Rick Cooper

The other side (the actual A side) -Love Is The Greatest was a popular record amongst the Suriname collectors in The Netherlands. Looking at the YouTube video for this Willie Weems identified Kitty same as Chalky's quote from Neil Granger's interview. Shame Willie didn't go in to any more details.

Julian There's a half page advert in Blues and Soul announcing the launch of 444 Records, which I put on a thread about the label round about ten years ago but can't find it now. The label design on the ad had a sort of art deco look to it. I think it listed Sam Nesbit as the first release but not sure it mentioned further titles and certainly not Chris Jackson- Since There's No Doubt. I'll try to find the issue with it in and post it again.

The Belgian Popcorn scene had couples dancing to Soul and RnB records which looked OK but a bit limiting. I've seen a couple dancing this way a few years back and they were quite good. Not something I'd like to see too much of.

Your'e not the only one who's confused. The singer sounds more like a male but is female so she is asking her man "Is it Jane or is it me? I don't know if the photo on the YouTube is the group but they have two vocalists, which adds to the confusion. Ady's sleeve notes for the Kent CD- 100 Club Anniversary Singles says of Make Up Your Mind "for some years it must have been the biggest sound down there"

Not sure if this has been posted before. I assume they are AI generated but although I love instrumentals not sure I'd like everything getting the treatment.

Stuart Maconie's show was very predictable and boring, which was what I expected. He played almost every track from the televised and radio BBC Proms shows. Was this to show how much better the original versions are or how good the Proms versions are. It's the former for me but probably the latter for him. Two tracks that he omitted were Ray Pollard -The Drifter and Jimmy Beaumont's I Never Loved Her Anyway, were these judged too risky? Another missed opportunity from the BBC.

Get ready to party on New Years eve with Stuart Maconie's northern soul show on radio 6 but only for two hours. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001tpg7

If Christmas shopping was as good as this record I might be tempted out.

For the last month or two there has been a TV advert from the NHS to persuade us old folks to get a vaccination against shingles. The background music sounds like a 60/70s funk track but not anything I can find. I've looked on YouTube and Google but couldn't find anything for this. The music starts off in a James Brown type riff and then a male voice sings " I don't wanna be an ???? man". then the voiceover drowns it out. The ???? sound like "imitated" but that doesn't make sense. Any ideas?

Radio Luxemburg for me as well. Also Mike Raven's Sunday night show on the BBC and Emperor Rosko on Saturday morning who used to slip in a few soul records that weren't in the charts.

Mark, yes some were discovered in the seventies as you say, but maybe many more weren't in the hands of DJs (or those that sold to them) or were still to be discovered from the US. Julian B's post of 5th December in the Bostock's in Bradford Market thread is a good example of how records were found but didn't suit the type of records that were popular in clubs back then but got played in the eighties . A few I remember having in the early seventies that only got played later include What Can I Do- George Kirby , Can You Remember- Rhonda Davis, Special Kind of Woman - Paul Thompson (all sold for peanuts). However, I think some records were just never found until the 80s or 90s. No one who found Jackie Day - Naughty Boy in the early 70s wouldn't have bought it blind and then not realised it's potential. Also the acetates from US studios didn't start getting liberated until later on, those who found these could probably give more details.

The prices look more like albums rather than singles. Twenty cents each for five million records is too high for singles and Morris Levy would never pay over the odds. Then selling singles for $1.70 to $3.50 in the 70s is unlikely. Also Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald are album artists, however it shows what went on back in the 70s.

Well let's hear them. In 1975 I got to go to a couple of lock up garages they had and the upstairs room behind some shops, but both of these were where they stored the pop titles and singles that had already been on the stalls and not sold. Both a complete waste of time.

Looking through the MGM and Verve label listing on 45cat, a few others I don't remember seeing are MGM- Carol and Gerri and any Invitations releases, Andrea Henry. Verve- Wilson Picket, The Chantells, Clara Ward- Right Direction, Billy Woods, any Nick Ashford, Barbara Banks, Tommy Yates. All the titles seemed to be from January 1966 to December 1968. Maybe MGM/Verve had a clear out limited to those dates which ended up at Bostock's. They also had a lot of mixed singles from loads of labels but again mainly 66- 68. These were unsorted and they put fresh stock out daily so it was easy to miss the one-offs. I think I got all the earlier Billy Butler OKeh singles and a few other good titles. Later on they found a small quantity of Alice Clarke -You Hit Me but Paul Bostock knew by then that he could charge a lot more for some titles, I think this could have been £3.00.

During 1972 and 73 I used to go to Bostock's in Bradford and later the stall in Leeds at least once a week. The titles in quantity are probably fairly well known but of the ones that I didn't see loads of are, (although they may have been very small quantities of some of these) MGM Tony Middleton- To The Ends Of The Earth Lou Roberts- Everything You Always Wanted Jewels- We Got Togetherness Roy Hamilton- Panic Is On also Count On Me Verve Youngblood Smith- You Can Split High Keyes- Living A Lie Howard Guyton - I Watched You Slowly Slip Away Robert Banks - A Mighty Good Way. I found one copy of this on a demo so there may have been a few more of this but not hundreds. There must be others as well that weren't there as the records seem to only cover those issued around 64 to 67 so no blue and yellow MGMs . As to why some weren't there it could be that there weren't any overstocks and returns on some titles as they managed to sell the initial pressing without enough demand for extra runs. The titles in quantity were all issues and they were packed in 100 count boxes, there must have been thousands of Spyder Turner- I Can't Make It Anymore but none of the hit- Stand By Me. I thought Bostock's got them through Soul Bowl but others may know more. @Ian Dewhirst would know a lot more about Bostock's and there are some past threads on here, somewhere.