Rick Cooper

Like others I've had a few knee issues this year. Could hardly walk in May but the X-ray was clear, physio diagnosed damaged meniscus (never heard of this but apparently it's something between the bones). Slowly recovered and managed a few runs recently. Unfortunately, the dog has decided she can't be bothered to come as well, after initial enthusiasm she turns back. Did a bit of swimming and cycling as I was told this was less strain on the knee. I've never fancied a gym, looks too competitive and judgemental plus all the expensive fancy stuff that seems necessary puts me off. Agree with others that getting out and moving is well worth it, both physically and mentally.

Hard to pick one track as a favourite as all his lead vocal tracks are superb. As a showcase for Paul's talent I'd go for Last One Out Is Brokenhearted issued on the Lost and Found CD of unissued recordings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhe2j8e8lLM The YT video gives some info on the track. Also worth a listen is the extended version someone has made. For more of Paul watch the live video of For Once In My Life from T.C.B TV special on YT.

Some other Canadian singles I had in the mid 70s came from Oldies Unlimited in Telford. This was a place that sold packs of singles as well as pop oldies, there are some previous discussions on here that give more info. With Terry (Mr Tee from Kidderminster) we managed to get access to the stock rooms, not easy as the owner was reluctant to let anybody go through the boxes. Most records we found were multiples of early 70s Philly and New York labels. Terry was selling at the Mecca as well as his shop so took quantities of lots of titles, the best one was Andre Maurice- Cream of the Crop. Scattered through the boxes we started finding small quantities of Canadian singles. In the end we got, Eddie Parker -Love You Baby, Timmy Willis- Mr Soul Satisfaction and two Precisions titles on Stone, Billy Butler -I'll Bet You on Brunswick and Ben Aiken - Satisfied on Warners. The Stone singles were around 4 to 8 copies of each and the other two one offs. There were no other Canadian singles so how and why these got in to the 70s US lot is a mystery. Canada was also the base for the ex Yorkshireman Martin Koppel, who was one of the earliest dealers to send loads of US singles to the UK. I dug out some of his first lists from 1972/3 to see if he offered any Canadian records. From the ones I've still got all his stock was from the US. Lots of Detroit labels such as D-Town, Premium Stuff, Revilot, Golden World, Groovesville, Soulhawk, Thelma, Moira etc but only one Motown disc (Earl Van Dyke -The Flick). Other labels included Okeh, Brunswick, ABC and Giant. It appears that Canadian soul singles weren't around in enough quantity to make it worth looking for, also Detroit had loads of old singles in large quantities and very cheap. Looking at his lists you can see how quickly he picked up on the in demand titles and putting up his prices and asking for bids on the big records. If anyone who knows Martin it would be interesting to know if he ever talked about finding singles in his home town of Toronto. As a "by the way" he had The Constellations -I Didn't How To for £1 in Sept 72.

The story of how Can I Change My Mind became a big hit is detailed in Robert Pruter's book Chicago Soul. A brief version is in the liner notes for Edsel's CD The Soul Of Tyrone Davis. (last two paragraphs image one then first column image two) A Another strange fact about A Woman Needs To Be Loved is that a very well known radio and TV celebrity cites it as one of his all time favourite records, unfortunately I've forgotten who it is. Anyone know who this could be?

Ian Levine had been playing If This is Love for a couple of months before copies turned up at Global. I remember Colin Curtis phoning to buy a copy. I think it was priced at £5, quite a sum in those days. If Ian hadn't already featured it I'd probably have just put it at £1 as an interesting alternative of The Precisions, which Global had thousands of copies of at 50p.

The Eddie Spencer- If This is Love, turned up in a job lot of singles that Ed Balbier got for Global Records when I worked there in 74. Ed never told me where he bought the records from but he usually went to New Jersey and Philly. Dealers there would sometimes offer him a deal on a container full of records. This shipment had a fair amount of Detroit labels such as Topper, Soulhawk and Miracle but no other Canadian labels. As Eddie Spencer was getting radio play in Detroit and Cleveland (from the info above) and Arc had a US office the Canadian copies must have been shipped to the US rather than get US pressings made, unless they just used the same label for a US pressing. There was around forty to fifty copies of If This is Love in the shipment but about twenty were cracked. The records had been packed in 50 LP size boxes so the top ones were squashed in the centre and some cracked from the edge and then round the label. I took one home and made a drinks coaster from it.

I thought I had a copy of Keep On but don't remember when so had a look through some old lists when I sold up in the 70s (seemed like a good idea at the time). On this page it's listed in the £1.00 each or any 5 for £4.00. It's not crossed out so looks like it didn't sell. This would have been late 1976 and I probably had bought a copy 2 or 3 years before. I don't remember hearing it in a club but could have had some play at Manchester's Pendulum. As it's on the same label as Joan Moody's We Must Be Doing Something Right it got a bit of reflected interest. I think Soul Bowl found quantities of Joan Moody around 74 so Sterling Magee may have been in the same haul. I got a copy of Joan Moody from HMV in Manchester for £1.25 so Soul Bowl must have had so many they sold it shops as well. At the time there were so many records turning up that Keep On didn't get a chance then but seems like it had it had more luck around 77-78 onwards.

From the hits Back In My Arms Again is one of the best , although a big US hit didn't do much in the UK so probably not on the public radar. However, possibly this, and most of the Supremes 60s records would have been much improved by having any other Motown female artist sing instead of Miss Ross. "Stormy" should be in the top picks on here but unknown by the general public.

Some memories of Blue Max by Neil Rushton taken from The Catacombs CD on Charly. Today (30th May) marks the anniversary of his sad death in 2010.

