The Greatest Record Finds Of All Time 2008

Hi Russ,

Wow. I wondered whatever happened to Chris Peake. He was actually one of Soussan's great sources in the early 70's along with another guy called Darryl Stolper (?) who had a collection to die for but wasn't selling when I bumped into him. Chris Peake actually told me that the word 'punk' was invented at his school when an unruly pupil got asked to leave the classroom and, as he left, he took a piss into a wastepaper basket by the teachers desk. This kind of behaviour was labelled punk thereafter.

Chris was into early to mid 60's 'Garage' or 'Punk' bands from L.A. e.g. The Seeds etc, so he had tons of small indie west coast labels in the hundreds of thousands of 45's in his 3 bedroom bungalow in L.A. We used to go crate-digging together on the basis that he'd keep all the 'Garage/Punk' stuff and I'd keep the Soul gear. I used to like hitting places with him 'cos he scared the shit out of most people, so when I spoke in my polite English accent people would bend over backwards to sell us the records just to get away from him LOL...

He was one scary guy and when I say he had records in his larder and fridge I really wasn't kidding. I think I found the Willie Hutch in his loo...........

I shudder to think of what Dave and Carl got from him 'cos the last time I saw him was '76 and so much stuff came through after then. I can clearly remember leaving tons of future small L.A. label biggies because they were either too slow or considered too R'n'B at the time!

Also I spent a few days in Frisco with Disco Bob in Daly City in '76. As you say an incredibly nice guy with a ton of great stories about local acts. One of the abiding memories of that trip was me going to what was then the hottest club in the world, San Francisco's 'Dance Your Ass Off' (as made famous by the Pop-A-Groove record) and realising very quickly that it was a gay club (I was just 21 and 'hot' apparently). I managed to get out with my ass intact LOL.....

Also, I remember deciding to go to San Jose purely because I've always loved the Dionne Warwicke record "Do You Know The Way To San Jose". It was a lousy drive, it pissed down all the way there and all the way back and I didn't find jack!

Win some, lose some!

Keep 'em coming guys.......

Lovely thread.....

Ian D

Ian,

I was living in San Jose at that time and agree, it was generally not that great for 45s. But then again i wasnt feverishly searching for Latin and Funk as well back then so well may have missed bundles. There were 2 other dealers in the area that had stacks of great rare soul 45s.. Baytown records ( Almeida ?)who DJ Shadow bought a whole load of rare funk off later on... and a guy in San Mateo who also sold a lot to a well known south midlands trader. There were just so many 45s around even in 86/7 that you thought the land of plenty would supply us indefinitely... Sadly by the end of the 90s it was almost as difficult as junking in the UK.

I'm sure the big boys in the game could fill a whole book with tales from back in the day; as i said earlier Dave Raistrick had us transfixed with his amazing tales of digging for black gold a few weeks back.. I said i wish we could have interviewed you properly and taped the chat as it was absolutely priceless...

Brilliant stories and for me helps me understand even more the passion and dedication made by so many to make this scenes music just what it is today, bloody awsome

Glad ya like 'em Bearsy. Missed you at Prestatyn but I'll catch up next time.......

Couldn't really miss with this thread on SS though could we LOL?

It's really all we want to read about innit? Including me! I love a good record story......

Ian D

From 1990 to 94 I visited the US once a month travelling round mainly New York and New Jersey. I was not into Northern or Modern then, I was picking up Soul and Funk and started picking up CDs, US dealers threw them at me because this stuff did not sell over there but did back in the UK. I then started up a CD mail order business, another story.

I had a very good friend who lived in Totowa, New Jersey, he was a hustler and made a fortune buying and selling records and CDs, he had a nose for the stuff and would always know what was being sold and where. He had a tip off that there was a Western Union Telegraph Office in a little Town in up state New York that had a record store in and it was nearly all soul. So we made the long drive from New Jersey to this little Town (can't remember the name). When we got there it was like being in a time warp all the stores had boardwalks, it looked like nothing had changed since the 20s. The sort of town that if you went in to a diner everything would stop and folks would turn round and you would not make the county line.

Anyway we found this Telegraph Office, I will never forget the name it was called Sulco Radio and TV. We walked in and there was this little old man sitting behind this counter, half way down the store there was a record shop with all the browser racks, everything was covered in dust and here were records still sealed from the 60s, the newest record was from the late 70s. It looked like people stopped buying there back in the 70s. After a quick look we decided that it was worth taking everything so we asked the owner how much he wanted for the lot, he then said the prices are on the records and would not budge on the price at all, we remonstrated that we were probably the first people to want to buy records for years, we spend a good hour trying to do a deal to no avail. I remember buying some stuff but cannot remember how much. I bet if that guy is still alive those records are still there today.

New York and New Jersey is a well-trodden path for UK dealers and I would always bump into the name Mark from Honest John or Ray from Solutions. There were loads of little cut out warehouses splattered around and can remember going into one and there was all this Gospel stuff but tucked away there were racks of good stuff that had sat there for years.

I knew a guy in Levittown NJ who had a record store and he always looked out for stuff for me. He called me one day and asked me when I was coming over because he had just bought out an old warehouse and had tons of stuff. To cut along story short it was nearly all crap but my friend took about 50000 of the worst cassettes you have ever seen and sold them to a guy in Chicago over the phone while we were there. I remember there was boxes and boxes of 3 titles Geater Davis on Orange, The Ambassadors and the worst soul music I have ever heard by a group called Mokie JJ and Rob on Sun, Moon and Stars label we took them all and sold them to a Jap dealer, apparently the Mokie JJ and Rob Lp was very collectable out there. I think I still have a copy.

I believe there is still plenty of stuff out there tucked away if you don't mind looking. I can recall going out to a farm in Pennsylvania near where the Amish are and this guy had a barn full of sealed records, he acquired them back in the 70s and they had been there since. Another time were coming back from Princeton NJ and went through this town called Plainsfield and screeched to a halt when we saw a record store. Going in the owner (called Steve) thought it was a raid, while my friend was enquiring about old records I noticed a massive rack at the back of the store with all old records in, a magnet for me, I was there in a flash, took me about 3 hours to go through them all. I did not notice what was going on in the store behind me but could hear all this rap music coming from downstairs. There was some rare stuff in the rack and will always remember finding a Che Che and Pepe LP. When it was time to pay I noticed that the store had filled up with the boyz from the hood, all these guys with big chains round their necks, It must have gone round that there were a couple of white guys buying old records and I nearly wet myself. I always kept a few hundred bucks in my wallet but had a money belt under my arm with more in. When the owner totalled it up I did not have enough in my wallet to pay and so I asked my friend if he could lend me some money, in a very loud voice he said, "I have not got any money" So I had to put some records back. I was not going to get my money belt out. We got out of Town very fast.

There was one time my friend found a Latino store in a bad town and it had a million 45s, he said he wanted to buy them all and they showed him the basement that had the cream. When I went there the stuff in the store was common stuff and was not worth buying, I asked about down stairs and they said that I did not buy anything upstairs so there was no point. Had to walk away.

I did some business with this absolute nut case who I later found out was a Vietnam vet who kept having flashbacks, but he always had great stuff. You just had to get him on a good day.

There are plenty of more tales to tell but the stories of the ones that got away are the best. A guy called Lester faxed me a massive list of 45s, all the same label. It was a Philly label (can't remember Name) that had gone bust many moons ago. Anyway I did not know any of the titles so a friend of mine in England showed them to a well-known Northern dealer who said there were some monsters in quantity on the list and advised me to take them all. I told Lester to send them and I would square up when I saw him in a few weeks when I was over, he only wanted about a dollar per 45, when I got the shipment all the monster titles were not there, Lester had showed the list to someone else who had probably paid him 2 dollars. If you are reading this Lester, up yours pal.

By 94 I had had about enough of buying and selling, I was working full time in the printing industry and working shifts that afforded me the time to go over to the US. I liked finding the stuff but hated selling it. My wife worked full time on our mail order business and we were doing very well. I had to make a decision whether to pack up my job and go at the mail order business full time. The decision was made for me when my wife became seriously ill so we packed it all in and sold about 10000 Cds to a guy in London. Now I had someone in LA who was also keeping an eye out for stuff for me and a week after I decided to pack it all in he called me and said he had found about 2 million 45s. He had gone down to China Town to get some dry cleaning done and when he went into the store the guy who was serving opened a door behind him and my friend noticed all these 45s, he asked why they were there. He was informed that the building used to be a Juke Box record distributors and he never had the time to get rid of them all, when asked if they were for sale the answer was yes. Tempted I told him to go back and just pick a few 45s out here and there and call me with the titles, some I knew and the others I asked a Northern dealer, they were all pretty good. After a few days thinking about it I realised I would have to go over there and decided that I could not so I let it go. To this day I always wonder what was in there and is it still there today?

