Do you remember what it was and do you still get a thrill about remembering going to the record shop to buy it ? Looking where it was in the charts. Can't be the same for youngsters today just downloading it from the net ?

The trip on the bus into town, meeting up with your mates , being dressed in all your best togs , going to the coffee bar , playing the jukebox and then going to the record shop !

Sad thing is I can't remember mine I do recall my first 45 was called ... Rag Mama Rag but sadly I can't recall what my first soul purchase was ?

Can you ?

I remember most of my msuical youth Carmen

Remember when first got into Northern, going to Rumbelows in Stockport circa 1976, upstairs they sold a few records - a cardboard box full of Northern boots (Johnny Vanelli, Jimmy Mack, etc), which we didnt have a clue at the time what a bootleg was as we hadnt been any niters by then as we were still at school. They had these listening booths with earphones where you could listen to the tunes before you bought, my first real taste of Northern happened there, soon as we had any money in our pockets off we dashed on the bus to Stockport to buy these tunes at around 50p a throw.

Even before that as far back as primary school i used to wait in anticipation for T.Rex's new single to come on the radio or TOTP and hearing it for the 1st time

Downloading from the net just aint the same as feeling the purchase in yr hand, almost forgot about Rumbelows, and that other shop Valances in the 70s, but by far the most exciting place to rumage thru for me was Bostocks market stall in Bradford or Geralds in Leeds, happy days

Lol I do recall having my radio on the window ledge listening to the top twenty count down and wanting the whole street to hear it , god what a pain eh ?

I would have to say soul came to my door by accident , to this day I don't know how Motown chartbusters got into my Dads record collection , but that was the start for me hearing those fab LP's , also he had Marvin Tammi's If I could build my world around you on 45 ... I used to love this sound , still do today . I loved hearing it down the 100 club once very early in the morning. Kind of made it special

God I wish my Dad was alive today to ask him how they got there ?

I remember going into Rumbelows with mates on a Saturday and listening to your favorite records in the booth!!!

First record i bought was The Righteous Bros...The sun aint gonna shine anymore...

Always liked Motown tho i never actually bought a soul record....i met Don when i was 15, (39 yrs ago ) he bought them (still buying them now i might add!!!) and he introduced me to Northern...loved it ever since...

How come i can remember that yet i can't remember what i did last week

My Mom bought Where Did Our Love Go and Baby Love when they were in the charts in 1964 so I was playing those alongside the Beatles, Elvis and Cilla records. I remember her buying Percy Sledge - When a man loves a woman on the red Atlantic label, she bought it at the same time as A Whiter Shade Of Pale from the 2 shillings box in Selectavision, how the hell do I remember things like that but not what I did yesterday?

Can't remember the first soul record I purchased cos my older sister was into Motown so we used to play all hers

But I think it was about 73/4 I " borrowed" one of my mates albums Aladin Sane by David Bowie and swopped it with a guy at school for Bok to Bach on a green and gold heritage lable (more than likely a re-release pressing and worth about ten bob or 50p )

But I thought that I'd won the pools!!

( now theres one fir the teenagers !!!)

Spike

I was very lucky having a west indian step dad for a while as this guy introduced me to both ska and reggae and soul.When i lived as a youngster with my mam for a short period in Nuneaton I had a saturday job on the market breaking up the bolser wood fruit box's and tidying around and used to get a quid and some fruit and veg.there was a second hand shop near the fish mongers I'm sure it was called Irenes at the front of pool bank street.She used to have a lot of second hand records and used to let me have all the Tamla motown and soul and reggae type stuff for about sixpence each.Although I didn't have a record player at the time I kept them all in order of puchase , at Christmas i went to the shop and she had a big box for me wrapped in wrapping paper but i couldn't carry it so she gave me a lift home when i got back i opened it and it was a second hand dansette .i plugged it in and got that perculiar metaly electric type smell i put on my first record and sang my heart out to "my Guy" and that was the start of my insanity.Regards Simon.

Edited October 7, 201113 yr by sharmo 1

Best yet sharmo!!!

Great memories !

I've still got an old dansette (in fact it's all I've got to play my megre collection of records on)

Spike

We had a Rumbelows in Warrington, but it got taken over by the punks in the later days.

My first soul records from those were all on british labels like Pye Disco Demand, think I had a Chuck Wood Seven Days on that one.