That makes sense as Brad discovered plenty of records and sold them to Ian when he DJ'd at the early days of the Mecca. It must have been Ian that first played it at The Torch. The Mecca started before 1973 playing all 60s records. "Mecca" style came later. Thanks for clearing that up. I think you're right about Keith getting it wrong about finding The Salvadors at Bradford market. From what I remember all the titles there were on major labels or distributed by the majors. It seems unlikely that small indie labels would be in the stock but nothings impossible.

Simon, Not sure if Bok to Bach would have got played at at The Wheel, @Julianb would know for sure. I remember it as one of those records that suddenly appeared one night at The Torch and got played three or four times that night and then every week after. I'm not sure which DJ had it as I wasn't really paying attention, maybe Alan Day. Being a UK record it probably had plays before the Torch, possibly West Midlands, Blackpool, Sheffield or London. After going big at The Torch other copies would have surfaced fairly soon as collectors searched shops, especially down south.

Peter Sorry I can't help you find the copy you're looking for but do you ,or anyone else, know anything about the Sue Rainey record. The 2003 Grapevine CD- Atlanta Soul, The Peachtree Records Story has Peachtree 106 You Hurt So Good as the only record by her issued. Grapevine had access to the Peachtree files and tapes but didn't mention other records by Rainey. Looking at Discogs there are five titles P130 to P134 with unknown dates and the last two have artist and title lettering that looks more modern. Were they all pressed a lot later, maybe for the Japanese market.

The other side (the actual A side) -Love Is The Greatest was a popular record amongst the Suriname collectors in The Netherlands. Looking at the YouTube video for this Willie Weems identified Kitty same as Chalky's quote from Neil Granger's interview. Shame Willie didn't go in to any more details.

Julian There's a half page advert in Blues and Soul announcing the launch of 444 Records, which I put on a thread about the label round about ten years ago but can't find it now. The label design on the ad had a sort of art deco look to it. I think it listed Sam Nesbit as the first release but not sure it mentioned further titles and certainly not Chris Jackson- Since There's No Doubt. I'll try to find the issue with it in and post it again.

The Belgian Popcorn scene had couples dancing to Soul and RnB records which looked OK but a bit limiting. I've seen a couple dancing this way a few years back and they were quite good. Not something I'd like to see too much of.

Your'e not the only one who's confused. The singer sounds more like a male but is female so she is asking her man "Is it Jane or is it me? I don't know if the photo on the YouTube is the group but they have two vocalists, which adds to the confusion. Ady's sleeve notes for the Kent CD- 100 Club Anniversary Singles says of Make Up Your Mind "for some years it must have been the biggest sound down there"

Stuart Maconie's show was very predictable and boring, which was what I expected. He played almost every track from the televised and radio BBC Proms shows. Was this to show how much better the original versions are or how good the Proms versions are. It's the former for me but probably the latter for him. Two tracks that he omitted were Ray Pollard -The Drifter and Jimmy Beaumont's I Never Loved Her Anyway, were these judged too risky? Another missed opportunity from the BBC.

Get ready to party on New Years eve with Stuart Maconie's northern soul show on radio 6 but only for two hours. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001tpg7

If Christmas shopping was as good as this record I might be tempted out.

For the last month or two there has been a TV advert from the NHS to persuade us old folks to get a vaccination against shingles. The background music sounds like a 60/70s funk track but not anything I can find. I've looked on YouTube and Google but couldn't find anything for this. The music starts off in a James Brown type riff and then a male voice sings " I don't wanna be an ???? man". then the voiceover drowns it out. The ???? sound like "imitated" but that doesn't make sense. Any ideas?

Radio Luxemburg for me as well. Also Mike Raven's Sunday night show on the BBC and Emperor Rosko on Saturday morning who used to slip in a few soul records that weren't in the charts.

Mark, yes some were discovered in the seventies as you say, but maybe many more weren't in the hands of DJs (or those that sold to them) or were still to be discovered from the US. Julian B's post of 5th December in the Bostock's in Bradford Market thread is a good example of how records were found but didn't suit the type of records that were popular in clubs back then but got played in the eighties . A few I remember having in the early seventies that only got played later include What Can I Do- George Kirby , Can You Remember- Rhonda Davis, Special Kind of Woman - Paul Thompson (all sold for peanuts). However, I think some records were just never found until the 80s or 90s. No one who found Jackie Day - Naughty Boy in the early 70s wouldn't have bought it blind and then not realised it's potential. Also the acetates from US studios didn't start getting liberated until later on, those who found these could probably give more details.

The prices look more like albums rather than singles. Twenty cents each for five million records is too high for singles and Morris Levy would never pay over the odds. Then selling singles for $1.70 to $3.50 in the 70s is unlikely. Also Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald are album artists, however it shows what went on back in the 70s.

Well let's hear them. In 1975 I got to go to a couple of lock up garages they had and the upstairs room behind some shops, but both of these were where they stored the pop titles and singles that had already been on the stalls and not sold. Both a complete waste of time.

Looking through the MGM and Verve label listing on 45cat, a few others I don't remember seeing are MGM- Carol and Gerri and any Invitations releases, Andrea Henry. Verve- Wilson Picket, The Chantells, Clara Ward- Right Direction, Billy Woods, any Nick Ashford, Barbara Banks, Tommy Yates. All the titles seemed to be from January 1966 to December 1968. Maybe MGM/Verve had a clear out limited to those dates which ended up at Bostock's. They also had a lot of mixed singles from loads of labels but again mainly 66- 68. These were unsorted and they put fresh stock out daily so it was easy to miss the one-offs. I think I got all the earlier Billy Butler OKeh singles and a few other good titles. Later on they found a small quantity of Alice Clarke -You Hit Me but Paul Bostock knew by then that he could charge a lot more for some titles, I think this could have been £3.00.