I am into Northern and Modern now but would not get back into buying and selling again. I was a Motown collector and during my trips always picked up sealed stuff from the 60s.

Oh my God Mcleanmuir - you're gonna give a lot of SS'ers nightmares over the Chinatown story! It's funny but there were tons of distributors in downtown L.A. when I was there at the time but I seldom bothered going through 'em 'cos there was too much Latino gear to go through. I think West Pico was where a lot of 'em were....

Also I went to House Of Oldies in Philadelphia once and there were simply too many records!!!

If you can imagine a huge building one block long, one block wide and five stories high packed with thousands of 20' x 20' wooden crates on every floor with circa 50K of 45's in each you have some idea of what was available at the time.

I spent 3 hours in one crate alone but it was all Country & Western and I got demoralised too quickly!

I hit a few places about 18 months ago but it's all changed with the Internet, E-Bay and the Price Guides these days. I had a guy in New Jersey trying to convince me that the Total Eclipses was a $1000 'rare Northern Soul' record LOL........

Mmmm. Well this has livened up an otherwise dullish day! Happy Easter.....

Ian D

Glad ya like 'em Bearsy. Missed you at Prestatyn but I'll catch up next time.......

Couldn't really miss with this thread on SS though could we LOL?

It's really all we want to read about innit? Including me! I love a good record story......

Ian D

Hi Ian, will defo like to catch up soon and listen to a few more like these

Some people have forgotten just what it took to find these tunes we all love today and instead just want to whinge and whine about one thing or another, best read ive had on hear for a bloody long time so keep them coming

the only stories i got aint nothing to do with records so best leave them for Freebasing

I went two a place in the states looking for a few finds,I got there it was packed they asked the Mrs,if she wanted to watch a few films while I searched through the records.

Kev

I went two a place in the states looking for a few finds,I got there it was packed they asked the Mrs,if she wanted to watch a few films while I searched through the records.

Kev

I left my missus on the beach in L.A. whilst I checked a place out and returned to find a Jesus-Freak hitting on her!

On the next trip, we went to Clearwater in Florida and I left her on the beach again and came back just before sunset to find half a dozen Latino guys surrounding her saying she reminded 'em of Sam Fox!

Nope, girlfriends and wives don't make crate-digging easy that's for sure!

Ian D

As I worked at Global at weekends - yes a lot was found but sold on.

I am ether going senile or I just cant remmeber but I thought the big UK find was from The Mnachester BBC Vaults, I remmber Siz waliking into some place we had a northern night in the centre of manchester with abox full of everything and anything and cost 5p each.

I ended up getting lots of pop demos.

There was also a market in Manchester that sold 45s and I picked up abot 50 records for 10p each with some of the records not in the big league but are around the £100 mark today Touch of venus demo and Jimmy Clark demo etc

I left my missus on the beach in L.A. whilst I checked a place out and returned to find a Jesus-Freak hitting on her!

On the next trip, we went to Clearwater in Florida and I left her on the beach again and came back just before sunset to find half a dozen Latino guys surrounding her saying she reminded 'em of Sam Fox!

Nope, girlfriends and wives don't make crate-digging easy that's for sure!

Ian D

I left my Missus on the Beach in Hawaii.

Best days work I ever did!

Jellys in Honolulu were having a sidewalk sale.

Everything from the basement was put out onto the pavement in crates.

As much as you could carry - 10cents each.

Had to buy two new cases from the shop next door to ferry back the cargo (Jimmy McFarland, Sandy Wynns, Joannie Sommers, Steve Mancha's etc).

Damn cases cost more than the vinyl!

Sean

I left my Missus on the Beach in Hawaii.

Best days work I ever did!

Jellys in Honolulu were having a sidewalk sale.

Everything from the basement was put out onto the pavement in crates.

As much as you could carry - 10cents each.

Had to buy two new cases from the shop next door to ferry back the cargo (Jimmy McFarland, Sandy Wynns, Joannie Sommers, Steve Mancha's etc).

Damn cases cost more than the vinyl!

Sean

I think we need some of your "back room" stories Sean

BH

Hi Ian, will defo like to catch up soon and listen to a few more like these

Some people have forgotten just what it took to find these tunes we all love today and instead just want to whinge and whine about one thing or another, best read ive had on hear for a bloody long time so keep them coming

the only stories i got aint nothing to do with records so best leave them for Freebasing

I agree 110% Bearsy on that. Have highlighted the above really to emphasise that it may not be a case of 'forgotten' but never knew in the first place might be closer to the mark in some respect.

Northern Soul as a primarily underground sub culture(no i aint swallowed a dictionary)is awash with hearsay ,folklore, 'semi-explained' history. Obviously none of us had definitive reference books to put the record (no pun intended) straight on certain 'moments' on the scene.

Threads like this are really important . In understanding the past one can better understand the present IMO.

Me , I was a insignificant small time collector from probably 70-73ish. This is like manna from heaven for me. All this actually 'reflects' what passed through my box back in the day. You know what I mean. It makes yer think 'how did I end up with that,where it came from originally and who it was that was 'responsible' for want of a better word for me buying it.

These lads like Ian, Julian, Graham and the rest were really pioneers of that era of the scene.I know it sounds like 'Brave new world' stuff but it really was. To have the b*lls to do this at a time without , and i've mentioned this before, a foolproof template to work from is remarkable. What adventures these are that we are hearing in this thread.

Personal (to me and I suspect loads of people at that time)Memories of record dealing in sweaty venues at stupid o clock in the morning with a plastic old fashioned 50 box. Expectant ,inquistive checking of other folks boxes to find that 'elusive' vinyl that you knew was a bargain. Trying to 'offload' a record that you had heard 'on the grapevine' was coming through on import by the bucket load or was going to be re-released and render it not as rare as when you first bought it ...damn or an anxious wait as rumours of someone coming from another club(perhaps the Cats /mecca) with a load of 'finds' and you hope you can get one in the rush Getting back to your home town late sunday wacking a latest buy in a 'discotron' and avail others with seedy stories of how you got it and what you had to swap, beg, give to get it --------

Now , probably, for the first time a thread like this can go a little way to informing us of how,why 'we actually got those elusive bits of plastic and at certain dates and places. At the time we didn't think twice about why did (for eg )15copies of the superiors --what would I do --verve suddenly appear out of the blue at 3'o' clock at an alnighter . but now you can get more of an idea of the backgound and reasons behind it.

So without waffling on and boring everyone to death .Massive,massive respect to those that did their Columbus bit and went on journeys of discovery in the new world and thanks for giving me a bit of history that ,later in life, I often wondered but.....

History was never this good when I was at school

Can i be greedy and ask for more

Oh my God Mcleanmuir - you're gonna give a lot of SS'ers nightmares over the Chinatown story! It's funny but there were tons of distributors in downtown L.A. when I was there at the time but I seldom bothered going through 'em 'cos there was too much Latino gear to go through. I think West Pico was where a lot of 'em were....

Also I went to House Of Oldies in Philadelphia once and there were simply too many records!!!

If you can imagine a huge building one block long, one block wide and five stories high packed with thousands of 20' x 20' wooden crates on every floor with circa 50K of 45's in each you have some idea of what was available at the time.

I spent 3 hours in one crate alone but it was all Country & Western and I got demoralised too quickly!

I hit a few places about 18 months ago but it's all changed with the Internet, E-Bay and the Price Guides these days. I had a guy in New Jersey trying to convince me that the Total Eclipses was a $1000 'rare Northern Soul' record LOL........

Mmmm. Well this has livened up an otherwise dullish day! Happy Easter.....

Ian D

That Chinatown tale still gives me nightmares. I have been to LA twice since 1994 to visit my brother who lives there and have still got my contact in LA phone number; I was never tempted to call him. Know what you mean about too many records to look at, I used to end up putting plasters on the ends of my fingers because they were bleeding from all the browsing. That was a fine art in itself, often in very crampted conditions. I miss the little New Jersey towns and when I saw the opening bit of The Sopranos for the first time, I kept saying to my wife I know that place and that place. Remember being on Newark station once at night, I had a suitcase and surprisingly I got left alone, I was told that everyone must have thought I was a cop as no body could be that crazy.

