Torch56

I first went to Stafford in August 1985. My first visit to a serious venue for over ten years. Somethings were very different. Apart from the obvious changes in dress and hair styles, the tempo of records now had greater range. There were still up-tempo items but now they were supplemented by slower paced stuff which was equally accepted by the punters. What hadn't changed was the edge of moody excitement in the queue outside and especially in the smaller room upstairs before the main hall was opened for business. The first record I heard played there matched this mood perfectly: the Metros, Since I Found My Baby. Now I'm sure this probably received plays before 1985, but not to my ears and, unfamiliar with it as I was, its haunting quality fitted in with the underground feel of the occasion. The DJ added to this alternative feel by wearing a black coat whilst playing the records, few of which I knew, but would become familiar with in ensuing months. The one real stand out sound, even on first hearing, was Sleepless Nights. Originally played ,as I understand, at Wigan circa 1979, it instantly registered as a record that matched my criterion of what top drawer material should sound like and would have made it in any era. Some other sounds that I associate with the venue and struck a favourable chord with me were: Angelina oh Angelina Stewart Ames. - This was very popular and deservedly so. "The biggest thing to hit the dance floor in months" according to George Sharp, who was the black-coated DJ I referred to earlier. Writing in Derek Pearson's Shades of Soul, he described the muffled shouting and screaming in the background as a "weakness" of the track. However, I disagree and think it adds to the atmosphere. Try my love Troy Dodds. - "Absolute monster" according to George. A Ted Massey regular play at The Central Hotel, Cannock later on in the decade Can't do without you Dusty Wilson.-"I'm a gonna play Russian Roulette, puttin' six bullets in the gun..." Great line. "Up-tempo barnstormer" according to you know who. Something new to do Bobby Sheen. - I don't generally like modern stuff but I make an exception for this. Gonna hang on in there girl Jesse Davis. - Got everything needed to have gone big in any era. It hurts too much to cry HB Barnum. - A 1962 recording. Stafford DJs weren't afraid to seek out sides earlier than the 66-68 golden era and this gem was unearthed as a consequence. In the pocket Detroit Strings.- A Ric-tic-type instrumental. Pleasant enough. There was also a different instrumental version of Back Street, played by Guy Hennigan which was second only to 'Angelina' in the popularity stakes. Can't tell you who it was by. As Solidsoul commented earlier, there were lots of sounds that came out of the venue or were reactivated for a new audience there, including me. The items I've highlighted were but a fraction of what was played. I can't pretend I liked everything played at TOTW. In fact, some of it left me cold, but as an antidote to some of the material played earlier elsewhere, it deserves its place to be categorised as a pioneering, ground breaking venue.

There is a tendency to ignore changes of playlists within the time frame of a venue's shelf life. This was the point I was trying to make in my Blackpool Mecca post. I'd hazard a guess that Rick Cooper's experience of the Torch was around the end of '72 and the beginning of '73. That assessment is based purely on the list of sounds he has highlighted that stood out for him. They were all big sounds then, at that time. A Torch playlist from earlier in '72 would have been completely different.

My apologies. I have created this problem by presenting incomplete information from the back cover of the LP. The two tracks referred to were covers by the Echoes and Cassietta Jones and not the original versions by Garnett Mimms and the Incredibles. Since it was a Destiny LP, I am assuming Neil Rushton provided the information as to where, when and by whom played and I would assume it would be accurate. The Cassietta Jones version of There's Nothing... uses the original backing track and was made in 1967. The Echoes is a 1979 tailor made and will not live long in the memory.

I'm sure all of the following were played elsewhere around the same time but I heard them on my only visit to Blackpool Mecca, Easter Saturday, 1972. Ain't no more room The Kittens Too Late Larry Williams and Johnny Watson K-Jee The Nite Liters You're gonna make me love you Sandi Sheldon Gonna get along without you now The Vibrations I don't wanna discuss it Little Richard Reach out The San Remo Golden Strings There were obviously many more sounds played, than the ones listed, but somehow these have stuck in my mind when I recall that night. Sandi Sheldon and the Kittens each received two plays. I'd never heard K-Jee or Reach Out before. I don't think either had been played at the Catacombs up to that point. In fact I can't recall ever hearing K-Jee there. Somebody who frequented the Mecca in, say, 1975 would have heard a completely different playlist. Which set of sounds most typified the venue is problematic since they both did, but at different times.

