Barry

Good point mate. It's a job at the end of the day, done most of the time for money - and why not bang a compilation of dodgy Soul covers if you can, he's worked to be in that position. I for one would rather have Rod Stewart on the musical tapestry than not, I think he has made and sang some belting tracks. Does he deserve someone minuteising a part of his life and maybe reading into it - well, that comes with the territory - but that piece seems to demonise more than illuminate. David Ruffin and his hammer or Rod and his covers?

We used to mail order him records and he'd reply by letter in character which was hilarious (Delbert Wilkins etc), but I know what you mean - them bloody Travelodge (?) adverts are terrible and his harping on of late about his Shakespearian role has been pure 'luvvy' cringe-worthy. That said he's playing a part in a Radio 4 black-family comedy at the moment on Wednesdays about 6 o'clock called 'Reggies Rare Records', a kinda 'Desmonds'-a-like which has turned him back round a bit in my estimations, it's very funny.

I just think the colour of the piece is a little odd and he may be looking into his conspiracy theory a tad too deeply for truth's sake. And who, in fifty years time, would give that much of a hoot if they found out that craggy owd Rod had done a number on or two on another artist(es) be they black or white (odd!)? Wouldn't be the first time that someone has, in any sphere would it? Next week: Frankie Howard vs Lenny Henry

Keep it up young Soul rebel.

Don't forget his daughter: There's two sides to every story ay Lenny!?

Good answer son.

Firstly apologies if this is old news but I've just had it posted on my site and would like the boards views, my response from the site follows the piece: WHO OWNS HISTORY? It is often said that one should never pick a fight with someone who "order's ink by the barrel." That is of course a reference to picking a fight with the press, because you simply can't win. They will overwhelm you with written documentation. The same concept can also be applied to individuals who would like to adjust their historical legacy in whatever way that would make their legacy somehow different for people who don't have first hand knowledge, than what the reality of the memories of the people who did have first hand knowledge of what that individual's actual legacy was. Individuals who control the written (including text, graphics, video, audio) documentation about their own historical legacy are in a position to frame that legacy in whatever manner they would like to. These individuals know that their written documentation will outlast the "opinions" of people who have firsthand knowledge of the truth. Thus they are in a position to create their own version of history with the full knowledge that 100 years after the fact, it will be their version of history that will be regarded as the factual truth as opposed to the "opinions" of other people, who are now dead. THOSE WHO TAKE THE TIME TO DOCUMENT IT I say all of this to let you know that is exactly what is occurring in the case of Rod Stewart and that it was predicted by Soul-Patrol many years ago, when we analyzed the 1 hour broadcast on VH-1 of "Rod Stewart: Behind the Music." In that episode of VH-1's Behind the Music it was made quite clear that one of the highlights of Rod Stewart's career (from Rod Stewart's perspective) was the "kinship" between himself and singers such as Sam Cooke, David Ruffin, and others. He talked at length about his desire to not only emulate their singing styles, but to be remembered as primarily a "soul singer" himself. Of course many pictures were shown of Rod Stewart with these artists, both onstage and in social situations. The implication of this was to imply that Rod Stewart was somehow a "peer" of artists like Sam Cooke, David Ruffin, and others. To many people at that time, this was regarded as nothing serious, simply an obscure television program about an average artist, who made more headlines in his career because of wild partying, failed marriages and illegitimate children, than for any musical accomplishments. However, we took that documentary to task, suggesting that Rod Stewart was trying to utilize that one hour piece of filmed documentation, that would not only be seen by millions of people on TV, but also archived in museums, libraries, schools, etc as the single piece of authoritative documentation about the career of Rod Stewart. Over time as there are fewer people alive with first hand knowledge of Rod Stewart's actual performances, this documentation moves closer to being "fact". VALIDATION BY THE NEGRO "Rod Stewart is the greatest blue eyed soul singer of all time" --James Brown Rod Stewart's latest album is entitled "Soulbook," an album of classic soul cover songs, including several duets with artists like Mary J. Blige, Jennifer Hudson, and Stevie Wonder. Most folks won't give it more than a passing thought. The issue of "validation" has been an ongoing part of the long saga of "culture banditry." It means getting the "victim" to become an active co-conspirator in their own victimization. This willingness on the part of the victim to be an active co-conspirator in their own victimization, in exchange for short term economic gain, is literally the very definition of "culture banditry." In fact the very notion of "selling your own down the river," has been a part of the legacy of Black Americans right from the start, when they were often sold into slavey in the first place by their own brethren. However in the case of Rod Stewart, it goes well beyond simple/traditional "culture banditry" for the sake of economic gain. This isn't just about selling an album or a series of shows. This is more about trying to swindle Black folks quite literally of their own history and a legacy that should be inherited by their children, not inherited by the children of Rod Stewart. That is what the name of this game is, and right now, Rod Stewart holds all of the cards in his hand. That is because he has the ability to document all of this in such a manner, that at the end of the day, the "truth" that he documents, will be the only "truth" that matters. What will be documented as a result of this album will be that "the negro will have validated the greatness of Rod Stewart of creating Black culture that is greater than that created by any Black person in history." And of course this greatness of Rod Stewart will all be validated by the negro: --No doubt there will be press events featuring Rod Stewart standing next to various R&B performers. --No doubt there will be TV appearances featuring Rod Stewart singing duets with some of these performances. --No doubt there will be concerts at venues like the Apollo Theatre & perhaps Black churches around the United States. --No doubt there will be quotes by negro spokespersons/organizations about Rod Stewart "saving soul music." --No doubt there will be a Grammy award nomination and presentation by a negro artist of distinction, thanking Rod Stewart for "saving soul music." All of this will be carefully documented and packaged along with the previous documentation. INFORMATION USAGE This validation by the negro, combined with the pre-existing documentation on Rod Stewart's "soul singing" will be archived and kept in a safe place for east future retrieval/distribution, thus insuring that the children of Rod Stewart will inherit that legacy. Then 50 years from now that documentation will be retrieved and distributed around the world, to people who have no first hand knowledge of Rod Stewart's actual performances. And the truth that Rod Stewart has documented will be the ONLY truth that matters. My response: Now I have a lot more to say about this but don't have the time right now; my response above is a little abrupt and I can see whoever wrote the piece has thought about it; and I would like to give a better reply than the one above - I haven't the time right now, so I thought I'd ask you your thoughts!?

