Steve G

Really interesting. The Jack Montgomery story is slightly at odds with the interview Don gave to Soulful Kinda music some years ago. So piecing the two together, i think what happened was: "Dearly Beloved" + "Do you believe it" + "Never leave me" all cut at United Studios Then 3 further sides cut in New York at scepter - "Dearly beloved" vocal retake + "Baby baby take a chance on me" + "Don't turn your back on me" . Scepter issue "Dearly beloved" + "Do you believe it" in June 66 Baraccuda put out "Don't turn your back on me" early 67 with the instrumental of the Honeybees on the B side. Johnny hawks "Baby baby Take a chance on me" to Revue who put it out early 68. Make sense?

Soul City stocked imports and started in 67. Before that there were one or two places in london (and probably elsewhere!) that took limited numbers of imports - probably albums mainly. David N. was telling me about one such place near Leicester Square that he used to go into but it was very hit and miss. Also I've seen adverts for mail order from the mid 60s. I remember John A. telling me that when he was a young DJ in Glasgow mid 1960's, one of the clubs he was booked at had some shelves of imports, which mightily impressed him as up until that point he'd only seen Stateside / London etc.

Hi Kris, Most of the early ones were vinyl (including the Soul Brothers). The styrene started to become derigeur c 66.

Hi Greg, Living the nighlife was on vinyl, quite a few of them were....more styrene after 66.

Yes George you are right Wand was supposed to be for R&B sounds although it got blurred as time went on. It sounds odd but the Scepter folk thought the Kingsmen were black when they heard Louie Louie and that's why they went onto Wand! Stemmons Express were a white group from Dallas. I always thought it was a great record though. Dickens - I have never seen an issue only the promos that the band were supposed to have liberated some months later. There are a number of other rare rock / psych things on the label, but it seems little demand for them - Red Lite district is another one. Also there are some I have never seen an issue for - like Quarter to Three.

Gareth - re "Any Day Now" - probably re-pressed in a rush. Here is a link I have found that mentions Scepter's relationship with Columbia..... https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7v7wJqhaBhoC&pg=PA141&dq=norman+dolph+scepter&hl=en&sa=X&ei=CbI8Ud35BdOR7Ablr4HoAg&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=norman%20dolph%20scepter&f=false

It was also about belonging to a "scene" back then. Wigan was where you met other people that shared your taste in fashion and music.....

Gareth I was teasing you a bit. Scepter DID INDEED use Columbia for their pressing. They were one of the labels signed with Columbia's Custom Label division throughout the 60's. The stars on the labels, the litho was done by a seperate company (Queens Litho for a lot of them?) which would have been supplied to Scepter's own design (with stars) and then supplied to Columbia to be stuck on the records once pressed.

Why do you not think it's Columbia Gareth?

There are loads of oddball things....one sided demos, a weird red Kingsmen Wand 45 with a totally different label design, as i say no hard and fast rules. Bob the rare doo-wops are The Jokers and The Ti-tones, both v hard on Wand, but both exist def. 100% And Scepter did not distribute Gold Gareth.

Peter Jay - I do not believe this came out on Wand. Gloria who ran the Scepter Wand Appriecation Society here in 1964 had a major falling out with him in record Mirror over his covering of US 45s. Paul Cantor, Dionne and others would have seen that since Gloria re-published the letters in her newsletter. I have never seen a copy of Tiny Golden and his Trumpet and wouldn't believe it exists, except some dude in the US insists he has a copy. And then there is The mysterious Nornetts, which no one knows anything about, and The Peter Thomas groupe - never seen that on Wand either...... In response to Bob's ? yes no rules, they pressed in small quantities and all over, but usually using as cheap materials as they could - so styrene more often.

Dave some of the post 72 stuff was on styrene as well.

Seized on by the anti-bodies too. The fact is that Sam played it before it got into the charts, when it was a red hot import.....

In the early years they used quite a few pressing plants and so quite a few records exist on vinyl. There is no golden rule though over numbers and how they were pressed (indeed the actual black and white label design had several variants as well). by contrast, Scepter until the mid 60's more often than not were on vinyl rather than styrene - but again not exclusively. For example Junior Lewis and one of Dionne's were only on styrene because their usual pressing plant at the time was on strike. Also towards the end with the orange Wand's, these were by and large vinyl.

Living in the south in a way I was always exposed to it, and knew of the Mecca 70s stuff. But I guess what kick started the modern scene into life was the late 70s W.C playlists of Top Cat, Lee Moore & resourceful Ones, Brainstormers, James Mack & Chicago Gangsters, Love Committee and the like. I needed to get these records.... John Anderson was the man who first got those records and sold them to the then top DJs.

Both good records on the label....IMHO of course. Nice thread.

Indeed, Yate played it's fair share of turkeys too, as did St Ives.....Mickey mouse Concerto anyone? Ral Donner, lest we forget! Fair play Sheffsoul, they were all at it back then. And let's be truthful "Queen of fools" ain't exactly a soulful record is it.... I also remember walking miles to a Niter at St Albans fire station, and one of the DJs was jumping up and down and playing Sammy Davis Jr vocal to Hawaii 5-0, is that any more soulful than Peggy March.....Nope.

Not quiet. This record is widely believed to be actually by the Atlantics, rather than the Majestics. Barry White had left the Atlantics by this point and had gone solo. I've got some notes on it somewhere.

It was a BIG sound at Soul Essence in the 90s. Reissued on goldmine I think?

on demo it's green

Dance to the music sly & The family stone....

Their version of "love is allright" on a mini 4" vinyl is the one to own

Can we merge the other threads in, rather than duplicate....

Where did you find this Roburt?

Bad form by the DJs to be duplicating sounds..... keeping it fresh for over 500 years.....