Ady Croasdell

Richard Searling's copy was on a very unassuming typed white label as Ann Bridgeforth. Not Ric Tic one of Dave Hamilton and Rony Darrell's own productions that never came out. If we're talking acetates the Ben E King 8" Mirasound with sheet music must be up there, a complete one-off by a huge artist that even Atlantic didn't have. I'm not selling mind you!

Very good to play out at an R&B do, it's a bit faster than the Downey CD version. But feel free to play the CD or a carver of it if you or anyone really like it.

Nice one Seb, is the Detroit Gold one rare, i couldn't find it in either price guide. I agree I think the Pic & Bills aren't Detroit, just curious about the similar name.

You see that little fat thing in the avatar? Well he gets through that in nappies in a week; so it's all in a good cause!

Jersey Boys is great apart but don't expect the night or You're Ready Now. Hugely entertaining, funny and I even learnt a lot. Buy the Four Seasons box set CD with my sleevenotes on the same page as Nicole Kidman's; we don't usually hang out together.

I managed to at last find the Teen Post 45 of his 'She Wabbles When She Walks' and it's a totally different version to the Downey recording I incorrectly assumed was the master. It would appear he re-recorded it for Downey and I actually prefer that version; but I would wouldn't I! It's the 2nd track on the New Breed / Popcorn CD right after Luther. At least we can attribute the song to the writers now.

I've seen the Fiery Spartans on Manship's latest auction and don't know much about them. However i picked up a great Jimmy Scott 1972 45 on Detroit Gold with "music by Firery Spartan band. Are these related? I wouldn't have guessed at a Detroit connection with Charay; are the Martha Starrs the same as the Detoit singer? Or was a Fiery Spartan some sort of "in" word in the US back then?

What a terrible shame. I grew up on 'Washed Ashore', 'With This Ring', 'Going To A Happening', 'Ain't Love Good, Ain't Love Proud' and 'I Spy For The FBI' and that was before Northern Soul had even been invented! His first Northern "discoveries" probably fueled the movement for its first formative years and they just kept coming; all the way through to Margaret Little. An incredible talent and a wonderful person. This is a colossal loss.

It's probably his 'Someone Else has Taken My Place which is an unreleased master tape, nowt to do with B E or Won Der Ful! It's a cover-up name.

That's what I also said.

Neil was totally reasonable about the lack of copies for the artists and open to suggestions on how this could be rectified. The claim that it would have been impossible to get copies on US Vhs to the artists is inaccurate. As I said earlier when I filmed Mary Love and Tony Middleton at Cleethorpes I had US copies made for a very reasonable price. The cost of copying one Swons and editing each acts performance for them would have been minimal and would have rewarded the artist properly so that they could get to see their performance. To say there were too many acts to look after is probably the root of the problem. If you had concentrated on a few less it may have been better quality all round. Having said that it would be a shame for those who missed out, I think they're all valid representatives of our music. But once you decide to do a project like that and encourage people like myself and Andy Rix to work for nothing in the hope that it will benefit the music and the artists, then you should look after the artists to this very small extent at least.

You're back quick!

The voice of reason at last. My only slight beef with SWONS was that the artists I helped Ian get didn't get complementary copies for themselves, I think at the time one of you said it was too expensive to convert to the US system but I hadn't found it too bad when I did it for Tony Middleton and Mary Love a few years before. The artists generally performed for the fun of it or the exposure, I don't think many of the ones I helped with got paid so it would have (still would) been nice for them to see their work. Perhaps this could be done now, though its too late for Little Ann and a few others. I enjoyed SWONS greatly and helped where I could until a separate fall out later. You're wrong about Rimmer though!

Nick didn't put the posters up, he didn't know anything about them until they were up. He didn't take them down either,

It's hardly the crime of the century Pete, there were a lot worse actions from the other side like getting our all night licence revoked. I can't remember the web site you refer to, I doubt if it had much impact. Levine had got up the noses of so many of the London soul crowd, people were doing things independently, there were no great orchestrated committee meetings like he has stated.

Pure gibberish, we never had any meetings, anything I arranged with Rob and Nick was done on the phone. I agree its pointless but I won't let you re-write history, your behaviour throughout that period was very poor and you misjudged the London rare soul scene badly and still do to this day. Not surprising really, as you never chose to be a part of it apart from during that brief interlude. I'll leave it now or it will become too time consuming for no real benefit.

As Rob and I were never members of ANS it would be a pointless exercise. It was just you and your friends getting in a tizzy over the fact that the London soul scene wouldn't welcome you like a returning Messiah. Nobody was ever shunned for attending Rocket nights, but plenty didn't go because of your bombastic confrontational way of promoting yourself. As Steve says the number of hardcore London soul fans who boycotted you shouldn't have made too much difference to a venue that boasted 1500 (your figures).

Thanks, no NYC link there

Lovely lad, he's still about and turns up at the odd 100 Club and even Cleethorpes, I think he got hitched and lives over Reading way.

But then again I just double checked and Wah Wah was 16 years old and living in Detroit in 1967 so it weren't him after all!

Wow so he must have moved to NYC in the 60s to produce for Zell Sanders. Thanks for doing all my work today Gareth, I must remember to do that google thing more often!

Thanks kids, bang goes another theory.

Has anyone seen their names on anything else except J&S late 60s singles? They sound a bit West Indian to me.

Scans anyone, Zell's is NYC so obviously Florida would make it unlikely.

Anyone know for sure if this is the same as Henry Hodge or Zell's. Hank is a US nickname for Henry. A scan of Hank's labels might help.