Rick Cooper

Great work Paul, working so small is tricky but you've got the details just right. I don't remember when the balcony was extended but I wasn't paying much attention to the finer points of interior design. I went to most of the nighters but tended to stay in one area just behind the box office and on the floor or sometimes on the main balcony. I thought there was a raised part or balcony to the right of the stage where the DJs and a few VIPs hung out . This may have been used when there was a live act but I'm not sure now. I assume you've seen the very early black and white photos with the couples waltzing on the dance floor and a good view of the balcony. They were put on the Gallery section here but I couldn't find them so looked on Google Images.

Sounds like a number of jazz singers that were updating their recordings around 64-67. Some possibles are Della Reese, Ethel Ennis and Margie Day, but I've never heard them do this track. Margie Day does a pretty good Nancy Wilson impersonation on this track, Ain't It the Truth (also done by Roy Hamilton)

From the lack of reply posts it looks like photos are rarer than the records. Like Frankie C above I wish I could go back in time with a digital camera and photo all the boxes of records and inside every shop and warehouse from the 70s. At the time the idea of taking photos of records was something that I never even considered. Just getting them was enough and who would have thought fifty years later any one would want to see them. The only photos I took from back then were street scenes and tourist attractions . However I took a photo of the outside of Global Records in Philadelphia, which if I'd taken a photo inside, would have shown boxes and boxes of some decent titles. At least a thousand copies of Precisions- If This Is Love and lots of Swan and Arctic stuff. For Rock and Roll fans there were loads of Sun titles and Country and Western fans would have been in heaven.

I did a search for Youngblood Smith on Record World's archive site but there is no mention of the record at all. Usually there is some mention of most singles so it's strange that the record never got any reviews or DJ pick. As a comparison I looked for some other Verve releases around 1966. The High Keys , Shalimars and Howard Guyton all got one mention each, which still isn't much for a major label. Could be Verve just issued singles in the hope that some might take off without spending much on promotion.

Paul Bostock's market stalls in Bradford and Leeds famously had huge quantities of Verve and MGM titles around 72. The Verve ones I remember were Ambers, Superiors, Shalimars, Triumphs, Clara Ward, Terri Byant and lots of Howard Tate and Garnnet Mimms. Paul soon caught on that he could charge more than the usual 25p and he advertised in Black Echoes the most popular titles. I bought a Robert Banks (on a promo) from Bradford but it was from the 25p mixed stock. Other people must have got copies but there was never a big enough quantity for Paul to hike the price. Agree that it was only a big record for a few months but I always liked it, especially getting one for 25p. I remember Swish almost falling down the stairs at Leeds Central when I played it there, it was his favourite record at that time. I've never seen a stock copy of Youngblood Smith and I don't think Bradford market ever had any on promo or stock copy. The first time I came across it was as the bootleg. I think Simon Soussan pressed it up much too soon as it wasn't a well known record. Maybe one of the Clitheroe and Colne Chinstrokers Club might have a stock copy tucked away .

Well spotted and thanks for checking. However, I think Kev would be the first to admit that the info available to him over twenty years ago was a lot more limited than today. Also he wasn't writing a price guide book so he wouldn't need to research the price for every record . As there are no issues listed on popsike and no one on here has seen a copy I'm still doubtful that the stock ever reached distributors or shops. Maybe Robert Banks thought he would concentrate on his producing and writing so Verve pulled the single and binned all the stock copies after the promos had been sent out.

That's a no then. A search of Record World from 1967 has three mentions of Robert Banks. A brief mention of the single ("Smile" listed as the reviewed side) from 12th Sept 67, the LP listed on a Verve advert from 12th Feb and a photo with Curtis Blandon signing to Tower. Assume Record World would have had a promo copy. I can't find any chart placing or radio plays, maybe others ( @The Yank or @Blackpoolsoul) might have better ways of searching archives or perhaps @Robbk might remember seeing the record. Could be the record never made the shops. https://worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-Business/Music/Archive-Record-World-IDX/IDX/60s/67/RW-1967-08-12-OCR-Page-0066.pdf#search="robert banks"

Anyone seen or got a stock copy of Robert Banks- Mighty Good Way on Verve. I never saw any from all the Verve titles on Bradford market and Popsike only has promos.