Here's the rest of the sounds on the LP and where, when, and by whom they were played. The missing year on number 19, Blowing my mind to pieces, is 1973.

Taken from the back cover of the Destiny LP from 1979, The Record Collector Volume 1.

Interesting idea. I find the what played and where played fascinating, but another consideration is when they were played. Most of the iconic clubs had a shelf life of several years and so what was played initially changed considerably over time. Even Va Vas which only ran for a matter of months saw a virtually changed playlist by the end of its existence from the one that started out. Having said that my memories of clubs very much revolves around the records played, after all they were the main drivers of the atmosphere created, so I look forward to this discussion.

The first Torch all-nighter was March 11th, 1972. I can't find a definitive date for the initial UTJ event, but I vaguely recall being aware of the venue before I'd heard of the Torch. Trawling through Blues and Soul from the era would probably provide an answer but my copies of that are long gone, unfortunately.

Fairly certain these are originally from Blues and Soul in 1972. Taken from a post put up by Keithw back in 2007 so my thanks to him. As I said in my original post I think the August 5th all-nighter was the last one, unless anybody knows different. Interesting that the only DJ named was Alan Day. Anybody know the names of any of the others?

I have vivid memories of UTJ as it was the first all-nighter I attended and also one of the last held there. It may well have been the very last one held there, August 5/6 1972. Alan Day was clearly the main man in the upstairs main room, quite literally centre stage, spinning the top sounds of the day. The very big popular items received multiple plays and I recall the herd moving en masse on to the dance floor when the opening notes of the Younghearts or Roy Hamilton crashed out of the sound system. No lack of soul credibility there, but perhaps the same could not be said for Guy Darrel's 'I've Been Hurt' but that received equal approbation when the striking guitar-led introduction pierced the room. Two other items that fell into that very top drawer category, in terms of dance floor reaction, were Bobby Paris: Per-son-ally, and Jo Armstead's vocal version of 'Urge' Whenever the dance floor began to thin out, even at 7am. any of these items were guaranteed to lift the atmosphere again. As did the Du-ettes "Every Beat Of My Heart", another track that fell into this special category. Other items that made up his playlist and kept the night ticking along were such records as Desiree, Grooving at the Go-Go, Tracks to your Mind, Johnny Sayles, Jeanette White amongst others. Nothing cleared the floor and given the quality of the playlist and the palpable engagement of the clientele, Mr. Day had little need to interject any extra encouragement through his microphone. "Here's one for all who've just retuned from Torquay." was one announcement between records that vaguely registered. Even in 1972 records from a previous era were inserted into the playlist if they matched the powerhouse tone and tempo of the moment. Slipping Around was one example and Breakout had at least two appearances on the turntable, though the emphasis overall was very much on recent or new discoveries. As though to illustrate the point, two records I hadn't heard before both received multiple plays. "The Penguin Breakdown" by LJ Reynolds and Chocolate Syrup was one such item. I've rarely heard it since but it was popular enough that night. Make a good backing track for a cowboy film, I thought back then but now I actually think it's quite good. The other track new to my ears sounded very different to the standard formula with a haunting synthesiser- led backing track . Very strange, I thought, though that didn't seem to put off the audience who were already clearly familiar with the sound and accepted it readily. Later that year it became a regular play at the Catacombs but it was at Crewe that I first heard, "Blowing up my Mind" by The Exciters. Downstairs from the main hall there was a smaller dance floor with a strange cockpit arrangement for the DJs set above the edge of the dance floor. I didn't spend much time there as the main hall seemed to be the place to be with an atmosphere to match. I only went the once and it was a time when, in my opinion, the standard of records played was rarely matched, but in terms of atmosphere and playlist, Up the Junction holds its own in terms of comparison with other ,more iconic venues, of the era.