It was always about being in the right place at the right time. With today's technology you could have searched for all the old Juke Box warehouses ECT and there would have been stuff there, as these people do not throw things away. I always had good finds in electrical stores believe it or not as they used to sell records and often had stuff in the basement. Supermarkets were another place to look for records as they sold cut-outs.

Competition for finding stuff in and around New York was always healthy and the Japs were always on the look out for rare Jazz, I remember seeing this Jap pay $10k for a beat up looking 10 inch. I recall that was in a place called Teaneck in New Jersey, forget the guys (smoked big cigars) name that sold it but I think the store was called Rare Records. I had a customer over here and she was a buyer for Ace of Clubs Records in Tokyo, she had this book with all these photos of the covers of rare records that were wanted, she would show it to me and ask how many have you got? My friend in LA managed to get hold of one of these books and went down to Chinatown and got it translated. The book was a price guide; the prices to her went up after that.

Company's that sold Bankruptcy stock was another place to search. All the larger deletion Warehouses such as Scorpio were harder to get into, they were not interested in people spending all day looking for stuff. It was the smaller places that bought from Scorpio that were best as they always had plenty of old records hanging around.

I also found a ton of good stuff over here, I remember going to a little village near Guildford and this bloke had 2 garages full of 45s, he was rock and roll dealer who bought a job lot in the US and there was plenty of Soul in it. About 8 years ago I went into Record Corner in Balham with a list of CDs that I wanted, there was only one guy working in the shop and he told me where to look for them in the stock room in the basement, while I was down there I saw boxes and boxes of old 45s covered in dust, walked away from them as well.

There was also always someone who used to work for record companies who took promos home and over the years they had a garage full, this was both over here as well as the US. Again there is still a load of stuff around, you just have to look.

That Chinatown tale still gives me nightmares. I have been to LA twice since 1994 to visit my brother who lives there and have still got my contact in LA phone number; I was never tempted to call him. Know what you mean about too many records to look at, I used to end up putting plasters on the ends of my fingers because they were bleeding from all the browsing. That was a fine art in itself, often in very crampted conditions. I miss the little New Jersey towns and when I saw the opening bit of The Sopranos for the first time, I kept saying to my wife I know that place and that place. Remember being on Newark station once at night, I had a suitcase and surprisingly I got left alone, I was told that everyone must have thought I was a cop as no body could be that crazy.

It was always about being in the right place at the right time. With today's technology you could have searched for all the old Juke Box warehouses ECT and there would have been stuff there, as these people do not throw things away. I always had good finds in electrical stores believe it or not as they used to sell records and often had stuff in the basement. Supermarkets were another place to look for records as they sold cut-outs.

Competition for finding stuff in and around New York was always healthy and the Japs were always on the look out for rare Jazz, I remember seeing this Jap pay $10k for a beat up looking 10 inch. I recall that was in a place called Teaneck in New Jersey, forget the guys (smoked big cigars) name that sold it but I think the store was called Rare Records. I had a customer over here and she was a buyer for Ace of Clubs Records in Tokyo, she had this book with all these photos of the covers of rare records that were wanted, she would show it to me and ask how many have you got? My friend in LA managed to get hold of one of these books and went down to Chinatown and got it translated. The book was a price guide; the prices to her went up after that.

Company's that sold Bankruptcy stock was another place to search. All the larger deletion Warehouses such as Scorpio were harder to get into, they were not interested in people spending all day looking for stuff. It was the smaller places that bought from Scorpio that were best as they always had plenty of old records hanging around.

I also found a ton of good stuff over here, I remember going to a little village near Guildford and this bloke had 2 garages full of 45s, he was rock and roll dealer who bought a job lot in the US and there was plenty of Soul in it. About 8 years ago I went into Record Corner in Balham with a list of CDs that I wanted, there was only one guy working in the shop and he told me where to look for them in the stock room in the basement, while I was down there I saw boxes and boxes of old 45s covered in dust, walked away from them as well.

There was also always someone who used to work for record companies who took promos home and over the years they had a garage full, this was both over here as well as the US. Again there is still a load of stuff around, you just have to look.

Yep, the Japs were out in force in the mid 70's mainly looking for different stuff from us at the time. In fact, the very first store I went to in L.A. had three Japs going through the 25 cent box and they passed a couple of copies of "Seven The Loser" - Eric Lomax (big at the time) which I snapped up once they'd finished.

Things got worse in the 80's I think. I went to the Austin Record Fair and they were queuing up with U-Haul trucks @ 5.30am and basically going from stall to stall saying "how much for everything?"

A pain in the ass LOL.....

I had a brilliant hit about 15 years ago at the Wimbledon Record Fair when I found a guy who had a stack of Amy/Mala U.S. promos - he used to a label manager @ RCA and had the stuff from the 60's.......

Also, one of the best finds of this type was the original UK Decca/London library which had everything in there, both U.S. and U.K. I got in once for about half-an-hour and got Lee Roye, Johnny Caswell, Jean Carter and Sweet Three for my trouble. A few years later Decca got sold and I think the original label manager got most of the gear 'cos he was advertising in Record Collector for a few years after.....

Who knows how many garages, lofts and lock-ups still have stuff in? The next great hit could be round the next corner.........

Ian D

Who knows how many garages, lofts and lock-ups still have stuff in? The next great hit could be round the next corner.

I don't know about "lock-ups" (isn't that a "jail"?), but I think there's plenty of records still hidden away in garages. I love these stories I'm reading about crate-digging in the U.S. The United States can sound like a dangerous place to read some of these posts. You've got to be careful, and watch where you go! This is why native New Yorkers, for instance, will always glance at Europeans on the city streets and think "poor blighter, he'll be mugged by sunset". Except that Americans don't use "blighter" in speech or thoughts, of course! One post talked about imagining trouble getting out of town after stopping into an upstate New York diner; there's no town in upstate New York where tourists are going to get terrorized in any way (that sounds more like Alabama)!

I live about an hour and half west of Philly, an hour north of Baltimore; Amish country is nearby but I wouldn't want to search there. I love the yard sale season (and it's coming soon!), I put about 200 miles on my car on any given Saturday in the spring and summer. The pay-off is very rarely from those who've advertised or actually put records out for sale; what I've been successful with is older people in older houses, and well outside town (in the woods, preferably), who've set up a few things. Older woman, bless their souls, sometimes have deceased husbands who seemed to collect a lot of really good music. If a church (in the suburbs, again, not in the city!) has set up a sale, often the houses in the neighborhood of the church will stage their own little sales. Then you ask if they've got records, somewhere back in the house or down in the basement, and wonderful things can happen. Not so much a Northern Soul story, but last year an 85-year old woman, who'd set up a strange array of clock/radios, egg timers, and toasters in her carport, went back into her house at my request and came out with an old metal rack of 45s. I saw an Elvis picture sleeve and got the lot from her for 10 dollars, figuring there might be something good. Turned out there were 79 records; one was a stock copy (warning:not Northern Soul!) of a pre-Velvet Underground effort by 16-year-old Lou Reed on Time records, which is worth about 500 dollars, another was a rockabilly single by Turner Moore, on Mel-o-tone records, that I sold for 700 dollars on ebay. There was lots of surf and sixties, but also some soul, too - my Bobby Garrett came from that lot.

Happy hunting!

I don't know about "lock-ups" (isn't that a "jail"?), but I think there's plenty of records still hidden away in garages. I love these stories I'm reading about crate-digging in the U.S. The United States can sound like a dangerous place to read some of these posts. You've got to be careful, and watch where you go! This is why native New Yorkers, for instance, will always glance at Europeans on the city streets and think "poor blighter, he'll be mugged by sunset". Except that Americans don't use "blighter" in speech or thoughts, of course! One post talked about imagining trouble getting out of town after stopping into an upstate New York diner; there's no town in upstate New York where tourists are going to get terrorized in any way (that sounds more like Alabama)!

A lock up is simply somewhere were you can store items and has a lock. The term is used to describe a building on the smaller size; some people call a garage that is used for storage only - a lock up.

