Amsterdam Russ

@Fingerpoppinsoul - thanks for inviting me onto the show. Really enjoyed it and hope you, Harry and all the listeners enjoyed my vinyl selections.

1/ You don't own the publishing rights or copyrights. 2/ There's more than one copy of the 45 (NFTs typically work best when the item is unique). 3/ Audio files of the track can be easily had - YouTube and Spotify, for example, and files can be easily copied/shared - thus making the money-making part of the scheme a non-starter. Next...

No!

Insuring record collections is a topic that has been raised on here before. Here’s one thread: And another when you asked the same question back in 2018: And there are a few others to be found here: https://www.soul-source.co.uk/search/?q=Insurance&updated_after=any&sortby=relevancy&search_and_or=and&search_in=titles

All seems straightforward lyrically... Black wings have my angel Satan in high heels Doing the devil's will A walking lesson in love She's got a talent for loving That's my baby But black wings have my angel She's a devil (?? something something??) If she wants to be Giving just a taste of love That she says belongs to me But her smile becomes her so How can I ever let her go Although I know That black wings have my angel Would have been better had I never known her love Or heard her whisper in the dark Could have been better had I never shown my love Or given her my heart Shouldn't have given her my heart She makes my life a (?? something, something?? - could be "a heavy load along a crooked road") Yes she does But she loves me twice on Sundays And thrice on stormy Mondays And I love her Oh, I love her Although I know That black wings have my angel But she's my baby But she's my baby (Fade out on "Have" version) But black wings have my angel But she's my baby Aw, but she's my baby

After all of that, let's hope you don't POP!

A mighty fine selection from Tom de Jong.

There's a better definition of popular music, ie, pop music, on the Encyclopaedia Britannica website. The bit I'm quoting below is just the part that's directly relevant to this current discussion. https://www.britannica.com/art/popular-music

No, I respect fully - and completely admire - hooker51's perspectives on music and their personal and long-lived experiences. In fact, hooker51 (sorry to talk about you in the detached 3rd-person) comes across as the sort of person I'd love to have a lengthy afternoon's drinking session with. Different opinions on music - discuss. Different backgrounds in terms of youthful musical evolution - discuss. Different perspectives of what "Northern Soul" is based on age - discuss. Give it a few pints and - I like to think - we'd probably find ourselves coming round full circle and agreeing with one another.

So a hopefully chart-bound pop tune becomes "Northern Soul" just because some people on drugs 1,000s of miles away decide so after "they" invent the term long after he recorded his tune?

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_music There are better definitions out there than that offered by Wikipedia, but it serves to reinforce the point that all the music we embrace on this forum is pop music first - and soul/R&B, etc, second. Again, the music we celebrate and discuss here on Soul Source is pop music - its just those certain sub-genres of pop music we love.

Exactly - OKEH?

You need to go back and learn about the early categorisations of music, particularly in the USA. If music was aimed at the mainstream - and young people in particular - and didn't fit the already defined pigeon holes of "big band (etc)", "classical", "spiritual", "race", etc, etc, etc, than it was "popular" music - pop. That's where the term comes from. Soul music, R&B, funk, etc, are merely - and always have been - sub-genres of pop.

Oh, please! Every song ever played on the Northern Soul scene is a pop tune. No artist or group released a 45 in the decades the scene has so widely embraced - across so many genres - with the intention of it being “Northern Soul”. That’s just a hindsight label to describe a unique and localised youth movement, a cult even, that came after the music was recorded. If it was recorded to cater for mainstream musical demand, for the hope of commercial/chart success, then it’s pop music (might I remind you “pop” is short for “popular”, and that “soul”, R&B”, “funk”, etc, come under this generic banner). If Billy Ocean’s “Red light…” was not commercially successful, and was broken by a “respected” DJ soon after it’s release (like so many new releases were), then I think it would be up there with the MVPs “Turning my heartbeat up” and Frankie Valli’s “The night” - both of which are pure pop, but share that same irresistible dance beat feel with Mr Billy Ocean’s - I still think - rather excellent and heart-beat raising tune.

