macca

I too have a problem with the Stylistics. I just found them saccharine and contrived. Stoned In Love With You used to have me reach for the hammer and when they topped the charts with 'I Can't Give You Anything But My Love', my brother in law, who'd seen all the major 60s Soul acts at the Boston Gliderdrome, muttered something about Soul Music going down the gurgler. Looking back I can say I quite liked The Intruders, O'Jays, Harold Melvin, Billy Paul and most of the other Philly acts, but couldn't stomach this lot. Saccharone Soul I'd call it.

Has Cleo made any kind of statement? I think this guy, along with Chris Barber, was one of the earliest champions of black american music. DEP.

Fascinating. Keep it coming... I was in Olympia Washington in 1987, well after the mid 70's 'Klondike', but still managed to pick up some nice pieces for just a dollar fifty, an Yvonne Baker YDSAW 'two shields' being one of them. The owner of the store was well aware of the 'English scene' and had had visits from UK folk down from Seattle from time to time. They trawled through his bins for what he called 'obscure R&B and Blue Eyed Stuff'. I went to that store several times, coming away with about dozen records (I was backpacking) and a Lonnie Johnson 'Tomorrow Night' reissue LP, which I posted back to the UK. The early days of Internet kind of democratised record collecting, why pay people like Pat Brady or John Manship a ridiculous amount of money for something you could pick up for a few bucks? The advent of price guides and wedge-waving wants lists stopped our farting in church, sadly.

Well done Troid. An epic post. Didn't know that 'Ton Of Dynamite' was Lonnie Youngblood with Willie & The Mighty Magnificents. Dave Godin's first two releases for Right On were crackers too. A lot of people sniffed at all the stuff that became available on 'general release' through 75/76 but for many a wide-eyed 15 year old, they were his/her only affordable route to owning sounds. People didn't get sniffy over grapevine though, funnily enough.

Your havin' larf, surely.

I didn't hear Florence Devore till a good two years later, about the same time as Mary Saxton's take on BYBFBH. Can we include Johnny Vanelli on the shortlist? February 1975, to be precise. :-)

Fascinating. On one my first trips to Wigan I saw people 'lose it' over this record. We've all been there. I wouldn't dare to compare it to Frank Wilson though.

That's nice read, especially the final sentence. Don't pay over the odds for an oldie. Cough!

Thank you gents. More or less confirmed my suspicions. I'd add The Velvet Satins to that list, if my memory isn't playing tricks. I've do have cassettes from March 1975, but from a different venue, with Sam playing August & Deneen and Third Time Around, among other things.

Any chance someone could point me in the right direction, please?

Stanground Youth Club Peterborough November 2nd 1974. Smudge, Gary Spencer, Paul Donnelly, Jonah and John Manship on the decks. Can't remember the first record , but do remember Cochise being played several times throughout the night.

I thought his version of 'I stand accused' was pretty good, but then we are cousins. Getting mighty crowded was from that session too. Old Dec's a Soul boy at heart.

she probbly meant an obsessive bunch of foaming-at-the-mouth lunatics.

Superb reading Bob. Incidentally, she describes her UK fan base as 'ratty'. Now 'ratty' in British English can mean 'in a bad mood' or 'annoyed'. Is she suggesting we're rodent like?

I very likely that the Bongiovi guy is the same one that worked on Darryl Stewart's Wand tracks at the Record Plant in NYC.

Thanks Dave!!

Does this refrain from a tune ring a bell with anyone? My mate thinks it may be from a Jive Five tune but isn't 100% sure. Any help appreciated...

The Jive Five too!!

The clips are too dark to really judge if people are 'moving in the prescribed fashion'. People will groove the way they want or however it suits or grabs them. Youtube is full of clips of ageing gits and gitesses 'scatting' or attempting to scat as if they were back at Cleethorpes Pier 1976. Personally I find 'exhibition dancers' like this embarrassing to watch. It's not about who moves best it's about doing your own thing, freestyle. Gone are the days when the dance police would be observing your every move to make sure it didn't veer away towards something less orthodox (remember Blackpool Mecca?). It's also very ingenuous (or pigheaded) to assume that the whole of the freakin' world is still looking to the UK for inspiration. People like Butch and Soul Sam are appreciated for who they are, their exclusive sounds and their general disposition to get people on their feet, but they aren't indispensable. People will look to the UK and then look away again. There are plenty of records out there and with the right nose they can be sought out and played, whether they'd be accepted in a Uk context or not. Too much navel contemplation going on over there perhaps...

Spaceland might have cashed in on the Apollo mission too? Or am I getting this wrapped round my uri gagarins?

I'd say we like predominantly Black American uptempo dance records from the 60's and in some cases, the early to mid 70's. We also like lots of records recorded by white artists that try to encapsulate this sound. Some of us even like records that don't try to encapsulate this sound. We are a wide church, as Jim Callaghan used to say...

You can also see the faces in detail for the first time. Younghearts indeed...

I'll swear to you it's the first time I've seen the bugger. Mark, I notice that first picture is dedicated to a Chema Rios. He's actually a friend of a friend. A long time Beatle nut who recently offered me a pedal from Lennon's gran piano. Needless to say I declined his kind offer. He lives in La Coru±a & is an eminent gynecologist. Mad as a box of frogs though.

Only nutters like ourselves would probably scrutinise something like this, but I reckon this is a Major Lance LP in McCartney's hand. Everybody knows the Beatles were heavily influenced by the sound of Black America, but Major Lance is a bit of a surprise. But then again, it might not be. Records like The Monkey Time were huge hits over there in 1963/4 so the Fabs would have been buying the stuff they happened to be hearing in clubs during their time off. Bruce Springsteen's live version of Mary's Place from the 2004 tour features The Monkey Time too. I reckon that a lot of folk in the 70's were under the impression that Major Lance was some obscure recording artist, but it wasn't obviously the case, was it? What do yous think?

He also played esperanto and said the intro sounded like a certain rotund blackpool mecca dj tap dancing. Yes, mr. lewin, kypros and nipper, aka john foote, with an 'e'. I've tried searching for him on facebook but no joy. used to pawn my watch on a monthly basis at the fleet. curry at the mumtaz before the all-nighter. beers in the white lion before the long walk down bridge street to fletton.