Slim Smith - Born to Love Studio One LP

[seanmd]

I bought this LP in the 80s. A played the whole LP for the first time in a few years the other day. It suddenly occurred to me (lord knows why I've never spotted it before)that the pressing I have has the track 'The New Boss' on it twice. Track 5 on side one where 'I'll Be Around' should be, and track 3 on side two in the correct place. Has anyone seen anything similar?

[django68]

Yes. The missing track is I'll Be Around. Even the Heartbeat CD re-issue retained the same mistake.

[99thfloor]

Has anyone seen anything similar?

The question should be: Has anyone seen a copy of *Born To Love* that does **not** repeat "The New Boss" and actually has "I'll Be Around" on it?

There are plenty of Studio One LP's that are like this, *The Best Of Delroy Wilson*, Cedric Brooks' *Im Flash Forward* and The Heptones first album all have pressings that repeat a track, making another one go missing.

Trumping them all though is the repressing of *Presenting the Gladiators*, where two tracks, "My Thoughts" and "Downtown Rebel", are repeated (on the same side no less), loosing "Jah Jah Go Before Us" and "Easy Squeeze" in the process.

Even the Heartbeat CD re-issue retained the same mistake.

I think we have actually both commented on this on another forum.

Why on earth did Heartbeat re-release it that way? I mean they must have noticed. Was it an attempt to stay true to the original?

[flickeringlamp]

Good catch, funny i noticed the Gladiators repeat but not this one. Thought it always sounded a little redundant after awhile, guess this is why. That fact that heartbeat repeats this error on the cd tells you a bit about the quality of their operation. Half-assed errors or decisions like this probably contributed to them going under. Now wondering if Yep Rock (who is partnering with SO) will correct these errors when these records get reissued by them? Let's hope so! As the entire lp is barely 30 minutes it's a pretty glaring emission.

[99thfloor]

Half-assed errors or decisions like this probably contributed to them going under.

I can't think of anything else like this in the Heartbeat catalogue, what other "errors" did they make?

In my opinion they were one of the most important Reggae reissue labels and I think the "quality of their operation" was mostly top-notch, my collection would be much poorer without their releases.

Slim Smith's *Born To Love* was one among a batch of original Studio One albums they re-released in the early 90's, so I doubt any errors made then had much to do with their eventual demise, and towards the end of their run they did expanded remasters of many of those same albums, so it was a shame they never got around to this one.

[ReggaeFire]

Good catch, funny i noticed the Gladiators repeat but not this one. Thought it always sounded a little redundant after awhile, guess this is why. That fact that heartbeat repeats this error on the cd tells you a bit about the quality of their operation. Half-assed errors or decisions like this probably contributed to them going under. Now wondering if Yep Rock (who is partnering with SO) will correct these errors when these records get reissued by them? Let's hope so! As the entire lp is barely 30 minutes it's a pretty glaring emission.

Heartbeat made a few errors like this over the years (Brian Keyo has a list on his website http://tallawah.com/heartbeat-emendations/ ), but for the most part they did a great job. In the end they didn't really go under on their own, their parent label was sold and the new owners (Concord IIRC) shut down most of the Rounder labels. Many of their releases are still available digitally (at least they were up until relatively recently, I haven't checked lately) so someone is still milking their catalog a bit.

But if you hated Heartbeat's reissues, I have a feeling you'll have the same issue with the Yep Roc series, as Chris Wilson seems to be overseeing that as well.

[99thfloor]

Heartbeat made a few errors like this over the years (Brian Keyo has a list on his website http://tallawah.com/heartbeat-emendations/ ), but for the most part they did a great job.

I guess I stand corrected, although most of those have to do with the titles and credits being wrong, not the actual musical content being an error, and mistitling/miscrediting songs is a long standing Reggae tradition.

There are a couple of examples of a repeated track in that list. One is on *Foundation Ska*, but my copy of that CD has the right tracks so I guess I have the corrected version. *Ska After Ska After Ska* is a weird one because the same song appears twice, but the tracks are different sources with very different sound and different song lenght. I am not a huge Ska fan, so I have missed this.

Still, I have to agree they "for the most part they did a great job".

[flickeringlamp]

Well, i love that i have stirred up a controversy by daring to be critical of Heartbeat! I have many of the HB releases and am grateful for them. For the most part they released great music, i just think, given the high quality of the music, the quality of the reissues were under-par. The exceptions being the last bunch they did with the cardboard slipcases and abundant extra tracks. These were obviously in response to the smart job Soul Jazz was doing with their SO reissues. Most were great except for the horrible missed opportunity with Johnny Osbourne's Truths and Rights. They also totally messed up the Lone Ranger reissue by mysteriously eliminating two of the better original tracks. Heartbeat's new artwork was in most cases glaringly AWFUL (anyone want to pull out there Niney the observer comps and gaze at how good those look? Well, Head shot looks good...the others Blek ). They loved to package vintage material with some unattractive art or bad modern photos of the artists. While they did vinyl issues too they also released them with none of the liner notes they provided with the cds. So in sum, I feel like a great opportunity was missed by them. And obviously the greater sales and cross over appeal generated by Soul Jazz reissuing similar material would seem to indicate there is some agreement over this. Now, i know some people prefer the sound quality of Heartbeat to Soul Jazz but that's another story/debate. Anyway, mad respect to anyone who reissues this great music. Just nice to see it showered with a little more love.

[flickeringlamp]

Also in response to this:

I have a feeling you'll have the same issue with the Yep Roc series, as Chris Wilson seems to be overseeing that as well.

Yes, i have seen this and i am def. do not view that as a good sign. But given that i have so many of the original Lps already, i do not plan on re-buying many of them. But i am glad that they are being made available again. I do hope that future vinyl releases by them will be a little more generous then the first Wailers lp, which is short and contains no bonus material. That would be nice given that they are priced over 20$ a pop.

[99thfloor]

Well, i love that i have stirred up a controversy by daring to be critical of Heartbeat!

There is really no big controversy, I just do not agree that the Heartbeat releases in general have particularly many "half-assed errors" or are "under-par". There are errors on other Reggae label's releases too, and even on many major label Pop/Rock releases, none of which should happen if things were done right, but I don't think Heartbeat stood out in this respect.

...the smart job Soul Jazz was doing with their SO reissues.

What is so "smart" about Soul Jazz's Studio One releases? They are all tracks randomly thrown together and issued under generic genre names (that often do not correctly describe all the music within).

Heartbeat's new artwork was in most cases glaringly AWFUL ...

I can agree that the Heartbeat artwork isn't always great or particularly suiting, but at least it's more imaginative than the art of Soul Jazz's generic Studio One series...

Now, i know some people prefer the sound quality of Heartbeat to Soul Jazz but that's another story/debate.

This is the main reason why I prefer Heartbeat, I don't much care about the art and packaging really, but Heartbeat's Studio One releases were mostly from master tapes while Soul Jazz's releases are mostly from vinyl.

The one thing I am not fond of is when Heartbeat did new remixes without saying so, often instead just calling those tracks "previously unreleased versions."