I've got a Kelly Brothers CD - Sanctified Southern Soul on US Excello which has the same tracks and pic sleeve as the Kent release. The liner notes on the Excello disc are by Robert Pruter but I'm not sure if the Kent CD uses the same notes. Anyway, the detailed info mentions R Crume (songwriter and producer on the Pat Bryan disc) it says- "Robert Kelly played guitar and two other gospel musicians worked with the group , two members of the notable Crume family, brothers Dillard and Rufus. The Crume brothers shared in many of the song credits on Simms" The notes end by saying that Excello dropped the group in 1970 and they returned to Chicago. They performed their hits but were getting asked to do gospel material again. Offe Reese ( who was part of the Kelly Brothers) had a record label in Chicago that recorded both gospel and R&B. It doesn't say the Kellys recorded either together or solo. As of 1996 the Kelly Brothers all live in Chicago and occasionally get together to perform . There's no mention of Kelly and the Soul Explosions but that doesn't mean there was no connection, maybe a little more research could prove fruitful. Over to you.

As Simon Sousson was on the West coast he might not have been involved with arranging the deal with Popcorn Wylie. There were a few people in Philadelphia that could have arrange it or Selectadisc could have negotiated with Popcorn direct. Maybe @Gilly would know.

Has anyone got or seen a stock issue of The Guys From Uncle- The Spy on Swan? Nothing on the usual sites.

Never seen the white demo for sale, it's only the blue label issue that I meant as under a fiver.

Definitely not the rarest WD but one I've always liked and somehow kept after selling most other records. Soul Bowl had a huge quantity of the Sue group of labels around 1974/5 which after John had taken all the NS, Belgian and Japan titles sold the rest to Global Records. I had to go through these to see if there was anything suitable for the Surinam scene in The Netherlands. Out of the thousands and thousands of records there were no white demos (or coloured demos) on any title. This seemed strange as Sue was a well established company who must have needed to supply radio and TV stations , maybe they pressed only what they thought was needed. White demos seem to be done for most titles but I wonder if there are any that people haven't come across. A Global list from 1986 so they still had stocks of some titles

The blue label issues turned up in large quantities not long after the initial plays but I don't remember seeing any white demos at the time . Still not seen any more and discogs doesn't seem to list any. A record that used to fetch a good price,( or even better swops), but now under a fiver.

At the time instrumentals were massive so assume Selectadisc (or their US contact) would have just asked Popcorn Wylie to make a tape of the backing track to use as the B side.

I remember when I worked at Global a couple of DJs/ collectors from Belgian would come over and spend all day searching through all the mixed un-listed stock playing the records on a portable player. The probable years would be around 72 to 76. At first the records they bought were fairly obvious early to mid sixties soul such as the ones playing on the clip, however in later years I couldn't work out why they were buying more M-O-R , Jazz , pop crooners and strange instrumentals. This must be what Chris referred to as the deviation from the early origins. This is a page from a wants list showing some of the titles from around 75-76. The figure on the left is the price he would pay, note Kit Kat 711 at £150. Records were frequently bootlegged so Luc Heymans would tell me not to look for these records as they were not worth much, if anything. This letter from 77 mentions the Dick Baker title, previously the most valuable record on the scene. It's on YouTube for anyone curious enough to suffer ( no, it's not that bad really, no worse than some NS records) They also wanted reggae records Tracks were played from LP and EPs. Here some weird stuff creeps in. Les Baxter, Floyd Crammer, Henry Mancini and Xavier Cugat must have had the right beat but miles away from Major Lance. There were quite a few similarities with the UK Northern scene but I thought the clubs were open during daylight and early evenings with no alcohol or other substances, maybe I'm wrong here. The photos outside the club in the video all seem to be during the day. belgian wants list.pdf

Donna Coleman- Your Love's Too Strong and George Wydell- Funny Feeling both fairly well known around 72 / 73. I think both got plays at Manchester Pendulum and early times at Blackpool . Ruby Andrews- Just Loving You was around late 70s /early 80s but not really played at clubs. Agree about Hyde, great club and where I first heard quite a lot of the Stafford type records. Top DJs and excellent guest spots. Memories of Big Scotty covering the whole length of the dance floor to the likes of Freddie Houston.

Doesn't seem like three years since the first one but it was worth the wait. Some tracks on other CDs but nice to have these and new ones on one disc. The usual excellent sleeve notes and photos. I hope volume three won't take so long.