My statement of going into the Diner was not meant to confuse it was a bit tongue in cheek and referred to a line in the film Easy Rider.

Record hunting can be very dangerous and local knowledge is very important, a lesson I hastily learned when touching down 4 hours late at JFK and having to take the Amtrak down to Trenton NJ to meet someone who I was staying with. No mobile phones in those days so I did not call till I got there. Where are you, we were worried? I'm outside the station in a call box. Screaming the reply - go to the burger bar and stay there do not move at all do not talk to anyone. Ten minutes later a car screeched round the corner and I was greeted with the words are you farkin crazy man?

After that I listened to every bit of advice. I have been to towns where we had to stay on Main Street only. I have also been to places where it was advised to take of my nice jacket before getting out of the car. I have also had to get out of the car and run into a store while my friend drove round the block waiting for me. Took a wrong turning once at night with snow on the ground in temperatures of -2 and there were hundreds of hoods just standing out in the streets. I was informed if we break down here were dead. I have been all over NY and NJ. I remember the first time I went to the Bronx; I visited a guy who stored all his records in 4 rooms of an apartment block on about the 10th floor of a building. He did not live there but had a couple of guys working for him who just cleaned records all day.

Did a lot of dumb things as well. We took a trip to Boston to meet with a couple of promo guys, my friend gave me $50k to put in my record bag that I always had over my shoulder. We were killing some time before the meet so we went into a large Music Chain store that required you to check your bag and put it in a locker. After being reassured that it would be safe I handed it over in exchange for a ticket. We walked out of the store and left it and managed to get 20 yards down the road before remembering it, I got back to the store just as the two kids who worked there were about to open it, phew.

My friend loved buying stuff and would often go into a store and ask to buy everything while I just laughed as a young sales assistant got on the phone and called the owner who would soon turn up. One time this small store was going out of business and ran it as a long shop for a while, he opened up accounts with loads of distributors and sold the stuff at under wholesale price.

I can honestly say that I never had a bad trip as far as buying was concerned. As said before I was not into Northern and have probably left tons and tons behind. I was learning fast and on many occasion bought the wrong title by the right artist in quantity. Oh for a mobile in those days. I got into rap as well after seeing oceans of 12" singles. I had a friend who was a rap dealer and he gave me a list of all the big stuff and I memorised it. There was one label that everything on it was worth money so I could not loose. I found boxes and boxes of the stuff.

The DJ 12" promo only mixes were also very profitable and these were in every store for a 1$, again you had to know the right mix but at a 1$ it was worth taking the risk. I had a store in Montclair that put all his promos in a garage and allowed me in there. My head was buzzing with all these titles and often woke in the middle of the night and blurted one out. I had a wants list of titles that I gave people over there that I trusted and listed how much I would pay them for it and when I went over there I picked the stuff up.

I got into CDs as these were everywhere, they were mainly promos but at 1$ each or less I could not go wrong. I sold them cheap so people used to wait for my list rather than rush out and pay more. Again this was all new stuff and it was a learning curve. I used to go through the Blues and Soul Import chart and make a note of Searling or Hobbs recommendations and make a shopping list. These recommendations included many indie releases so I bought a copy of the CD over here to get all the contact details from the back cover and called the US, these labels were so small I often spoke to the artist, on one occasion I called Jous and got a guy out of bed who informed me that he was the big guy on the front cover of the CD, whoops.

I even sold stuff from here over there. They could never get enough Blues.

I had a great time and do not regret any of it. I met some great people and some not so great ones. I will return one day because I never went over the Brooklyn Bridge or ran up the Rocky steps is Philly.

No doubt Simon Soussan, John Anderson, Ian Levine and Martin Koppel have the 'ultimate' stories, mine is the legendary hit at the Radio Centre, Baltimore 1978.

The story has been told many times and appeared in Togetherness several years ago.

To keep it brief..... 80 Shrine 45's, 100 Terry Callier's, 25 Embers MGM, 4-600 Atlantic/Atco Demos-yes, every in demander was there,100 Tower Demos-including loads of Psych/Pop stuff, finally, endless local labels such as Hope, Mir-A-Don...in quantity.

6,000 singles over 3 weekly visits. Retail value today.......200k plus! Purchased for $2,500!

(KEV ROBERTS)

No doubt Simon Soussan, John Anderson, Ian Levine and Martin Koppel have the 'ultimate' stories, mine is the legendary hit at the Radio Centre, Baltimore 1978.

The story has been told many times and appeared in Togetherness several years ago.

To keep it brief..... 80 Shrine 45's, 100 Terry Callier's, 25 Embers MGM, 4-600 Atlantic/Atco Demos-yes, every in demander was there,100 Tower Demos-including loads of Psych/Pop stuff, finally, endless local labels such as Hope, Mir-A-Don...in quantity.

6,000 singles over 3 weekly visits. Retail value today.......200k plus! Purchased for $2,500!

(KEV ROBERTS)

Haha LOL! Thanks Kev.

I was waiting for that one! Was this one the cellar in Baltimore you told me about or did you have an earlier hit? I'm sure you went to the States before that didn't you.......?

Ian D

No doubt Simon Soussan, John Anderson, Ian Levine and Martin Koppel have the 'ultimate' stories, mine is the legendary hit at the Radio Centre, Baltimore 1978.

The story has been told many times and appeared in Togetherness several years ago.

To keep it brief..... 80 Shrine 45's, 100 Terry Callier's, 25 Embers MGM, 4-600 Atlantic/Atco Demos-yes, every in demander was there,100 Tower Demos-including loads of Psych/Pop stuff, finally, endless local labels such as Hope, Mir-A-Don...in quantity.

6,000 singles over 3 weekly visits. Retail value today.......200k plus! Purchased for $2,500!

(KEV ROBERTS)

If you put $2500 in the american stock market (DJ) in 1978, assuming dividend payments of 7% which you reinvest back into DJ, you're investment would be worth around... yes you guessed it, 200k.

How much did you have to pay to get them back into the country? I'm pretty sure stock market investments would have been better after shipping costs

I'm pretty sure stock market investments would have been better after shipping cost.

Maybe, but as both a stockbroker and a record collector, I'd say that records are a lot more fun than stocks!

Edit: Just used some software to determine the value of $ 2,500. placed in the American Funds Growth Fund of America in January '78. The annualized return is 14.59%, and it would today be worth just a hair above 200k, and 158k if taxes had been taken out along the way (American-style capital gain taxes, at any rate). So, yes, I concur with the above estimate!

Had many good trips really nothing compared to the magnitude discussed above.IN 1989 had a number of really good finds in Hamilton Canada including the soul communicators on fee bee,volumes same old feeling on impact,loads of king and atco promos,couple of just loving you etc!

Florida three years later visited a barbers shop of all places near the latin quarter and brought back another 200 singles,records like the temps couldnt cry if i wanted to and some nice whie ric tic demos! Always done quite well in Pilly mainly at the flea markets and with john moore before the price quides hit the us market ! I must say its a big country[THE OBVIOUS PLACES HAVE BEEN RIFFLED HOWEVER] whereever you go its better to say your a collector,again highlighted last year when me and Gaz Simons went to San Antonio and picked up loads of seventies stuff,he vetted us completely and we had to convince him there were going into collections not back on the market!

Someone should write a book on the experiences behind these stories cos as you know it can get a bit hairy lol!

BAZ A

I don't know about "lock-ups" (isn't that a "jail"?), but I think there's plenty of records still hidden away in garages. I love these stories I'm reading about crate-digging in the U.S. The United States can sound like a dangerous place to read some of these posts. You've got to be careful, and watch where you go! This is why native New Yorkers, for instance, will always glance at Europeans on the city streets and think "poor blighter, he'll be mugged by sunset". Except that Americans don't use "blighter" in speech or thoughts, of course! One post talked about imagining trouble getting out of town after stopping into an upstate New York diner; there's no town in upstate New York where tourists are going to get terrorized in any way (that sounds more like Alabama)!

