I have decided to recreate original record labels of existing Northern Soul records. The story so far is that Sexton Records was a record company which pressed and sold bootleg copies of rare soul records. These would be sold to collectors who would otherwise been unable to acquire the original pressings due to their scarcity. Sexton’s bootlegs were unique in so far as the centre labels appeared as replicas of the original records but with the record company’s name replaced with “Sexton Records” or variations of that name. Also there would be an imprint “Licensed exclusively to Soul Galore Productions”. This implies that Sexton Records belonged to bootlegger Simon Soussan.
I recently bought a copy of “If It’s All The Same To You Babe” by Luther Ingram. It was relatively cheap compared to an original pressing from HIB Records. Original copies are being sold for hundreds of pounds but my authorised reissue from Inferno is a lot cheaper, less than £10. It is interesting to note that my copy has retained the original label design, the only difference is the “Inferno” logo at the bottom of the label. Inferno are legally authorised to reissue whereas Sexton Records are issuing bootlegs from unauthorised sources. Soul Galore is Sexton’s parent company responsible for distribution and “licencing”.
By presenting these bootlegs with replica centre labels suggests that the quality of these bootlegs are good, almost as good as the originals. The risk when buying bootlegs is the varying quality of the recordings. Some bootlegs would be taken from cassette tape recordings during Northern Soul events. It was common practice to take a cassette player with a microphone attached to make recordings for personal consumption. Music played at these events would only be played by that particular DJ from his exclusive collection. So the likelihood of hearing a particular song elsewhere would be slim. Some of these recordings would end up as vinyl pressings and sold as a cheap alternative to punters on a budget.
My approach to the presentation of this body of work was to mount these replica labels onto existing random records. The only connection being that the existing record label’s colours matched. The existing B side would be visible but when examined the title and artist has been covered up with a black marker, or patch. In effect the truth has been redacted.
I plan to present these records on narrow shelves to give the impression of a second-hand record shop or record fair. It is common practice for clients to listen to the records before buying. I want to encourage this kind of participation, where people select a record and play it on the portable record player provided. I’m attracted to this ludic participation as people try to predict what record is being covered up. It could be Rick Astley, Connie Francis or
Max Bygraves!
I also want to include a parafictional workspace, the bootlegger’s centre of operations. My intention is to recreate this workspace as it was supposedly found. There are clues to the parafictional nature of this installation. This tape recorder is dated around 1961 and used “magazines” holding reels of tape. This technology was eventually superseded when Philips introduced cassettes around 1963. The legs of the bench have been covered-up to hide the fact that they are only a few years old. I felt the need to cover them for the testbed at Karst and replace them with something authentic for the exhibition. However I have decided to keep these saw horses and cover them to emphasis the notion of cover-up and deception.
In the future I would like Sexton Records to take on a life of its own. For example introducing Spoken Soul, a spoken word variation of soul music. Soussan produced synthesised versions which replaced vocal performances over existing backing tracks. These alternative versions proved very unpopular. However around this time in New York City, Hip Hop was emerging as a spoken-word alternative. Also Tele Savalas has a spoken-word hit both sides of the Atlantic with a cover version of “If”. Not forgetting William Shatner’s alternative cover of Elton John’s “Rocket Man” in 1978. These possibly inspired Soussan to experiment with spoken word.