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Roburt 20 posts
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The first four imports I got at the time were the afore mentioned I dig your act ,walking up a one way street ,washed ashore and at the top of the stairs.We used to go onto Cusworth Hill (local beauty
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I can't comment on imports in the late 6ts, but for a bit of eye candy, here's the Australian Test Press for the Festival release of 'Call on Me' as it came out twice. Lots of Bobby's early Duke track
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Interesting. With regard to Bobby Bland, I bought this on eBay years ago and it came with a home-made paper sleeve! A pic of Bobby and the date 14.12.64. I assumed that someone put the date of th
This thread will most likely throw up a lot of arguments, but hey ho, here we go.
I was attending niters & similar local clubs from 1966 (1965 for the later). My early niter experiences came mainly via the King Mojo, Nite Owl, Tin Chicken & Wheel and I was collecting soul releases way before I attended my first niter.
In 65, it was all based around 45's released here in the UK, we only had the money for British releases (& then not enough to buy all of the ones we danced to). Course, back then it was just as common to dance to a track by Sam & Dave, Don Covay, Lee Dorsey, Otis Redding as it was to dance to an Impressions, Darrell Banks or Bobby Sheen effort.
ANYWAY, demand for UK 45's (new releases & older outings) soon meant that the supply dried up. When, say UK copies of "I Dig Your Act" dried up we started to try to obtain import copies of the 45, but they were hard to get and expensive (relatively). Soul City record shop was an early source of quality US imports, but that was only (to us up north) after they relocated to central London (67 ?). Leighton Buzzard's F L Moores soon followed on, as did posted out auction lists via Postman Pat. Later on, B&S / Contempo and then Soul Bowl made things a whole lot easier.
ANYWAY, I'm trying to decide what was the first import soul dancer that we started to chase. Of the 45's sourced from US sources (NY area discount record warehouse lists, Randys Records of Gallatin (they sent our annual catalogues of what they had in stock) & Ray Aveys Rare Records (monthly listings) were soon being contacted as good sources. Some UK 45's were in short supply from day one. The 1st of these that springs to mind is Bunny Sigler's "Let The Good Times Roll" -- UK release in August 67. By that September, it was almost impossible to get a copy on Cameo Parkway. EMI came to our rescue & mass imported French Stateside copies from around November 67.
BUT my choice of first import 45 to be chased is the Dec 62 outing on Duke "Call On Me" from Bobby Bland. This was still an anthem in UK soul clubs in 67/68 and was (to my knowledge) the first soul dance 45 we chased THAT HADN'T gained a UK release at all. After that we found it was still 'EASY' (remember there was no tinternet, no discogs, no ebay) to get US copies, if you knew where to go. Soul City was always a good source as DG knew the tracks northerners were chasing by 68 -- I still have my letters from SC's Rob Blackmore telling me ... we're out of UK copies but we can get you a US copy for 15/- or 17/6d. When we were chasing a newly 'discovered' sound, we'd even take the train down to London to visit the store in person. They always had boxes of import 45's to tempt us -- though Dave only caught me out the first time I visited in person. He picked out his fave 45 in that box and foisted it on me. On later visits I spurned his pleas to buy a(nother) copy of the issue release of a Mala 45 by Tobi Legend -- getting 17/6 out of a Yorkshireman for an obscure cut that wasn't even played in the clubs was a hard task for him. I do credit him with putting out the first specific NS 45 (re)release in the UK though (Gene Chandler's SOUL CITY 45 "Nothing Can Stop Me" in April 68), so he's still a gudguy in my books.
So, "CALL ON ME" is my nomination then. What do other's say ??
BTW, we weren't knowledgeable enough to chase copies of CALL ON ME on an Aussie release but then we were still young, foolish & uneducated ... SORRY happy.
Edited by Roburt