I live about an hour and half west of Philly, an hour north of Baltimore; Amish country is nearby but I wouldn't want to search there. I love the yard sale season (and it's coming soon!), I put about 200 miles on my car on any given Saturday in the spring and summer. The pay-off is very rarely from those who've advertised or actually put records out for sale; what I've been successful with is older people in older houses, and well outside town (in the woods, preferably), who've set up a few things. Older woman, bless their souls, sometimes have deceased husbands who seemed to collect a lot of really good music. If a church (in the suburbs, again, not in the city!) has set up a sale, often the houses in the neighborhood of the church will stage their own little sales. Then you ask if they've got records, somewhere back in the house or down in the basement, and wonderful things can happen. Not so much a Northern Soul story, but last year an 85-year old woman, who'd set up a strange array of clock/radios, egg timers, and toasters in her carport, went back into her house at my request and came out with an old metal rack of 45s. I saw an Elvis picture sleeve and got the lot from her for 10 dollars, figuring there might be something good. Turned out there were 79 records; one was a stock copy (warning:not Northern Soul!) of a pre-Velvet Underground effort by 16-year-old Lou Reed on Time records, which is worth about 500 dollars, another was a rockabilly single by Turner Moore, on Mel-o-tone records, that I sold for 700 dollars on ebay. There was lots of surf and sixties, but also some soul, too - my Bobby Garrett came from that lot.

Happy hunting!

Was over your way a couple of years ago - I went into New York and then swung down to Newark/Princeton area before heading up to Buffalo to check a load out.

Didn't find much Northern but did pretty good on rare 12"'s (but even those are drying up now it seems). I hit a lot of out-of-way little towns and found some basements full of stuff but it was very hard work to dig out anything heart-poundingly exciting.

Also, the WORST thing these days is the fact that the shops/dealers want YOU to do the hunting and then, after several hours of digging, you take 'em the pile over and they just key in the titles to a computer and check on E-Bay/Gem etc and then base their prices on that!

It's taken a LOT of the fun out of things IMHO.

I was in Toronto last year and went into one shop and asked how much the 12"'s were and the guy said a dollar each. I then spent 2 hours and dug out some FANTASTIC goodies, took 'em to the counter and started counting out dollars and the guy said "can you give me, like, 15-20 minutes? I need to check with the owner"?

I said" "what do you need to check with the owner for? You told me they were a dollar each"

He said "well, the owner told me that if I saw anyone who knew what they were doing, then I needed to check with him".

I said, "you should have told me that BEFORE I wasted 2 hours of my life pulling these out".

TWAT!

Everyone's so clued up these days LOL.....

Anyone ever checked out Salt Lake City? I just have a feeling.......

Ian D

Was over your way a couple of years ago - I went into New York and then swung down to Newark/Princeton area before heading up to Buffalo to check a load out.

Didn't find much Northern but did pretty good on rare 12"'s (but even those are drying up now it seems). I hit a lot of out-of-way little towns and found some basements full of stuff but it was very hard work to dig out anything heart-poundingly exciting.

Also, the WORST thing these days is the fact that the shops/dealers want YOU to do the hunting and then, after several hours of digging, you take 'em the pile over and they just key in the titles to a computer and check on E-Bay/Gem etc and then base their prices on that!

It's taken a LOT of the fun out of things IMHO.

I was in Toronto last year and went into one shop and asked how much the 12"'s were and the guy said a dollar each. I then spent 2 hours and dug out some FANTASTIC goodies, took 'em to the counter and started counting out dollars and the guy said "can you give me, like, 15-20 minutes? I need to check with the owner"?

I said" "what do you need to check with the owner for? You told me they were a dollar each"

He said "well, the owner told me that if I saw anyone who knew what they were doing, then I needed to check with him".

I said, "you should have told me that BEFORE I wasted 2 hours of my life pulling these out".

TWAT!

Everyone's so clued up these days LOL.....

Anyone ever checked out Salt Lake City? I just have a feeling.......

Ian D

Ian...what have they done with all the 12", must have been a big fire LOL. I saw so much of the stuff I got fed up with it. I was once offered a load that covered an area of about half the size of a football pitch for about $1000. They were in a warehouse in I think, North Bergen. It was at the end of the trip but I could have stored it all somewhere. From what I looked at it was mixed stuff, some new house (just getting soulful), hip-hop on decent labels and some common old stuff plus what looked like some returns. I would have needed weeks to sort it all so I let it go. Bet if that load were around today it would be worth some.

There must be CDs around today that are worth a few quid, I know in my day there were a few that were in demand and have seen some today that fetch a few bob.

I understand about folks getting clued up over there, I always used to get "I spoke to so and so in England the other day and he said this and that" My answer was always keep it and walk away, there was always plenty more then. The worst was the ones who had sold stuff for jack in the past and found out how much it was worth and were out for revenge, met a few of those. I never let on how much the stuff was worth or bragged about how much money I made, hard to do sometimes.

I once met some US dealers in London and arranged for a meet up when I was next over. When I was in the US we drove 5 hours only to get there and the guy virtually blanked me and the price had gone up. A few months later I saw them at Birmingham and it is very strange what the mind can come up with if you are angry, would make a great splatter movie. In the end I just blanked them. Still gets to me today that one.

My friend in LA had a very good find in Frisco once and sold it all to a Jap, my pal was jumping up and down at the amount of money he made until he found out how much the Jap made

Do you still go over there?

This thread has got me twitching again. May have to take the wife for a holiday to the US.

No doubt Simon Soussan, John Anderson, Ian Levine and Martin Koppel have the 'ultimate' stories,

(KEV ROBERTS)

Ians big story is the Goodwill secondhand store in Miami in 71 (I think) he spent 3 weeks

if I'm not mistaken, going thru rows and rows of demos, a whole herd of stuff came back,

La Rues, etc. He bought some 3000 singles at 5 cents each................he's such a generous

chap

One wonderrs if some barn, shed, old warehouse may still be full of old singles that no-one's

yet touched. Contrary to popular myth, get outside of the big cities in the US and it becomes

extremely parochial with communication with the outside world pretty thin to say the least.

Once driving between the 2 freeways that criss-cross Penn state I drove thru many a hicksville

and stopped at a junk shop I saw in the main street, popped in asked if he had any records for sale

he brought out a small box of about 100 singles and I bought a copy of the Ambers - Potion of

love, back in the Pontiac, all in about 10 minutes.

Chris L

Contrary to popular myth, get outside of the big cities in the US and it becomes

extremely parochial with communication with the outside world pretty thin to say the least.

That's exactly the case, and those are the places I try to uncover on "yard sale" days. One good thing about Pennsylvania is that it's the state where you're most likely to stay if you're born there, i.e. there's no reason to contemplate throwing the records away (they're not moving to Florida), so the records just sit and sit and sit. And, of course, there's the typical disconnect from reality about what records are worthy - people cherishing their trashed reissue of Meet The Beatles and never giving a second thought to the big stack of 45s that crazy old Uncle Chester saved up.

Contrary to popular myth, get outside of the big cities in the US and it becomes

extremely parochial with communication with the outside world pretty thin to say the least.

Chris L

That's exactly the case, and those are the places I try to uncover on "yard sale" days. One good thing about Pennsylvania is that it's the state where you're most likely to stay if you're born there, i.e. there's no reason to contemplate throwing the records away (they're not moving to Florida), so the records just sit and sit and sit. And, of course, there's the typical disconnect from reality about what records are worthy - people cherishing their trashed reissue of Meet The Beatles and never giving a second thought to the big stack of 45s that crazy old Uncle Chester saved up.

Absolutely Brilliant!!

THIS is EXACTLY what we are looking for on this thread!!

Information GODDAMMIT!

Whoops, drunk now but having fun. Let's keep this thread rockin'.......

Best stuff I'd read in years LOL.....

Ian D

Absolutely Brilliant!!

THIS is EXACTLY what we are looking for on this thread!!

Information GODDAMMIT!

Whoops, drunk now but having fun. Let's keep this thread rockin'.......

Best stuff I'd read in years LOL.....

Ian D

I once though I'd "discovered" a source (pardon the pun) in St Louis, MO, in Hampton,

The Record Exchange, went thru all his singles, pulled about 50 or so cheapes, few

good one in there, nothing more than £50 though. Anyway I told afriend about it he

sent some mates over to go thru the 500.000 singles he had in his basement and after

about an hour into the searching Nancy Yahiro arrrives at the place . Well they didn't

find much apart from about 500 Chi-Lite and 600 Royalettes

I want to do "one last go" at record huntin' before I go, been saving up me air miles,

once you get started ploughing thru all those boxes something weird takes over my

body and I seem to go into a trance

"I'll be Baark"

Chris L

The greatest finds are the ones where you've spent all day looking through 45s and found virtually nothing, then in the very last handful! Bam! A great record.. you can't beat that feeling.

