Ady Croasdell

You Da Man Chalks

I will rethink our promo strategy-or lack of it. However with Amazon and the like I think anyone can get a copy easily in the week of release. Not having regular big venues is the main problem, there are hardly any monthly venues let alone weekly and it takes so many plays to break a record you'd have to hold off for a very long time between promos and issues before any momentum was built up.

You are forgiven my child.

Thanks Stu, as I don't get out and about much I needed to know what gets spun around the scene. Thanks massively to all the DJs who don't let the availability put them off playing them out and hopefully this thread will nudge a few to give records like Voo Doo Madamoiselle a chance at a more conservative venue. Other Kent tracks that I think suffer from being available are the Dave Hamilton tracks O C Tolbert 'You've Got Me Turned Around' is at least as good as 'Sweep It Out In The Shed' but has largely been ignored compared to that one and Little Ann Who Are You Trying To Fool should be well known right across the scene; Ian Levine rates it very highly. Maybe if we deleted it and put it out in a different format for ten times the price people would play it-only half-joking!

Thanks Mik, you've nailed the question for me which was actually the secondary one about the younger dance crowd and their preferences. I know that like-minded souls like most fellow SSers are keen for more of the same, I was really just thinking aloud about how hard it is to break new classic uptempo 60s soul dancers. As some of us get to spend less and less time on the dancefloor it's the preferences of the increasingly younger dancers that will dictate the direction the scene goes in. If I play a new 60s discovery that is appreciated mainly by those sitting or verballing and a funkier (in my opinion less g0od) track works for the dancers, as the promoter and DJ I'm going to tend towards the latter in a lot of cases. Though having said that I ain't got many great funk tracks to play so I'll programme more DJs who do-but ones who have collections and tendencies to cover all bases as you never know quite what type of crowd you'll get on the night. I'm rambling a lot here but I suppose the essence of it is if you want more 60s recent discoveries you need to get out on the floor to them as that is the main way a promoter can gauge the direction a club is going in. I do pay heed to comments too but a vital dancefloor is what makes an all nighter a success.

There are a lot of great records that take a few hearings though , as someone stated in this thread the Hy Tones took a long while to get off the ground and DJs like Karl Heard getting behind it helped a lot. So unless it was Marvin's version of Do I Love You (pure fiction folks) or something equally earth-shaking, I don't see your suggestion working Rod. Thanks though. Ady

Correct but slightly different plans are still afoot and I should know more in a month or so. Ady Still available on our Etta CD of course

Harry Gates 'Love Will Find A Way' original publisher's acetate from Shelley Haims' collection. Harry wrote a few Detroit releases mainly for the Enterprise label.

No we don't have a mailing list as they are usually a very limited run and I think there is more chance of a DJ playing a record if he's paid cash for it than got it as a freebie. I've also on occasion done cuts for other DJs to play them out before release but apart from on the Modern Soul scene they don't seem to have either played them or had much effect. One of the problems is that it takes two plus years to break an exclusive record, a figure Butch roughly agrees with, and licensors don't want to wait about that long before royalties start coming through, even though they've waited 50 years since recording them

Don't worry I have every intention of doing that and the releases always sell enough to make them worthwhile but I feel they should be heard out more, not just at the 100 Club.

I wasn't particularly a fan of the Dean Courtney myself as I felt it was too Wigan friendly for my tastes. Did you think any of the Sharon Scott's were better than the released records? I certainly did and I really like the RCA 45. Similarly the unreleased Nancy Wilcox beat the released ones hands down, though the release wasn't so hot in the first place. There was a much bigger buzz when the first lot of RCA/Pied Pipers got played in the 90s than the equally good recent batch. I know a lot of collectors like Eddie Hubbard and the Soul Hit crowd loved them but it only partially crossed over onto the dancefloor.

Wossat? Label that is.

However good they are. I just got a tape through of a storming mid 60s out and out Northern track. Once it's cleared I'll play it at the 100 Club but following Matt's thread I'm wondering if many people will get as big a buzz from it as I do. I think the oldies crowd are mainly happy to relive their youth and if a new Frank Wilson record were discovered, probably wouldn't bother to listen. The rarer soul crowd don't seem to get excited about tape discoveries as they are never going to be able to collect them in original form and when they get issued on a UK 45 don't bother with it because its not vintage US pressing. Even when records go on to the anniversary single the DJs don't usually pick up on them. I remember Richard Searling and many others raving about Dean Courtney's 'Today Is My Day', describing it as an ultimate Wigan record, yet once it was on 45 nobody bothered, and that was with Sharon Scott's sublime 'Putting My Heart Under Lock & Key' on the flip. Records like Luther Ingram 'Oh Baby Don't You Weep' did go big but it was mainly down to the mod scene rather than the Northern. Oddly a lot of the new 100 Clubbers seem keener on the funk edge or R&B than the classic Northern sound. They are open-minded and enjoy it all but their preferences are different to those of us who grew up through the 70s. I'm not bemoaning it, just observing and putting a plug in for people to pick up on some of the old Kent and 100 Club anniversary singles and actually play them out; I think a lot of them deserve some spins and they would be new classic Northern for dancers who must be bored with the top 500 by now.

Doesn't the Supremes label look like the Discovery label design, as in the Bootleggers 45.

Jock and Dave you got pm!

Mal, the Saints and sinners was on Broad St in a seedy dungeon club at the back of an all night cafe frequented by pros. For some reason it was full of our Northants nighter crowd and the only Brummy was Slip who may have hung around with our lot so perhaps he arranged it. Didn't run long but more than a one-off

If our local nighters had been busted then a lot of the crowd would go up to the Wheel or other Northern nighters or even the gay bar in London called Le Douce or summat similar

I'd add Kim Weston Helpless, Esquires Get On Up and And Get Away , Homer Banks Hooked By Love, Tony Clark The Entertainer and several of those Bri Phill listed. And the Harborough nighter was the one the Wheel crowd came to the night it was closed down

PS Dave may have used the term in his shop in 68 but it wasn't in common usage until 70/71 after the B&S usage

hi Brian, no it was a nighter scene. Main ones for me were Kelmarsh, Market Harborough and Bletsoe plus Saints and Sinners in Brum which was full of our crowd and one Brummie! That's the point of the thread, were there other areas as into it as that, apart from Lancs, Yorks and some North Midlands towns?

Not trying to be different but i heard the Havens Polydor LP version in the 60s and have always preferred the intimacy and emotion of his which. i think Spyder loses in the tempo. Undoubtedly Havens would be more like Lightfoot's original which I don't think exists in any form but I'd love to hear. Havens is the ultimate break-up song

I think we're talking 71 at the latest. By 72 it was getting big in a lot of places

The only other oddity in 68-70 I know of was the Portsmouth club that advertised in B&S but unlike our Northants /Beds scene it didn't seem to have links to the rest of the old soul world