Meatloaf has passed

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html

Ralph and Russ were very much involved in starting off Meatloaf's career as a recording artist, producing his first album Stoney and Meatloaf on Rare Earth

Sadly, there are reports coming in this evening on social media that Canadian Motown artist, songwriter and producer, R. Dean Taylor, has passed away. Rest in peace, Mr. Taylor. Thank you for your valuable contributions to music history.

Dionne has a nice interview with Stephen last night on the Late Show. He showed her this cover of a European release of one of her albums, and she said that when she was in France and went on stage that they were surprised to see that she was black. When she walked out on the stage in Paris, and there was a collective gasp, she said, "Yeah! I ain't no white woman. I'm black" And until she opened her mouth, they did not believe who she was until she started singing and then everybody sat back, relaxed, and enjoyed. Very nice interview. And David and Dionne are friends. He interviewed her recently at the Montclair Film Festival after showing her new documentary, and then went for dinner with her after the interview.

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From Billboard -

https://www.billboard.com/music/pop/...ch-1235020866/

I probably chose the wrong term, 'subsidiary', when writing the title...maybe 'auxiliary' would have been better.

We know Motown branched out to release its artists on different labels as not to saturate the market with everything labeled "Motown" which would have caused some DJs to be reluctant about playing 'yet another Motown record.'

Each label tended to have its own "Motown" sound to my ear. IMO, the Motown label output was more sophisticated and polished. The music I heard from the Tamla label seemed mellow and laidback [[ex. Marvelettes & SR/Miracles). The Temptations and MR/Vandellas' output had an air of grittiness about it on the Gordy label. The Soul label had more of what soul music was sounding like from the other companies during the 60s. These are just what I consider the major Motown subsidiaries...yes, Lurlean, there are more.

Although not always the case, the actual recording/mastering process seemed, to my ears, to be quite different especially when comparing the aural aspect of the smooth Tamla recordings and the dynamic sounding Motown recordings.

All of this to say is that Berry and his side people were definitely geniuses in how to market the Motown sound which was really taking off around 1963-64.

I am a seller on Discogs and as such I am caught in a situation now where I have four different buyers in Australia, but I cannot ship them their orders due to the USPS restricting shipping there due to COVID. In one case, the poor guy has been hanging on for four months!

Private services such as UPS or that one that begins with a D [[DHL maybe?) are out of the question because the costs would be 10 times as much. So now I am reading about something called Pirate Ship and some people make it sound like it is a reasonably priced alternative with costs comparable to my own USPS.

Does anyone know anything about this?