But there is only one truly great find, that was DOBARD'S load in Oakland 2005, that was far & beyond anyone's wildest dreams. Beating any of my previous finds a 10,000 fold or more. At the time those involved in the purchase were all numb, as it was totally unbelievable.

Unfortunately as nothing will ever get close to that in the future, it has dulled my excitement of looking & finding records somewhat. But I have an appointment for another load to look at shortly of 100,000+. With no-one having been through them in many years, I'm already getting a little excited.. strange what vinyl can induce on the senses when there's a chance of finding something.

The greatest finds are the ones where you've spent all day looking through 45s and found virtually nothing, then in the very last handful! Bam! A great record.. you can't beat that feeling.

But there is only one truly great find, that was DOBARD'S load in Oakland 2005, that was far & beyond anyone's wildest dreams. Beating any of my previous finds a 10,000 fold or more. At the time those involved in the purchase were all numb, as it was totally unbelievable.

Unfortunately as nothing will ever get close to that in the future, it has dulled my excitement of looking & finding records somewhat. But I have an appointment for another load to look at shortly of 100,000+. With no-one having been through them in many years, I'm already getting a little excited.. strange what vinyl can induce on the senses when there's a chance of finding something.

How come the Dobard's haul didn't turn up 'til '05 though? Had no one bumped into this stuff before? What was the story there John?

And , more to the point, will there ever be another Dobards?

Questions, questions........

Ian D

How come the Dobard's haul didn't turn up 'til '05 though? Had no one bumped into this stuff before? What was the story there John?

And , more to the point, will there ever be another Dobards?

Questions, questions........

Ian D

The guy was a Black DJ who owned the world renowned Music City label and record shop. He would NOT sell anything to anyone after his shop closed cica 1972, long before any UK vinyl hunters ever hit that part of the USA although I have a sneaky feeling Soussan may have got into some stuff, as Ray Dobard's stock was Northern Soul heaven.

There was 250,000+ 45s he'd accumulated over the two decades 50s 60s. But 95% was 60s, as the 50s stuff he had supposedly salted away.

Alledgedly He used to annouuce over the radio "send me your records I'll make em a hit!" so they did.. in there's 1000's within the load were 1000s upon 1000s of UNOPENED mailers with 45s still inside with letters from hopeful hitmakers. From Arctic, Phil La Soul, Shrine, Golden World, Blue Rock, Peacock, Atlantic, Onederful, Groovy almost every imaginable soul label. I still have 100s yet to open, we I get a minute, I open one..or two, it's like Christmas sometimes I find a play station sometimes it's a pair of pants.

Imagine 250,000 45s 90% 60s unplayed condition, 50% of it classic Northern Soul, 30% soul/funk the rest was weird stuff which I found really interesting and found things like Little Stanley - Out of sight loving on a BLANK white label, then 6 months down the line I find another file with some KIng 45s.

The total resale value of the load is too staggering to imagine, as £1000 records just littered about everywhere.. it was and still is unbelievable.

Downside is it has dulled my expectations, when I go looking now, but there is no better life than being surrounded by 45s and your fingers getting cut open, by constantly looking for 14 hours or more... and people say those vinyl collectors are weird..we're not are we?

How come the Dobard's haul didn't turn up 'til '05 though? Had no one bumped into this stuff before? What was the story there John?

And , more to the point, will there ever be another Dobards?

Questions, questions........

Ian D

I'd heard of the Dobard's stash years ago but he and his relations were described to me as extremely eccentric and there was also a strong rumour that they didn't like white people.

The guy was a Black DJ who owned the world renowned Music City label and record shop. He would NOT sell anything to anyone after his shop closed cica 1972, long before any UK vinyl hunters ever hit that part of the USA although I have a sneaky feeling Soussan may have got into some stuff, as Ray Dobard's stock was Northern Soul heaven.

There was 250,000+ 45s he'd accumulated over the two decades 50s 60s. But 95% was 60s, as the 50s stuff he had supposedly salted away.

Alledgedly He used to annouuce over the radio "send me your records I'll make em a hit!" so they did.. in there's 1000's within the load were 1000s upon 1000s of UNOPENED mailers with 45s still inside with letters from hopeful hitmakers. From Arctic, Phil La Soul, Shrine, Golden World, Blue Rock, Peacock, Atlantic, Onederful, Groovy almost every imaginable soul label. I still have 100s yet to open, we I get a minute, I open one..or two, it's like Christmas sometimes I find a play station sometimes it's a pair of pants.

Imagine 250,000 45s 90% 60s unplayed condition, 50% of it classic Northern Soul, 30% soul/funk the rest was weird stuff which I found really interesting and found things like Little Stanley - Out of sight loving on a BLANK white label, then 6 months down the line I find another file with some KIng 45s.

The total resale value of the load is too staggering to imagine, as £1000 records just littered about everywhere.. it was and still is unbelievable.

Downside is it has dulled my expectations, when I go looking now, but there is no better life than being surrounded by 45s and your fingers getting cut open, by constantly looking for 14 hours or more... and people say those vinyl collectors are weird..we're not are we?

So refreshing to hear you say you get a buzz John being a dealer and so many years in the business.

When I was at global I didnt have the same feeling as I do now- Maybe because it was about just selling and only getting a discount if I wanted something. When I find something now I get such a buzz - even the small hauls like in Dublin 3 years ago (40 records) really made me feel wonderful!

Record collectors weird? no just bloody obsessive! (New syndrome to be announced in some Psychiatry magazine)

I'd heard of the Dobard's stash years ago but he and his relations were described to me as extremely eccentric and there was also a strong rumour that they didn't like white people.

He certainly was eccentric, Mr. Ray Dobard should have a novel wrote about him, I think he dislike for fair boys like me and you was the main reason, why all the records were still there.

His stash was legendary, in 1976 on my first visit to the bay area. Rip Lay, Henry Mariano & Bob Catteneo would often bring the stash into conversation "if only we could get into the Music City stock". It was for them the last frontier, they knew what was in there, alright.

The legend is, our "find" was the tip of ther iceberg.....

I was in Toronto last year and went into one shop and asked how much the 12"'s were and the guy said a dollar each. I then spent 2 hours and dug out some FANTASTIC goodies, took 'em to the counter and started counting out dollars and the guy said "can you give me, like, 15-20 minutes? I need to check with the owner"?

I said" "what do you need to check with the owner for? You told me they were a dollar each"

He said "well, the owner told me that if I saw anyone who knew what they were doing, then I needed to check with him".

I said, "you should have told me that BEFORE I wasted 2 hours of my life pulling these out".

TWAT!

Everyone's so clued up these days LOL.....

Anyone ever checked out Salt Lake City? I just have a feeling.......

Ian D

I was wondering how much had been taken out of Canada? Is it virgin territory?

I was in Toronto a couple of years ago and apart from Kops Collectables, Martin Koppell's shop (where there was zero stuff btw) there didn't seem to be any places at all. I guy i know who lives in Hamilton and was a Wigan regular before emigrating to Canada in the 70s, Bosko Asanovic, he travels with his son's ice hockey team and has collected thousands over the years at fairs etc... but even he was frustrated at the lack of a scene in Otario, it sounded like he was the only one collecting out there.

What about Montreal, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Vancouver...? Have they all been done?

Brilliant stories by the way, someone should do a book

My biggest personal regret is that in 1984 i was 18 years old, i had a brilliant job, plenty of money, no mortgage, no kids, no wife etc... i was on the scene and yet for some bizarre reason i wasn't over in the states every holiday doing the same as you guys... I can't think why.

My best finds over the years were definitely the acetates from the Carlin music publishers library that ended up on Hanway St London W1 (read all about it in the Gettin' To Me CD) and the GWP/Pied Piper publishing acetates (GWP " will reveal all!). I would they must have been the two biggest sources of previously unissued Northern discoveries in one place.

I've had lots of great vinyl finds over the years but the one that impressed me the most was in A1 Record Finders on Melrose in LA. It's a well known shop that ended up with Flash Records old stock, I got 4 John & The Wierdest there once. This had all been gone through by the early noughties and I didn't expect to find much, I just got a few filed copies of things I needed for Kent projects and paid up. I then asked the guy who ran it if he'd had anything new and he said there were a couple of boxes in another room. They didn't look up to much, clearly second hand, some without sleeves, but they were nearly all single local LA releases from 65-75 and included the Turbines, both Ty Karim Lighten Up versions, Cal Green on Filmtown, Hank Jacobs, Leon Haywood, Rita & The Tiaras, more that I can't remember and a lot of super-rare funk. The captivating thing about the box was that it had obviously come from a local collector of black music who had probably bought them all as new releases on his/her favourite local artists. There was hardly a Motown or Stax single in the whole box.