Pleasure mate. We've only had the site back up about a week and we've been low key as it is nowhere near finished, just a space for friends to chat at the mo. It should have more to offer soon.

Errrr.....I'll come back to this thread when I've got enough ale in me.

ps Yours, Baz May - soon to be Hotbox Compiler. (my kinda Hotbox though - bought once and staying there)

If it's all about the music and the ownership of what you love, then why do we all not own a copy of (whatever the feck) the classic tracks we all go on about being 'classic tracks' then? I don't own a copy anymore of (for many an example) Ann Sexton, or Jimmy Radcliffe, or Yvonne Baker. Which ARE bottom line Northern classics to me -pour eg. Now, if I were to be put in a Desert Island Disc scenario I would bin me Al Mason's, me Jewels, me whatevers (I'm not just picking on Modern stuff per se - I'm talking about stuff that is worth a bob or two comparitively to stuff I should own but don't and I can't be arsed digging through my messed up mind any further than that right now) - in favour of Doris Troys', Bobby Paris' and Tobi Legends. (Am I dating myself here?) Are you with me? Now I've always been a staunch H Squared kinda bloke - an H2......a 'Hotbox Hater', you know!? But in hindsight I believe that I have bought like many others; what I could afford when I could, bought something when I was out that I liked but didn't LOVE, bought summat to try and fill a gap or maybe slot in a memory; or even bought a track just simply to go home with something at any given time.....rather than actually do right by my loves and convictions and buy what I should - what I really love, you know when you're girly-pisssed? I looked at my stuff tonight, which has what has brought this sh*t on, and thought - 'Why've you got them three and not got Sammy Gaha?', or whatever. Get me? I know the answer to this sad diatribe already, as I think we are all guilty of doing the same. Which leaves the question: "Am I truly a Soul Boy when I don't own an Ann Sexton anymore?" Am I bollox.

To sum up: Stop w*nking the bloke you think is cooler than you off by buying records for a £100 that you knida like when you never actually bought 'Young Hearts Run Free' which you like better but daren't say. Northern Soul is the nightmare you never truly awaken from - unless you're at a wedding.

If I hadn't have embarked on that fateful first night at the Casino back in 79 I could (say - WOULD brother) have been a Milkman in Haydock by now. Gutted.