For anyone who wants The New Sound LP it was issued on a CD by Outta Sight in 2011, coupled with the Willie and West -At Their Best LP plus Robert Tanner - Sweet Memories. The sound quality is fairly good, much better than most Turbo/Stang vinyl . At present it is listed as being in stock on their web site.

Phil It's a bit tricky claiming that a record was played first, or only, at The Torch as back then there was only a handful of top DJs and they would travel all over the place. In particular many top sounds were first played at the Catacombs but if you never went there you wouldn't know. Also the records weren't that rare compared to some today. Once a title was known it didn't take long for other copies to turn up. There weren't any unreleased acetates or "only one known copy", like there are today. Some I remember as first played at The Torch are- Lenis Guess -Just Ask Me Chubby Checker -Just Don't Know Jimmy Thomas- Beautiful Night Pearlean Gray- I Don't Want To Cry Earl Wright- Thumb a Ride However, I'm sure someone will claim to have heard them somewhere else first. There is a live recording from then, which although the sound is a bit rough it has the atmosphere of the club oozing from it, especially the DJ chat. I can't get the link to copy and paste but if you go on mixcloud ,search The Torch it comes up as the top result.

Maybe this is a well known fact but it's something I hadn't noticed before. The first issue of Houseparty on Beacon appears to have been made using the metal stamper from the US Showtime pressing. It could be that when the deal was done in Philly, Milton Samuel came back with a set of stampers to save the expense of having it mastered in the UK. As the stamper would wear out Beacon would have had to get it mastered here but by then the record was selling well. Are all the first issues like this? STR 101A in the runout but looks like some attempt to scratch it out, The Beacon number isn't on the vinyl which must have been tricky for the pressing plant matching the labels to the stamper. Mastered by Frankford/Wayne still showing-

Well, that's interesting. It looks like Showtime was going to issue Got To Get Closer/ Heartbreaker as a follow up to House Party but it only made it to test pressings. Beacon in the UK (and the other EU issues) must have preferred Shake Your Mini as an A side and used Heartbreaker as a B side. The single sided test pressings of Got To Get Closer that Irving Weinroth (owner of Showtime/Partytime) gave me in the 70s he might have had made at that time as Heartbreaker was already licensed to Beacon. I don't remember what he told me about Closer but I think he was just seeing if we were interested in issuing it in the UK on Cream. It came out on Inferno later as Cream had curdled by then.

I think there was a copy auctioned by John Manship about 4 or 5 weeks ago but I can't find it, maybe @Zanetti could find it for you. Great record, especially for a Country and Western harmonica player.

There was a discussion about this some years back, so together with the charts above from The Yank should shed some more light on the record's past.

Being old enough to remember when you could find records in garages, newsagents, junk shops, the Co-op, DIY stores as well as record shops for under 50p the thought of paying a couple of hundred for a title I let go for peanuts, even it was a bargain, is just too depressing to contemplate. Even buying from the States paying more than $1 was a step too far in the 70s. Prices seemed to be relatively cheap in the early 80s as well. When eBay came along I wasn't really looking to buy 45s as there was so many great CDs to buy which had almost every decent track in perfect sound with extensive sleeve notes. However around 15 years ago I started buying UK releases of 60s records that I wanted , but couldn't afford, when I was a teenager. These seemed to be almost the same price as back then, so very cheap . The obvious biggies still went for quite a lot but loads of classics and mid tempo records were usually under a tenner. There was plenty of stuff on Atlantic, Chess, London, Stateside and the like for around £3 to £10. A couple I picked up around seven years ago were The Darlettes- Lost on President and Nancy Wilson - Where Does That Leave Me on UK Capitol bought for the starting bids of 99p because no one else wanted them. Both in near mint and by coincidence both Van McCoy songs. They're never going to be worth loads but seem to be listed around £20 to £30 on Discogs. Some years back eBay seemed to make a number of changes to listings that make bargains harder to find. The suggestive pricing and automatic re-listing leads to loads of over priced titles going round and round for months. Maybe I'm not adding the right filters but I don't have the time to look through hundreds of thousands of listings. Also sellers went over to other markets meaning that good stuff was not as plentiful. The bargains other people got all seemed to be quite a few years ago so it looks like prices are still on the up.