And the shop owner got completely confused because it was just pre-Manship and I'd put a bunch of other stuff in to confuse him when he priced them up, so he ended up charging me sod all for the good stuff and I didn't bother buying the Make Me Yours for the $30 he wanted!

But I have an appointment for another load to look at shortly of 100,000+. With no-one having been through them in many years....

But I have an appointment for another load to look at shortly of 100,000+. With no-one having been through them in many years....

Can i come too!!?? haha gooo oon go on go on ya will..go on.. .ya will... sure dont i make a great cuppa tea...

Only if you rub my shoulders, as expertly as Keb Darge did.

The guy was a Black DJ who owned the world renowned Music City label and record shop. He would NOT sell anything to anyone after his shop closed cica 1972, long before any UK vinyl hunters ever hit that part of the USA although I have a sneaky feeling Soussan may have got into some stuff, as Ray Dobard's stock was Northern Soul heaven.

There was 250,000+ 45s he'd accumulated over the two decades 50s 60s. But 95% was 60s, as the 50s stuff he had supposedly salted away.

Alledgedly He used to annouuce over the radio "send me your records I'll make em a hit!" so they did.. in there's 1000's within the load were 1000s upon 1000s of UNOPENED mailers with 45s still inside with letters from hopeful hitmakers. From Arctic, Phil La Soul, Shrine, Golden World, Blue Rock, Peacock, Atlantic, Onederful, Groovy almost every imaginable soul label. I still have 100s yet to open, we I get a minute, I open one..or two, it's like Christmas sometimes I find a play station sometimes it's a pair of pants.

Imagine 250,000 45s 90% 60s unplayed condition, 50% of it classic Northern Soul, 30% soul/funk the rest was weird stuff which I found really interesting and found things like Little Stanley - Out of sight loving on a BLANK white label, then 6 months down the line I find another file with some KIng 45s.

The total resale value of the load is too staggering to imagine, as £1000 records just littered about everywhere.. it was and still is unbelievable.

Downside is it has dulled my expectations, when I go looking now, but there is no better life than being surrounded by 45s and your fingers getting cut open, by constantly looking for 14 hours or more... and people say those vinyl collectors are weird..we're not are we?

No, it's perfectly normal behaviour to sit in a damp, smelly basement covered in rat shit looking through hunks of plastic for that one elusive moment LOL!

Great story John! Many thanks mate.

I wonder if there's any other ex 60's Black Music DJ's who have their records in storage somewhere? George Woods must have had a few 'cos he was involved in labels too. E. Rodney Jones or Frankie Crocker anyone?

I once went to Nashville and had a stunning Album/12" hit from a C&W store. It was a Chicago DJ from the 70's and he'd moved to Nashville and just dumped a lot of his stuff in this one place. 600 items @ 50 cents apiece. Makes you wonder what he sold 'em for....

Ian D

No, it's perfectly normal behaviour to sit in a damp, smelly basement covered in rat shit looking through hunks of plastic for that one elusive moment LOL!

Great story John! Many thanks mate.

I wonder if there's any other ex 60's Black Music DJ's who have their records in storage somewhere? George Woods must have had a few 'cos he was involved in labels too. E. Rodney Jones or Frankie Crocker anyone?

I once went to Nashville and had a stunning Album/12" hit from a C&W store. It was a Chicago DJ from the 70's and he'd moved to Nashville and just dumped a lot of his stuff in this one place. 600 items @ 50 cents apiece. Makes you wonder what he sold 'em for....

Ian D

Ray Dobard was a one-off not just a DJ, but store owner, distributor, promoter, One-stop plugger, and all round vinyl hound. i doubt if anyone anywhere ever amassed so many soul records as this unique man, remembering most of them came to him free.

He was not just a DJ but an amazing self-promoting vinyl magnet. Alledgely he promoted James Brown's bay areas shows and requested on free KING product in return. Which were evident in the load..

Everyone in the US sent thier records to him, but imagine hoping for airplay and your packet may still be filed unopened in Leicestershire, England.

I do have some amazing photos of the load... a couple attached.

My best finds over the years were definitely the acetates from the Carlin music publishers library that ended up on Hanway St London W1 (read all about it in the Gettin' To Me CD) and the GWP/Pied Piper publishing acetates (GWP " will reveal all!). I would they must have been the two biggest sources of previously unissued Northern discoveries in one place.

I've had lots of great vinyl finds over the years but the one that impressed me the most was in A1 Record Finders on Melrose in LA. It's a well known shop that ended up with Flash Records old stock, I got 4 John & The Wierdest there once. This had all been gone through by the early noughties and I didn't expect to find much, I just got a few filed copies of things I needed for Kent projects and paid up. I then asked the guy who ran it if he'd had anything new and he said there were a couple of boxes in another room. They didn't look up to much, clearly second hand, some without sleeves, but they were nearly all single local LA releases from 65-75 and included the Turbines, both Ty Karim Lighten Up versions, Cal Green on Filmtown, Hank Jacobs, Leon Haywood, Rita & The Tiaras, more that I can't remember and a lot of super-rare funk. The captivating thing about the box was that it had obviously come from a local collector of black music who had probably bought them all as new releases on his/her favourite local artists. There was hardly a Motown or Stax single in the whole box.

And the shop owner got completely confused because it was just pre-Manship and I'd put a bunch of other stuff in to confuse him when he priced them up, so he ended up charging me sod all for the good stuff and I didn't bother buying the Make Me Yours for the $30 he wanted!

LOL. Ain't that always the way Ady.....

Also I wish I'd known what I know now back then. I can plainly remember leaving lots of L.A. little label stuff in L.A. garages back in '76 because they were too slow or too RnB for that period.

And I think there's probably still some decent stuff archived away in some of the bigger publishing house. I had a mate who had access to Southern Music's library and he'd pull out interesting stuff from time to time....

Incidentaly, I just gave a rave review for "The New Breed With Added Popcorn" for Manifesto, so I'll PM it over......

Best,

Ian D

Ray Dobard was a one-off not just a DJ, but store owner, distributor, promoter, One-stop plugger, and all round vinyl hound. i doubt if anyone anywhere ever amassed so many soul records as this unique man, remembering most of them came to him free.

He was not just a DJ but an amazing self-promoting vinyl magnet. Alledgely he promoted James Brown's bay areas shows and requested on free KING product in return. Which were evident in the load..

Everyone in the US sent thier records to him, but imagine hoping for airplay and your packet may still be filed unopened in Leicestershire, England.

I do have some amazing photos of the load... a couple attached.

100, 000 dynamite 45's and you couldn't raise a smile????

Brilliant Johnny - the stuff that dreams are made of!

Ian D

100, 000 dynamite 45's and you couldn't raise a smile????

Brilliant Johnny - the stuff that dreams are made of!

Ian D

It was 250,000 and I wasn't smiling after 7 days of crafting through that. But it does look like I ate well while I was there, or is that a 25 count box Young Brothers up my tee shirt? Nope it's genuine fat!

As someone who has been buying Soul records for nearly forty years now, I have found this one of the most fascinating threads ever on Soul Source.

Just keep the stories coming please.

Not on the league of the above gentelmen nevertheless I thought I'd share my story.

One of my life time ambitions was to to visit one of these shops in the USA you'd heard stories about and just get my fingernails sore..The buzz of not knowing what the next record will be keeps ya going when your having a bad day.

My only trip to the USA was a holiday to St petes beach so off I jogged along to Banana records, expecting a small shop I came across this large wharehous full of 7" soul vinyl, I nearly came in my pants...the top man told me a few rules and away I went shoping basket in hand.

It dawned on me after 30mins that I needed a plan as I was all over the place, it was all in artist order so I decided to do The Major Lance, The Hyperions, The Hestitations, The Brooks Bros etc etc a simple task of remembering records was difficult due to the addrelain rush .. 1 found umm ummm ummm that was about it. just kept walking round looking at batchs of 200 records within tens of 1000's of the bleeders, found a few bits nothing rare, but the buzz of finding what I did was great. I then looked at my watch...fookin hell I'd been in there for 7 HOURS!!! I told my mrs Id be gone 2hrsMax..

