Neckender

Superb Graham!

mark, my copy of the Mystery men-city skies (pt.1) is on Penthouse 1002. Instrumental to 'thank the lord for love'

ditto Andy Dyson.

Well known in my world of collecting. pm if you ant further info.

The first copy came from Soulbowl and landed in Gary Spencer's box, a good thirty years ago. Gary played it for a while, but he wasn't djing for long and therefore it didn't get widely known. It was a one off for a while until I found a copy Stateside.

The Perfections-love storm-Drive exc. condition. Small writing on label. Rare and sought after group soul, with two great sides. Taking offers via PM system. The first reasonable offer will get it. Thanks for your interest.

Taken far too early. Like so many have already said, what a nice bloke he was. Terrible news.

Yes Ed, I did. Its a different production, slightly more uptempo. cheers, B

I didnt play it until recently. I had much better records to include in my spots back in the 80s and 90s. But it did finally get onto the shelf of possibilites, as I did more European bookings.

Almost correct Chalky. The first copy that i got was an acetate on a US buying trip in the late 80s. I didnt know who the artist was until I mentioned it to Tim and he filled me in about the Cream copy that he found. I later bought a Cream copy on Ebay from a guy who had bought Rene Hall's storage unit after his death. Rene Hall was the arranger on this record and a multitude of other records. The A-side, 'I need a love so bad' is written by Bob Relf and the B-side is 'crook your little finger' the same song as Anne Heywood's version.

Is that a bootleg?

It isnt the Demures.

Yes, i met Andrew at their shop in Main street, Merced. I gave John a lift up to Merced and while there i looked at some of the stock in the shop. The next day I left John there and went over to san francisco. I dont know how the shop worked between them because john lived in LA. and he didnt drive.

Chalky, Ill give it a spin the next time we're out somewhere and you can show me how to dance to it!!

It might have been rare when Saus first got that Defenders, but it isnt so rare now. Ive had quite a few through my hands since that earlier period that you mentioned. And other people too.

Condition: exc. I would prefer a heavyweight trade, but will take offers (until June 12th) Personal Messages only please. Postage: special delivery or tracked. Thanks.

never was a cover up. Its been around for decades. Played more recently as a reactivated oldie.

RE. Daniel Madison. A reasonably rare record, but not as rare as suggested. I know of a few more copies in Britain besides mine and a lot more overseas. Commonly referred to as deep soul, 'it doesnt matter baby' has also been a firm favourite in Japan for decades and sure enough, that's where most of the copies of Transitional 101 reside. Many seem to forget that the majority of the rarest deep and sweet soul 45s were shipped to Japan, way before we even understood those concepts. Perhaps because of the language barriers and the distance between our countries, Japan very rarely gets mentioned in the rare soul discussion. That's a pity, because like the British, since the 60s they have been pioneers in finding and collecting rare soul records, especially the slower, ballad styles.

IMHO, I think its a great record and has many ingredients that a female Northern record should have. Probably suffers from the Northern scenes bias for male vocals and the distracting elements of all the musical turds that have been masquarading as Northern, particularly in the last 25 years. Also a note on the history of this record. As comments on the websites of Anglo American & John Manship suggested, that the Stella and the Gazelles was discovered first, in the 90s and sometime later, the Passionetts was unearthed. Actually, it was the other way around; the Passionetts was listed quite a few times in the 70s on the Soul Bowl rarities page, where my copy came from for £5. I know also that Tim A. bought a copy from John. During the 80s on US buying trips, I bought two more copies of the Soul Burst 45 and subsequently sold them to well known djs. It was later in 1995 that I found the Frankford Wayne acetate of the Stella version. When I first played it I instantly recognised it and thought it was the passionetts acetate. It was only when I returned back home I was able to compare it to the Soul Burst release and found it had a different lead vocal. The acetate has the artist as Crystal Motovation, not Stella and the Gazelles (see below)

The original is very easy to identify.

Check with Yann Vatiste. He has a record recovery service.

Well, Keb had a go at filling the floor with it in 1982, as it was his James Shaw c/u. Here is that very copy. As Dobber points out, it isnt much of a floor filler and as I remember thinking back to the 80s, it didnt do much for Mr Darge either.

Myself and John Hillyard were driving to Sacramento for an appointment that I had made with Richard Bass, who I had been buying records from for many years previously. Richard ran a record shop in Oakland during the 70s and had tons of Soul 45s, especially West coast releases. He had agreed to let me look through his stock, but when he saw that John was with me, he did a reverse ferret and said that we couldn't look. He had never met John and he told me that he didn't trust him! John wasn't the best presented person that I knew, but he had a heart of gold. I tried to reason with him, explaining that he was an extremely honest person and that John had a great reputation down in L.A. It came to nothing, so dissapointed, we left and drove over to a record shop in K street, Sacramento. I had this shop in my personal contacts book and I thought it would be worth checking out. We walked into the shop !Records! as it was called and started to look in the 45 racks. In no time i had found all the Lorraine Chandlers-RCA and a few of the other Northern RCAs, Some Dore releases, Jesse James-Shirley, Strange Change-Argo, Celest Hardie-Reynolds, James Wesley Smith-Angel Town etc. There was even a Renfro section in those racks (Carl Hendersons, Sam cox, Helen Moore & John Westleys) It became evident that no other British Northern buyers had been in there. As I was moving through the racks the owner of the shop said those magical words: 'are you guys looking for promos' After replying in the positive he directed us to load of boxes behind a curtain. After an afternoons work looking through the boxes I had pulled about 400 soul records. John had also a large box of 45s that he bought. During a 3 week, full on record buying trip to the States, this was one of those satisfying days. Here is a typical letter from John. He begins with some political stuff and then a list of soul 45s that he's recently found.