors?

By N2U (63.188.33.66) on Sunday, November 17, 2002 - 07:53 am:

dowoplady, AMG regulary updates old bios and even reviews with newer more up to date ones. This is no knock on the previous writer; things change. Some bios were done on artists when they first started and don't contain their later efforts. People also pass, necessitating the update. They also have to have fresh material for their books. Putting out the All Music Guide to Rock volume III with the same material that was in volume I doesn't work. I've seen long bios and reviews replaced with shorter ones that fit their new format better and short bios and reviews (the one and two liners) replaced with longer ones.

The complete review for the Dramatics' Dramatic Experience album on AMG is one line that reads: This is an anti-drug album. Please!!!!

They also have some one sentence biographies (if you can believe that) on the site.

By Ritchie (62.254.0.7) on Sunday, November 17, 2002 - 11:01 am:

In the AMG entry for the (Detroit) Spinners, I was amused and amazed to see the "Party At My Pad After Srfing" album in the listing (different Spinners!), while their actual debut, "The Original Spinners" doesn't appear. Perhaps that's on account of the obscurity of the label that released it... Motown ;o)