Oh, dear. More "divs" - and used as a derogatory term for people who just like to dance to anything. I thought people who did that "to owt" were just enjoying themselves.

Pardon? While 1979 might have marked the end of a hey-day for you, a year or two later saw mine start - and forty years on, it still ain't over. Looking through the lens of such nostalgic glasses must make the 'good old days' seem so very, very far away for you now, which I think is sad. Of course, I 'wasn't there in the day' - and in many respects I wish I could have been - but the scene I came into was (and still is, depending on certain factors) vibrant, healthy, packed, innovative, and it set the tone for the decades ahead with its musical progressiveness.

Hmmm, from what people around in the late 60s and early 70s have told me, youth clubs were a feeder park - a "gateway drug" - to the grown-up world of nighters and hard-core underground soul. Everyone has a different perspective about what happened then, of course. Although my entry into "the scene" came only as recently as the early 80s, it was most definitely due to the music I heard and the people I met at my local youth club.

Yes, I know what you mean. For me, Youth Club sounds are exactly that - the sounds of one's youth. Cheesy is applied in hindsight. But at the same time, those Youth Club sounds were often the ones I identified with when I first went to the "big boys'" nights. Funnily enough, a year after moving to NL, I found out about the Amsterdam Soul Club. I had no idea or any expectation there might be a regular Northern Soul night over here. First time I went all I heard was exactly those Youth Club sounds. It was great as I hadn't heard most of them in years, and hearing them in the exotic surrounds of Amsterdam added a certain excitement. Mind you, a few guest spots behind the decks and I like to think I helped move things on a bit - although whether that's true, I can't say.

It was ubiquitous back then (I moved from Maidstone to London mid-84). Maybe standards dropped when you left - although I wouldn't tell Kim that.

Back then - in SE England - that's the only type of club I knew. Mod (2nd-generation) was the "gateway drug" so to speak! But yes, I have to say that back then Billy Ocean's "Red Light Spells Danger" was what might be called the equivalent of a Wigan monster. And I readily admit to dancing to it at youth clubs, mod clubs and soul nights back in those days. In fact, when I last heard it (over here in NL some 35/40 years later), it actually caused something of a thrill. Maybe that's just nostalgia, but I still rate it as a really good tune. I couldn't dance to it, though. The legs and knees couldn't cope!

Youth clubs are of no interest to the soul scene? Really? Youth clubs are where I learned about "the scene" as an immature teen in the very late 70s/early 80s in the South East of England (although, admittedly, I didn't learn a lot). And weren't youth clubs integral to the development of "the scene" in its nascent days? Can't say I know what a "slipper event" is... and not sure I want to ask! Anyone able to list the 25 sections of the scene? Is this like a newly fragmented version of the Top 500, but with sub-divisions?

We've (SoulSource) had this discussion about that tune before - and I recall mentioning it was a "biggie" in the South East (of England) in the 80s. In the same way that certain tunes were "youth club sounds" up North in the early 70s, so this particular one was a staple of us 2nd-generation Moddy types who then "discovered Northern Soul" in the very early 80s. AND - it was a disco hit at the same time. I certainly remember it from soul nights, youth clubs and weddings!! Back in the days of the Kent/Sussex/Surrey scene (Kim Styles/Kev Griffin/Graham Sage/Keith Rylatt/Jo Wallace/Andy Ruw, et al), all sorts of stuff was played - and all enjoyed at the time.

Care to enlighten us all?

Am I alone in thinking it really funny that the two main protagonists on this and the "State of the scene today" thread are called "Sooty" and "Chalky" - with one supporting and encouraging the ongoing integration of "Northern Soul" into the mainstream and the other continuing to fiercely argue for its segregation from that mainstream, and that anyone not inside "the club" (my words) and obeying its rules is a "div"?