Remember my first actual disk without a middle, which to me at the time, was somehow was more special than those british labels with a middle, it was a Don Thomas boot. As I got older & wiser, I remember a guy in the record bar a Wigan with a box full of stateside tunes included a green demo Charlie Gracie He'll never Love you, all of a sudden the penny dropped british labels could be cool too.

There was a store in Manchester called Henry's, on the now pedestrianised street where the arndale is, clearly visionary because it was a bit of a pound store 30 years before they were invented

[ clever dicks, at this stage, go back and work out what a £1 was worth in 1966 ] ; anyway this cheap and cheerful store had ex juke box records priced 2/6d centres removed, but they were in there really quickly. After I saw my big sister swanning about with a couple of TMG'S [ a four tops and a kim weston I think,] I took all my Xmas and birthday money in [ Jan 1966 I think ] and bought everthing I could find on TMG.

Still got them, although some upgraded to centres and even r/w's now, but it was one of the things that set me off on this path all those years ago.

Thanks Sis !

pete lyster

As a youngster I was familiar with tunes that were (had) being played at clubs up North(although too young to attend, cause my bros and their friends would have/play/talk about them. I was bemused by it all until I got captivated by the world of Northern Soul at the local youth club, and having that GREAT BIG FEELING of holding that first piece of vinyl you purchase (boot or not) and wanting to play it and dance to it no matter what time it was when you got home with it. Strangely enough I still get the same buzz, which my wife does not appreciate when I return from an evening out only to let her know what I have bought by playing it loud.

TOTP

I was very lucky having a west indian step dad for a while as this guy introduced me to both ska and reggae and soul.When i lived as a youngster with my mam for a short period in Nuneaton I had a saturday job on the market breaking up the bolser wood fruit box's and tidying around and used to get a quid and some fruit and veg.there was a second hand shop near the fish mongers I'm sure it was called Irenes at the front of pool bank street.She used to have a lot of second hand records and used to let me have all the Tamla motown and soul and reggae type stuff for about sixpence each.Although I didn't have a record player at the time I kept them all in order of puchase , at Christmas i went to the shop and she had a big box for me wrapped in wrapping paper but i couldn't carry it so she gave me a lift home when i got back i opened it and it was a second hand dansette .i plugged it in and got that perculiar metaly electric type smell i put on my first record and sang my heart out to "my Guy" and that was the start of my insanity.Regards Simon.

Good story.

Mine was kind of similar in a way in that it was handed down, but I got it all at once - a bunch of motown and beatles 45's and a dansette from my Nan. I still count the copy of 'tears of a clown' as my first ever record and still have it, and have memories of listening to the top 40 in the front room with my dad and that track being played on the top 40 through the monogram, and loving it, and holding the mic of my dad's reel-to-reel up to the speaker and everyone having to be really quiet while it was being recorded off the radio. I then listened to it on repeat so when I got given the record and player I was majorly excited. Many years later I was regaled with stories of 'the casino' by kids 2/3 years older than me that went and brought back cassettes of last Saturday nights sounds recorded on those mono tape recorders left in front of the speakers, Monday dinnertime was sitting around listening to these tapes from the older kids. To be honest, most of it was people talking and clapping, and I wasn't taken with the music that much at all, sounded like a right mess apart from the odd track - but I hear certain records now and they just take me back to that time immediately. Not that I want to go back there thanks very much

cheers Sutty

I was very lucky having a west indian step dad for a while as this guy introduced me to both ska and reggae and soul.When i lived as a youngster with my mam for a short period in Nuneaton I had a saturday job on the market breaking up the bolser wood fruit box's and tidying around and used to get a quid and some fruit and veg.there was a second hand shop near the fish mongers I'm sure it was called Irenes at the front of pool bank street.She used to have a lot of second hand records and used to let me have all the Tamla motown and soul and reggae type stuff for about sixpence each.Although I didn't have a record player at the time I kept them all in order of puchase , at Christmas i went to the shop and she had a big box for me wrapped in wrapping paper but i couldn't carry it so she gave me a lift home when i got back i opened it and it was a second hand dansette .i plugged it in and got that perculiar metaly electric type smell i put on my first record and sang my heart out to "my Guy" and that was the start of my insanity.Regards Simon.

Simon that is such a lovely story , did make me smile you were lucky to have been influensed by some very interesting and kind characters , and it shows mate

My god reel to reel I quite forgot how technology has moved on , and my mothers much polished radiogram , loved how you could pile up four or five records and the automatically dropped and played. I feel quite old now . I cringe when I think how we abused the records , some of those needles were well dodgy.