Cashed in when he advised me that "his store had been hit so many times by the english its a wonder anything is left" cheer mate...lol "would you like to come back tomorrow and have a look through our unopend boxes we have in the basement, noones been through them for years"

cya tomorrow mate...

Got back to the Hotel Old Bill with the wife, she thinks Ive been murderd etc..."how did you get on" " 80 odd, going back tomorrow for another day"

I spent 9 hrs oepning box after box after boxm my finger nails were bleeding and only found one copy of Shirley Ellis on Candadia CBS... you wanna know something I will never sell it. it was a glorius two days of record hunting though the rewards rare wise were nowt special the satisfaction of knowing "I'd done it" made up for it.

Great thread this.

Dave Fergie or Dave Moore got anything to add?

What about Dave Comer and his American contacts in the 70ts? Where they all through his brother who was in Ace?

I do have some amazing photos of the load... a couple attached.

Those images remind me of a Lock up me and a couple of mates were in, outside Baltimore, about 10 years ago.

Me, Tats Taylor, Rob Wigley and Bully were doing the rounds around Washington / Baltimore. On the Sunday we ended up at a Record Show in West Virginia.

I got chatting to a dealer (a Black guy named Jerome) selling a load of Soul LP's. Bought a few off him and then asked him if he had any 45's.

He said he had a Lock up full of stuff as he'd had a Record shop until '74 and when he closed up shop he had locked away his stock, just living off his thousands of LP's ever since.

I asked him if I could see them (it would have been rude not to ask). He said He'd think about it... and that I should telephone him that evening.

Me and the lads got back to the Hotel and I made the call around 7:00pm.

He told us to drive out to a Holiday Inn and meet him there 'Because you can't come into my area'.

We duly met him around 8 o'clock. Jerome appeared in a white Van, flashed his lights... we flashed back.. and he drove up to the side of our car. "OK" he says "Get in the back, lay on the floor... and don't look out of the window"

He drove for about 20 minutes with the four of us laid on the floor in the back. Eventually he pulled up outside a dark, unlit, Industrial Estate and told us it was safe to get out.

The lock up was just like those in John's picture. Wall to ceiling racks along both sides and the back wall.

He threw a couple of pasting tables into the middle of the room and started pulling boxes of 45's off the shelves. Must have been half a million 45's in there. Talk about kids in a candy store!

We'd set out on the trip for Bobby Reed's, Vivian Reed's, Cashmere's, and the like... and were well rewarded with everything we'd set out for... at a dollar each.

As we left (around 3:00 am) he told us he had just as many 45's at his house, but we were off home the next day and never got to visit.

I've still got his details though (the answer is NO... before you ask) and I'm off to the states next month... mainly around Memphis, but just might drop off and see if Jerome has any of his old store stock while I'm there!

...if one of you lot haven't beaten me to it!

Sean

As someone who has been buying Soul records for nearly forty years now, I have found this one of the most fascinating threads ever on Soul Source.

Just keep the stories coming please.

Totally agree with you there dave, fascinating! can`t imagine the feeling of coming across some of these finds, allways wondered what people felt like the first time they picked up a record like frank beverly that no one over here had ever heard over here, top marks to these guys the building blocks of our scene

Not on the league of the above gentelmen nevertheless I thought I'd share my story.

One of my life time ambitions was to to visit one of these shops in the USA you'd heard stories about and just get my fingernails sore..The buzz of not knowing what the next record will be keeps ya going when your having a bad day.

My only trip to the USA was a holiday to St petes beach so off I jogged along to Banana records, expecting a small shop I came across this large wharehous full of 7" soul vinyl, I nearly came in my pants...the top man told me a few rules and away I went shoping basket in hand.

It dawned on me after 30mins that I needed a plan as I was all over the place, it was all in artist order so I decided to do The Major Lance, The Hyperions, The Hestitations, The Brooks Bros etc etc a simple task of remembering records was difficult due to the addrelain rush .. 1 found umm ummm ummm that was about it. just kept walking round looking at batchs of 200 records within tens of 1000's of the bleeders, found a few bits nothing rare, but the buzz of finding what I did was great. I then looked at my watch...fookin hell I'd been in there for 7 HOURS!!! I told my mrs Id be gone 2hrsMax..

Cashed in when he advised me that "his store had been hit so many times by the english its a wonder anything is left" cheer mate...lol "would you like to come back tomorrow and have a look through our unopend boxes we have in the basement, noones been through them for years"

cya tomorrow mate...

Got back to the Hotel Old Bill with the wife, she thinks Ive been murderd etc..."how did you get on" " 80 odd, going back tomorrow for another day"

I spent 9 hrs oepning box after box after boxm my finger nails were bleeding and only found one copy of Shirley Ellis on Candadia CBS... you wanna know something I will never sell it. it was a glorius two days of record hunting though the rewards rare wise were nowt special the satisfaction of knowing "I'd done it" made up for it.

Hi Paul,

You've bought a few of mine over the years I seem to remember! I did EXACTLY the same thing in St Petes. Dropped the missus off in the Howard Johnson's hotel (you can see where my priorities lie) and shot round to Bananas just intending to have a quick browse. Got in the warehouse round the back and got dug in. I found a Tartans and John Rhys on Impact and a Lou Kirton white promo in the first 5 minutes. I thought I was set but then nothing for the next couple of hours.....

Lucky the missus fell asleep 'cos I left @ 3.00pm and didn't get back till 8.30pm.......

Still worth it though. I always work on the basis of never expect too much and then you can be nicely surprised.

Naturally, after the Dobards hit, Johnny probably realises that the chances of ever getting a hit like that again are remote to say the least, which has probably dulled his future expectations........

.......only until the next hit!

Ian D

Those images remind me of a Lock up me and a couple of mates were in, outside Baltimore, about 10 years ago.

Me, Tats Taylor, Rob Wigley and Bully were doing the rounds around Washington / Baltimore. On the Sunday we ended up at a Record Show in West Virginia.

I got chatting to a dealer (a Black guy named Jerome) selling a load of Soul LP's. Bought a few off him and then asked him if he had any 45's.

He said he had a Lock up full of stuff as he'd had a Record shop until '74 and when he closed up shop he had locked away his stock, just living off his thousands of LP's ever since.

I asked him if I could see them (it would have been rude not to ask). He said He'd think about it... and that I should telephone him that evening.

Me and the lads got back to the Hotel and I made the call around 7:00pm.

He told us to drive out to a Holiday Inn and meet him there 'Because you can't come into my area'.

We duly met him around 8 o'clock. Jerome appeared in a white Van, flashed his lights... we flashed back.. and he drove up to the side of our car. "OK" he says "Get in the back, lay on the floor... and don't look out of the window"

He drove for about 20 minutes with the four of us laid on the floor in the back. Eventually he pulled up outside a dark, unlit, Industrial Estate and told us it was safe to get out.

The lock up was just like those in John's picture. Wall to ceiling racks along both sides and the back wall.

He threw a couple of pasting tables into the middle of the room and started pulling boxes of 45's off the shelves. Must have been half a million 45's in there. Talk about kids in a candy store!

We'd set out on the trip for Bobby Reed's, Vivian Reed's, Cashmere's, and the like... and were well rewarded with everything we'd set out for... at a dollar each.

As we left (around 3:00 am) he told us he had just as many 45's at his house, but we were off home the next day and never got to visit.

I've still got his details though (the answer is NO... before you ask) and I'm off to the states next month... mainly around Memphis, but just might drop off and see if Jerome has any of his old store stock while I'm there!

...if one of you lot haven't beaten me to it!

Sean

Just booked the plane ticket - I'll give Jerome your regards Sean!

Ian D

Just booked the plane ticket - I'll give Jerome your regards Sean!

Ian D

It was 250,000 and I wasn't smiling after 7 days of crafting through that. But it does look like I ate well while I was there, or is that a 25 count box Young Brothers up my tee shirt? Nope it's genuine fat!

Well you said it mate!

It looks like you'd been ingesting the crate-diggers diet - a constant diet of burgers and coffee 'cos it's QUICK LOL.....

I put on a couple of stones after 6 months in L.A. due to a chain of Burger places called "Fatburger" which did what it said on the tin!

Ian D