Great research. Now, the artists and titles leap out at you but back then they would have been just words on a page.

The best thing about the Joe Wilson single is the label. In the seventies record companies competed with each other to produce the gaudiest designs and range of colours far removed from the understated simple lines of their 60s product. Pye were by no means the worst when it came to this crime against style but by 1973 the die was cast.

I must admit to a leaning towards the fast and furious when it comes to soul music and the type of sound that dominated playlists in the post-Wheel, pre-Wigan period, which was my era, suited my taste. Roger Eagle in The Strange World of Northern Soul commented that the pace of records was more varied in the earlier days of the Wheel, and slower sounds featured at Stafford in the eighties so over the entire period the pace hasn't always veered to the frenetic. Where things went badly wrong was when pace and beat became the main criterion for featuring on playlists and the 'soul' bit of northern soul was relegated to an afterthought.

Fascinating Slow Fizz story, Roburt. Thanks for that. Up the Junction regulars were telling me about 'Slow Fizz' as being played by Alan Day in the summer of 1972. I didn't register hearing it until September when the Catacombs reopened and he had been added to the DJ roster. It remained on playlists through to the early summer of 1973, testimony to its dance floor impact and limited access to copies. By the time the UK Probe release came along its place in the sun had come and gone. Oddly enough, I too registered a comparison between both Sapphires' releases but arrived at the opposite conclusion. Blue Max had a HMV copy of Gotta Have Your Love which he played at the Connaught Hotel back in '71 but to my ears it sounded a bit too twee, whereas Slow Fizz, despite simplistic lyrics, was a powerhouse of a sound that hit the right receptors as far as I was concerned. Maybe, beyond personal preference, this illustrates the difference in the types of sound that were appreciated at the Wheel and those that followed thereafter, that you referred to.

Difficult to comprehend how a record as powerful as James Bounty remained under the radar after being played at the Wheel back in 1970. By late '72 it was holding its own on playlists featuring anthemic items like Eddie Parker and Earl Jackson. Another point of interest for me from the Dave Godin article was his recommendation to purchase a copy of Joe Wilson's 'Sweetness' then available in record stores. The same advice was offered to me at the Catacombs around the same time by Alan S, then the main DJ at the venue. Needless to say, this wasn't ignored and I duly acted within the week, despite my own lukewarm reaction to the record, which remains with me to the present day.

Alan Day here on the left with the other DJs from the Torch, '72-3.

I watched it in its entirety and enjoyed it for what it was: interpretations of examples of the genre fifty years on. The vocalists and orchestra did their best to recreate the sound but inevitably fell short of the excellence the original artists provided. However, the performance wasn't intended primarily for the likes of us but for an audience of newcomers to the music, or people who have had only a fleeting experience of northern soul. By this criterion, I would imagine the event will be judged a success. I was far more interested in the instrumentation than the singers. Accomplished technically as they were, they were never going to match the vocal impact of those classics that we heard all those years ago. I wanted far more shots of the orchestra with focus on the strings, percussion, and wind instruments when they were the main focus of sections of tracks. Indeed, I would have been happy with a playlist entirely of instrumentals. To have that orchestra, with its ability to present a wall of sound would have been such a powerful visual image to augment sounds with which most of us have been familiar for half a century.

I do recall reading a Dave Godin B&S column from 71/2 where he admitted covering up records, and justified the practice, which makes his railing against the practice, as quoted earlier in this thread, somewhat inconsistent. Two records I distinctly remember him referring to as personal former 'secret sounds' were James Bounty, Prove Yourself a Lady, and the Ad-Libs, Nothing's Worse Than Being Alone.

I first heard this in the summer of 1973 played at the Octopus on a Saturday lunch-time by Pep. I was not immediately enamoured and thought it compared most unfavourably with the other Impact record being played around that time: the anthemic Crying Over You'. I have since revised my initial assessment of Nothing But Love and now consider it one of the great instrumentals of the era. John Rhys, RIP.