GS:VINYL

The Swans Of New England – I’m Hunting For Your Love (Cannonball Records)

24 March 2019

In 1980 a pair of amazing Artists, Manny and Corinne Collier, produced “I’m Hunting For Your Love” on their private label Sounds Northeast Records, based in Connecticut. Written, arranged and produced by Mr. Collier for the voice of his wife Corinne, the first version is a beautiful example of great inspiration turned into vinyl thanks to a mix of profound dedication and great skills in “doing music with what you have”. We all know what has been the destiny of many outstanding soul tunes on private labels from back in the day (and if you look at it in depth, not much has changed in the modern times when it comes to soul artists). A handful of them made it to a national release stage by being re-produced under the wings of major labels, that threw in investments and hired famous producers and arrangers in the attempt to turn those songs into great sellers. On the other hand, the vast majority of those productions fell into oblivion, soon forgotten also due to the massive load of new outputs, bands, records, productions of the era. Fast forward 38 years, the very same forgotten tracks become sought-after items by our unique community of soul / funk / raregroove collectors, home to vinyl junkies, hopeless ego-propelled nerds, great knowledgeable people and a handful of investigators (that in my opinion could easily be employed by the FBI occasionally). Fact is that the first version is nowadays literally impossible to find, and here come into play the skills of Yann Vatiste who eventually tracked down the Colliers and handed me over the contact in the hope we could see a chance to give them (and their music) the deserved limelight. Why not? Only problem is Cannonball Records’ 1st commandment is “you will not do reissues of any kind”. So the assessment process begun. Several email exchanges and phone calls were put in place with the Colliers who eventually found the original multitracks reel tapes liking big time the idea to cut a new respectful version in close collaboration with me and my team. The reeltapes were sent to the ovens in London, every stem transferred to soundfiles. We kept the vocals and the brass section from the multitracks and wrote a completely new arrangement, confirmed by Manny and Corinne in each and all single stages. The result is here with the title of “I’m Hunting For Your Love AGAIN”.

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