In tonights reportage, Derren goes deep. After years of surrogacy, my life has touched many scenes and I have given myself over to understanding many musical form(at)s. I have been involved with a great deal of all encompassing music. Now, in the real world (the non-NS world that is), music appears to have it's place, or more to the point, be given it's place; for example: Motown; The Temps, Four Tops, Marvin, Stevie etc, we all like a bit of Motown at a wedding don't we? "It's a bit poppy all that shit that charted, we know" - "but have you heard Marvins 'Lonely Lover?" When will the wedding floor be full? Not to 'Lonely Lover', 'Jimmy Mack' will piss all over it I guarantee you. Charted BA groups/artists - were loved by a white UK audience. Why? Because they were commercial and poppy at the time, they appealed to the masses, BA had no stick up it's ass, they were - as they still are today - Cooler - you can't argue that Again, at weddings, it's cool to 'Kool & The Gang' your tits off on the dancefloor at this specific tribal ritual - Any K & TG track that warrants a play at a wedding (you know 'em - 'Celebrate', 'Get Down On It)' etc is seen as a slightly ironic track. For Why? I swear at heart you all love 'em and have a love for these given productions - in their 'comedy' place. We seem to deem it okay to forget, as N Soulies, the input that K &TG, and their ilk, had on the black music scene during their extensive repertoire. Is Willi J & Co cooler than 'Get Down On It'? Maybe not. Why were the commercial K & TG/wedding-type Barry White productions ridiculed? Because N Soulies and the anoraky types around them had little or no understanding of black music outside the sphere's that were presented to them by people seen as leaders on the scene that they, the sheep gathered at. I'll take a check here now. Are you following me? I think that followers of the mantle 'Northern Soul' - which meant something once (when we were all too young and inexperienced to actually know what we meant) - should redress the balance of their years of 'one-upmanship' and accept that if they were doing a 'True' Top 100 of their lives, the likes of Candi Statons - 'Young Hearts Run Free' would in reality be at least ten places above Eddie Parkers heartbreaker - 'I'm Gone. You know I'm right don't you? Scene's revolve around shepherds and sheep. I too was a sheep for years, shepherded up and down this country. And the shepherds taught me my musical life, and for that I will be eternally grateful. They also taught me how to shepherd others - I'm at it right now, how's it feel? The sheep realises he has his own crook - be it an invisible one when the lights go down. Get me? (He he - yes I have been out and I wish I hadn't because somewhere in that pile of twaddle is a very sincere point...be gentle with me.) All my love BAZZA

Look forward to it Rob. I've remembered a quickie about a train journey to the 100's Club that I'll bang down when I get a minute too.

Nice one Phil and Rob, they're deffo Dangerous & Comic Nighter exploits. All in a nights work wunnit lads?

More like a 'donkey punch' line ay Phil?

Don't worry about it mate, if double posting makes you a bad lad then I'm Ian Lev....er Ronnie Kray. (Kidding Ian, only kidding.)

See 'em fairly regularly - and for nowt like that money. He's had that one for months - and 'til the day he dies at that price.

He-HAAAY!! Well in Russ. Come on Naughty Boy, knock one out for the board son. Should I edit that last statement? Phil - have a good long think about this one mate - it sounds dangerous ha ha.

That'd be cool Gilly. I know I go on a bit with my posts but I'm quite sure there are more than a fair few tales of danger and mis-deed that are worthy of sticking on this thread.

I've just bought me Ma's as it happens Phil (she's on holiday - she'll see me off I tell you) and the bridge you so fondly remember was pulled down a year ago apparently but I didn't realise 'til last week. It appears that I've not been walking under that bridge now for ages without me knowing.

