Garethx

There was a copy of "I'll Come Running Back" on ebay before xmas where the label was pressed so off-centre that it was actually over part of the track! Still went for a fair bit of money though (over £100). Moral of the story is don't say "in any condition" as a fair few of these have pressing defects and quite badly water-damaged labels. I was told that the same number each of the Uplook 45s were pressed: 300 copies per release. Might be time to stock up on "Since I Found You" and "Give A Man A Break" by Charles Mintz: both great 45s too. Remember that the Delegates of Soul was seen as a cheapie/collection filler for nearly two decades.

Like Sam Fletcher on Tollie, for example...

James Brown's wife tried to get her traffic tickets dismissed because of "diplomatic immunity" in June of 1988. She claimed her husband is the official "ambassador of soul". She lost the case...

During a meeting being held to discuss the possibility of Revlon creating a line of cosmetics to be endorsed by Diana Ross, a company spokesman said that he was "certain that she could do quite a bit for the black woman's market of cosmetics." Ross jumped up and stormed out of the meeting. Several minutes later, one of her representatives came back into the room to say that the meeting was over and that "Miss Ross is not black...not in her mind and not in the mind of anyone who works for her."

I don't get what you mean about the Roger Hatcher record. What's cheesy about this 45 in this context? To me it's a more than competent soul record. Light, melodic, but with a great vocal by Hatcher, a more than capable soul stylist. The other side is a tremendous ballad, with Roger's keening falsetto vocal wringing every ounce of sincerity out of a meaningful lyric. I sometimes wonder if we're all listening to the same records, and I'm not kidding either.

The point about not having a past smacks of the sort of complacent and entirely misplaced elitism which is in danger of strangling the scene: an old-boy network pulling rank on anyone with fresh ideas or some degree of optimism that the scene could be anything but an amusement park filled with ageing 'teds'. In the past there have been successive waves of people who aren't scared to challenge the status quo or change direction in order to go forward. I sometimes wonder if this can ever happen again on the scale of, say, Stafford.

Winnie. I think you've mis-characterised my post. I never used the word 'educate'; you did. I used the term 'spread knowledge' in the sense of widening the appreciation of great, under-appreciated music: in my eyes (though probably not yours, it seems) the entire ethos of the scene since the year dot. The jocks I called the innovators (I guess most of you will recognise who they are, I won't name them) are probably the last people who subscribe to the deejay-on-a-pedestal mentality. The more forward thinking deejays will all eventually end up questioning the concept of playing 'requested-oldies-only' in big halls for money-making interests; the scene will end up revolving around the same 200 or so cast-iron-certainty-oldies and disappear up its own fundament.

I think Steve G raises a quite fundamental point about deejays being either 'leaders' or 'followers'. From the majority of playlists I see these days it can be surmised that the majority of jocks at both local soul nights and quite major allnighters are quite content to be the former. The number of innovators can be counted on the fingers of one hand. It's quite interesting to me that we frequently see fairly negative posts on SS about djs (particularly younger, less well known ones) playing lesser known or obscure tracks ("killing the floor" / "cutting the atmosphere" etc. are comments that spring to mind.) I realise that the law of diminishing returns almost guarantees that the supply of really good unknown or lesser-known records is contracting rapidly, but it seems to me that these days paying customers are guilty of impatience when it comes to being confronted with a record that they don't know / haven't danced to before / isn't on their personal wants list. People should bear in mind that even the most chersished classics started off as 'newies' somewhere. It makes me wonder if the scene has indeed finally tired of innovation, and that it is almost exclusively a nostalgia scene throughout its entirety. Are deejays there to entertain or to spread knowlege? For me, it must be a balance between the two, and that balance is a very difficult one to achieve. Some recent comments almost convince me that punters see it as their right these days to dictate the contents of each jock's set: a set of circumstances which stifles creativity and which might ultimately kill the scene as a progressive force.

Would you pay £20 to £50 for this lp, Pete? I must say I've always found the practice of dubbing album tracks to seven inch lacquer for the purpose of 'northern soul' deejaying quaint. Yes the music is louder, but so too are any distortions, blips, noises etc., so it's rather counter-productive. As for the convenience issue of carting round a bag of albums: who said it was meant to be easy; the logical extension of this is setting up an MP3 player and playing sets comprised of downloads. Those players are smaller than a packet of fags. What gets my goat is that people often pass of these dubs as something they are clearly not. On his last comeback tour Levine even (allegedly) played the Magnificent Men's "Keep On Climbing" from such a source with a bogus Capitol acetate label! What a sad twat. I believe it was he who started doing this in the first place, with things like Willie Hutch "Lucky To Be Loved" at The Mecca.

What about playing the Timi Yuro from album: either US or UK, both at bootsale prices any time you want one: just a thought.

Different mixes as opposed to different versions. The Way Out issue was once quite expensive, but the price seems to have plummeted in the last few years as people have realised it's not really that difficult to find. A solid record.

A good example of a record selling for different reasons on different scenes. I bought the lp cheap too, because a mate had put another track on a 'soft rock' cd. When playing through it I recognised the "One Way Or The Other" track from a crossover tape from Paul Capon in Essex about six years ago. You could have knocked me down with a feather when Keith Money played it at the 100 Club last winter. Yeah, it's white, but it's really got a fantastic ebb and flow to it and sounds great out. I've never seen an issue copy of the 45 either, Gash. What price do people put on this single?

I'd be surprised if this has been bootlegged. Great and rare deep soul, but it should be possible to buy one for less than these estimates.

This is a highly sought-after record on what the Japanese call the 'soft rock' scene. The lp is usually really expensive when you see it for this reason. Of its type a fantastic record.

Yes.

Bit of a daft question this, but can anyone think of any ginger (in the tonsorial sense) 'soulmen'?

There's a soundclip on Dave Thorley's Top Dog Records site. I think I'll repeat what I said about this yesterday: probably not a rare record, with at leat one going on ebay last autumn for little or nothing, just an obscure one. Not a very good one, either, in my opinion. Can't see this one having any scene life at all: it has zero charisma and there's nothing out of the ordinary about it. It's a sort of updated blues, like Guitar Ray, but even that comparison implies it's better than it is.

Sorry: added something about this record today, then withdrew it.

dfgy

No worries

Gotta say I disagree strongly on this one, Chalky. I knew the lp version for a good few years before I heard the Rober Tanner solo 45 and could not actually believe how poor it was in comparison. The term 'half finished' springs to mind. Sorry!

I agree with you Pete! Who doesn't like this one? Detroit soul at its very very best. The Masqueraders made very few poor records, and lots of absolutely sensational ones.

There is another way of getting "Sweet Memories," Steve, so don't despair. It was also recorded by Tanner's group, The New Sound, on their Turbo lp from the early 70s. It's a far better version, with a fuller production and better sound etc. The album also has some other splendid tracks, like the former Darrell Banks cover-up "Don't Take You Love From Me," as spun by Kitch etc. in the early 90s. Here's the catch: the album is super-rare on original (I have personally seen more copies of the Megatone 45 than originals of this lp in the last five years), but exists on both CD and high quality vinyl re-issue from Japan. The re-issues are sometimes on ebay, but I'm sure if you ask around you'll be able to pick one up for prices ranging from £20 to £50. Hope this helps, gareth.

Jamie, the Judy Freeman and BlackRock has been a big revival darn sarf for a few years now, Ady C and then Greg playing the unreleased six or seven minute version via acetate. It's an incredible record, surely one of the most soulful records ever played on the Northern scene.

I squash your Willie Hutch and propose "Peace Not Punch Ups" by The Kentucky Fried Citizens. I'll get me coat...