Dave Godin RIP
Damn, the Grim Reaper has been busy this year. British soul evangelist Dave Godin died last week of cancer. He might never have made a record himself but he was a major, major figure in the UK soul scene. During the 1960s he played a large role in popularizing Motown at home and at one point was employed by Berry Gordy as an advisor on what songs to release in Britain and how to promote them. As a youngster he introduced a schoolfriend by the name of Mick Jagger to black music, something he later regretted as he thought The Stones were ripping off black artists ("It's ironic that as a result of meeting me he's where he is today" he said of Jagger.) He also briefly owned his own record store and label, the first ever black music specialist operations in Europe. In his "Blues & Soul" magazine column he coined the term "Northern Soul" and was a champion of many lesser-known and often forgotten artists, many of whom owe their fame in the underground soul scene directly to him - along with second careers performing before enthusiastic crowds in England (and I'm sure the new royalties were most welcome too). In a nutshell, the "scene" wouldn't be the same without him and this blog would be a lot poorer musically. But don't take my word for it, hear what Southern soul diva Bettye Lavette had to say about him:
"Dave Godin has added years to my artistic life. By that I mean, if he had not introduced me to Britain when the American thing waned, I would have been forgotten. I think it is very safe to say that Dave has done as much as, or more in many cases, for soul music and soul artists as Berry Gordy and many others who are touted for it."
More recently of course he was the compiler of the essential "Deep Soul Treasures" series of albums, Volume 4 of which has just come out. So as a tribute here's a track from Volume One which Godin described in the sleeve notes as "without a doubt, or any reservation, my favourite record of all time." Coming from someone who's heard more great soul music that all of us combined have had hot dinners that's high praise indeed. If this doesn't make you weak at the knees you must be made of stone.
Read the obituaries in The Guardian and The Independent (which has a juicy anecdote about Godin and Mick Jagger) and the excellent Dave Godin tribute at Soul Walking
[Download]
You Got Me - Jaibi
5 Comments:
There`s a nice bit about Dave on the 6Ts site as well.
http://www.6ts.info/new/home.htm
Check it out.
RIP Dave
Keep the Faith
That track is hot.
RSS is something that, once you subscribe to a site's feed, sends a message when the site is updated. In the newsreader it posts either the full text of the new post or an excerpt of it. Saves checking in on a site constantly; you can go once it's been updated and not until.
If you don't mind my asking, what program do you use to clean up the tracks you rip from vinyl? ... See, I'm planning to start doing the same once I have everything set up.
I, like many people, have Dave Godin to thank for introducing me to my favourite record (Ruby Johnson’s I’ll Run Your Hurt Away). Through his Deep Soul Treasures series he introduced me to a whole world of music, a whole world of emotions, which I barely knew existed.
Soul music has lost its number one fan.
Keep the faith, right on now!
I don't use any vinyl tracks, all my records are in boxes in my Dad's basement in London (where they've been for 10 years now) so I don't have access to them - sniff. I use mostly CDs and occasionally something I downloaded from Napster years ago or (these days) Limewire to replace something I already have on vinyl.
Oddly enough,when I read about Dave Godins death in the Guardian,the first thing I thought of was your blog!
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