I remember I was generally very much a 'bus home' type kid after Wigan. It was cheaper, dropped me off virtually outside my house and didn't involve dealing with too many people the morning after. The problem with living in Warrington and being in Wigan that early on a Sunday morning was that there was a only a single bus that left Wigan Bus Station at 6.30am, then none 'til 12.30pm, which generally pre-empted the (bugger of a) walk home. It wasn't too bad as I'm sure it was all fields then and eternally sunny . The bonuses of leaving for the early bus were liberating a pint of milk and a paper from the knotted packages left outside the newsagents in the Arcade - anyway I digress. This particular morning I had no money left at all and was in a bit of a state as the preceding night I had been at the contents of a small enevelope I had taken with me to sell - I seem to remember up around 3am as Searling announced that M's would be open in five minutes, then nothing til the moment I was outside The Casino in the daylight. Having no money and being in a state left me with one option - jumping the train, as there was no way I was going to be able to walk the nine mile home this morning and there was no obvious way past the single decker bus driver without my fare home. I recall wobbling down Fishergate in me long leather and bag and upon arrival at the train station, after a little recce, working out that I could get up to the platform by scaling, Spiderman-like, a massive piece of corrugated sheeting that was leaning from the base of a small wall up to platfrom-heaven. This had no doubt been placed there by some other gimp for that exact same reason. There's a blank again here but I must have alighted the train as the next thing I recall is being near the toilet inbetween carriages, arms leaning out of the window and approaching Winwick Junction (Winwick being the village just outside Warrington where I lived) - all with an amount of dread within me, as I knew what I was about to have to do. Now Winwick Junction is a place where the Wigan-Warrington train slowed down to about 10-15 miles an hour as it was crossing a junction/tracks and was the only point on this hairy-journey that would be forgiving enough for me to attempt some kind of parachute jump-like exit from the train. Not good. Anyway, there was no way round it, I'd come this far. I remember biting my lip, grasping the 'Communication Cord' (the 'Use Only In Emergency' brake cord that ran the length of the train)....and pulling!? F*ck me, I don't know if you've ever been on a train when a 'Communication Cord' has been pulled but it's a pretty violent way to stop a 107 tonne, quarter mile long of rampant iron and steel. "SCREEEEEEECH!" - "BANG!" I got threw against the bog door - and then the other way - and then back again....as the train attempted it's non-standard Winwick Junction stop. Now fully alert, as the fear and the thoughts of the possible consequences of my actions had seemed to morph into an imaginary hand that dove right down the front of my early 80's underpants, grasped my knackers and shoved them up my a*se. Thetrain was almost at a stop now so I grabbed my bag, leant out the carriage, opened the train door and jumped. I landed like a sack of sh*t and rolled through a load of gravel and weeds into a wire fence. I stood up, looked down the length of the train toward the engine and to my horror saw about three or four guards hopping off the now stationary train and heading, rather noisily, my way. I jumped the fence into a very dewy cornfield. It was as I was wading red-faced and fear fraught through this wet cornfield with my bag held above elbow height and a number of pissed of British Rail workers in tow, that I realised how badly the lining in long leathers handle the addition of water to their make-up. It was like playing that bloody game on Crackerjack whereby when you answered a question wrong they stuffed cabbage upon cabbage on your already straining person (don't now if that makes sense? but anyhow.) I could see in my immediate view on the other side of a fence an upcoming copse, a small wood and, the irate voices behind me getting nearer and (GET HERE YOU LITTLE BASTARD!!) louder, I began to think I may have an escape route of sorts. In the distance I heard a BANG!!!, then another but in my present predicament it didn't register as anything life threatening at the time. I jumped the fence and (BANG!!! again??) dragged my sorry wet arse into the first hiding of trees, there was enough cover for it to mask the sunlight and it became a little twilighty in there. "Great!" I thought as I headed a bit deeper in and looking around (BANG!!! again, louder this time - wtf) I could see our hi-vis wearing be-capped fiends (no spelling mistake, I was scared rigid) beginning to realise this may not be working out in their favour - and they began to bluster and swear at me as they gave up the chase. I was now in a wood. And the wood went BANG!!! a lot. It was at this point I saw my first farmer, out with his mates on a Sunday am hunt!! BANG!!! F*ck me, I'm gonna get shot now. So, adopting a pose somewhere between a Ninja, an SAS infantry man on a mission to nowhere and a piss wet, drugged up teenager in ridiculous coat -with a bag - I set off deeper into the wood, my aim to somehow traverse the local pig-pickers out on their shoot, without getting a hole in my ass. BANG!!! "Hey you!?" I was spotted - "Arse!". My mind had forgotten the little triumph that was losing our friendly BR div-jumping team and I was back to square one - exept these f*ckers had guns. What I would have given for the fear of a hi-vis jacket now!? With a group of unhappy farmers on my heels ("Get Orf My Land" an' all that) I went tree to tree, skulking, dipping and diving until I could see the light getting brighter - I must be approaching the other side of the wood at last. Then ahead of me I could see the white painted wooden fence that I knew to be the fence that skirted the road opposite the old Winwick (Mental) Hospital (read into that what you will. I WORKED there, alright!), a mile or so from my house and with the voices of my irate hunters tailing off in the darkness behind me, I reached the fence. "Thank f*ck for that!" I breathed deeply, cobbed me bag over it, steadied myself and with a final mighty effort jumped over the fence and onto the main road. Then I got knocked down by a car. Suffering for your art? David Blaine don't know the half of it.