BILL BUSH - VELVET TOUCH / I'M WAITING - RONN 17
£
622
$
824
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Description
adamton70ebayuser Store
A rare opportunity to purchase a stubbornly elusive 45 from Louisiana Hammond player, Bill Bush. What’s special about this sale is the personal letter of provenance, typed by Bill and signed by him. The letter explains how the record was made and goes with the disc to the winning bidder and the proceeds of this sale go to the original artiste*.
Bill Bush appeared as keyboard player on Little Johnny Clark’s R&B grinder, Black Coffee, and sang/ played piano with the Fabulous Carousels on their Towne House recording, Would You Love Me.
John Manship’s definitive 5th edition USA price guide has Velvet Touch / I’m Waiting, listed as £600. That applies to a mint copy, which this is close to, but how much with a signed letter from the artiste? Certainly near to the full list price I’d have thought.
Bill is still a working musician and can be seen in the North West Louisiana area in some the best hotels and casinos in the area, and is much in demand for private parties playing oldies and some really choice R&B sneaked in to the sets, including, in recent years, I’m Waiting. Having seen the combo play live, this sounds as good as it does on record and stands out as a complex, intelligent jazz/soul composition with some really advanced chord structures. Excellent song, and written in half an hour as a b-side!
This item is one of the very small number of singles retained by Bill. It was produced as a promotional tool to send out to agents and bookers, which is presumably where the few copies to surface on the open market originate from.
The combo viewed itself as live act, working musicians rather than recording artistes. The single sold ‘around three’ copies in Stan Lewis’s shop at the time and was not actively plugged as it was primarily a promotional device for Bill to secure live gigs on the back of a ‘record’. When I contacted Bill in 2004 he had no idea of the status that his only single had achieved in the UK, thanks mainly to DJ Keith Money. Since then he has taken great satisfaction from the popularity of the song.
Bill has parted with four mint copies of the single and has indicated that he does not intend to sell another until 2011 at the earliest. Very few additional copies in this mint condition have surfaced and are unlikely to due to the circumstances in which the disc was manufactured.
Condition is Ex+, record has been played once to ensure that it plays through and a very minor warp is visible to the eye when rotating, lifting the stylus slightly on each turn. The disc is taken from a batch retained by the artiste in ’68 and may have been affected by heat during storage but this is a new item, not pre-owned. There is some clouding on the vinyl, again from storage, but I don’t intend to clean it, I’ll leave that to the buyer. Company sleeve and signed letter of provenance from Bill. Delivery is not free, despite EB’s crazy new policy. Please contact me for postage rates prior to payment.
* agreed expenses including final value, etc. will be deducted from the proceeds of this sale prior to crediting the artiste.
www.caledoniasoul.co.uk
