Frankie Crocker

Thanks for the heads up. Russ is a top man in my books. Stuart Maconie is excellent value. Both Wigan men, I’d expect them to do justice to the subject.

Fortunately, it was not my copy but it belonged to someone else who didn’t rate it. Think I read about it on here years ago. I wince in pain when I read these stories.

Ouch... Nearly as bad as throwing a Magnetics on Bonnie off Cleethorpes Pier. Good luck with your search.

Did you manage to collect every record played at Wigan? Sticking closely to the topic of the thread, would you say that the ‘best’ records brought the best out of the dancers at the Casino?

I missed out Jimmy Burns...

Donna King, Johnny Hendley, Yvonne Vernee, Holly St James...still big sounds today but rarer than ever👏👏👏👏 Thanks for posting. A great set of tunes.

Necklace had a black fist. Sandy wore towelling wristbands and tucked a beer towel into the waistband of his bags. Probably did more than anyone else to present a much-copied dress style as he was an eye-catching dancer with a much-copied routine of acrobatic stunts in between stints of pedestrian footwork.

A couple of tasty rare tracks here but quite a few poppy-soul sounds too. The Sharonettes were big in September 1974. Tommy Hunt given a big plug as the Casino’s house act. The chart reads like a sales listing of UK tracks and recently pressed bootlegs available. Some really popular tracks are not mentioned yet they peaked mid ‘75 eg Pye Disco Demand series.

Not too sure about this. I think she’s dancing for the camera. She’s mixing up three styles of dancing with bit of showing off thrown in. Admittedly, the tune prompts a bit of doing the fandango, but the video star has got carried away methinks. There are better video clips of her strutting her stuff at other venues.

Not convinced the warped record in the oven between two sheets of glass method works. I tried it with a Lonnie Lester and well and truly corrugated it. In the short run, you can increase the tracking weight of the tone arm, but this is a nuisance. In the long run, I would upgrade the record if it was a favourite that was played regularly. There are old record decks out there that play warped vinyl without significant deterioration so maybe need to sell on to another collector.

Glad the thread is still running. Hottest topic on here for a while. Please keep it open as it is a great read with lots of good clips. AND we’re really looking forward to the next show...

Some good tunes here. The answer is ultra-catchy up-tempo but not too fast. Would need to be well known as most dancers back off when confronted with ground-breaking tunes. Of the above, Delites or Marie Knight would do the trick. Constellations for sure. Joe Hicks ‘Don’t It Make You Feel Funky’ might be better than his rare track perhaps?

Yep. Dancing on autopilot. The more proficient interprete the music and adapt their footwork. Shuffle to 70’s and stomp to 70’s... or is it the other way around? Some lads and lasses in the video clips mix the two styles up to good effect. And a big nod of thanks to Judd and others fir providi g the clips.

Now there’s a title for the next BBC Saturday night prime time slot - ‘The Effortless Dancer’... But maybe not as we dance for pleasure and not the cameras, we dance to the music and not the judges, we dance in grungy subterranean caverns and not under the spotlights, we dance for ourselves and not a critical audience.

He’s just mucking around in front of the camera after putting in a bit of serious footwork. The trousers confirm he has a sense of humour and knows a good tailor. Now the lass in the reddish-orange top is really showing how it can be done

Good post Kathryn. Let’s keep the scene under the radar of Joe Public. The music and dancing are there to be enjoyed by the committed few and not p!?@#* over by the masses.

Hi Steve. Was just chilling on the sofa, TV on the background, The Mrs in the kitchen, just a typical Saturday eve just in from the gym then this pops up. I’m all for a bit of family entertainment on the Beeb and have even looked at the occasional dance act on a previous series. When something like this intrudes, you tend to sit up and take note, particularly if it is discussion-worthy. It is probably better to watch and suffer rather than switch off and remain ignorant as to what occurred. Having watched the dancer put in an amateurish performance, despite the acclaim of the judges, I felt it appropriate to pass comment - ultimately, it would have been better had the chap not appeared as this segment did not present the Northern Soul scene in a truly representative manner ie most Northern dancers would not dance this way or perform spins/acrobatics in an unaccomplished way.

Plenty of good Northern releases in this batch. Proves there’s still records out there to be snapped up.

That’s What I Want To Know... Mind you, some old biddy was dancing to Hawaii Five-O later on and doing a better job of it...once a Casino classic...

You beat me to starting the thread. The Greatest Dancer currently on BBC1 has just featured a hopeless ‘dancer’ showcasing Northern Soul dance moves. The acrobatic stunts were amateurish in their execution. The tippy-toes prancing style was excruciating to watch. I can only express total embarrassment with regard to this shameless exhibitionism. I will spare the old lad further shame by not naming him. As one of the comperes said, ‘if he wore different shoes, he would look like a clown’... well he did a fine job of looking a total kook and ridiculing the scene just a bit further and on prime time. Pass the sick bucket please...

Nice sound. Is it for sale?

Where are the matrix boys when you need them? Chalky, you want to go on Mastermind sometime?

The two Panther labels are obviously different, one being red and the other yellow. Whether they are the same outfit or two different set-ups I am not sure. As Chalky suggests, there could be a link. The red label is of the earlier plain generic type whilst the yellow one looks later and backed by more promotion finance. Having two separate indie labels clashing names in adjacent states would be most unusual, even back then so I would be inclined to suspect a connection of some sort QED.

It’s a decent Motown cover and quite soulful despite the group composition. No fuss really, just another obscurity receiving some recognition after 50 years of being overlooked. Certainly a record that merits discussion following a noteworthy sale price recently. I would be interested to know if there are any other soul records on the Panther label in view of Ward Burton’s and Ronnie Lowe’s releases.

Yep. I won the copy on Popsike that went for $59! Well pleased with the record. Like yourself, I saw one sell for much more last week. All the Ronny Lowe copies seem to have ‘vocal by Willie’ on them. The Willie Hammond version is scarcer as last time I looked, only two copies featured on Popsike.