Little Joe Roman

[Jim G]

I have always loved Little Joe Roman "When Your Lonesome" and I know the original is a £600 to £900 record, but this one is the 70ts boot for £73, surely only a tenners worth, or am I wrong?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/260917195901

[Robbk]

The original isn't all that hard to get. Why would a boot go for so high? I guess that when there are hundreds of collectors looking on e-Bay, there are always a few that want a particular record so badly, they are willing to overpay for a facsimile boot, just to have the sounds on vinyl.

[Julie Moore]

I have always loved Little Joe Roman "When Your Lonesome" and I know the original is a £600 to £900 record, but this one is the 70ts boot for £73, surely only a tenners worth, or am I wrong?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/260917195901

Awesome record wish i could afford one

[Guest giant]

i was thinking the same ' why pay so much for a boot' some crazy people out there

Edited December 24, 2011 by giant

[Jim G]

The original isn't all that hard to get..

can you find me a cheap one !!!

[Godzilla]

can you find me a cheap one !!!

Was just thinking the same - don't recall it turning up in bulk?

[Steve L]

can you find me a cheap one !!!

Put my name on the list as well!

When I was selling my old pressings around 3 /4 years ago I got £6 for my Little Joe Roman on ebay

Just shows how these things are up & down

[Ian Dewhirst]

The original isn't all that hard to get. Why would a boot go for so high? I guess that when there are hundreds of collectors looking on e-Bay, there are always a few that want a particular record so badly, they are willing to overpay for a facsimile boot, just to have the sounds on vinyl.

Coulda fooled me Robb. I've never ever found one in 40 years. It was as rare as hen's teeth in the mid 70's. Did a load turn up somewhere?

Ian D

[Md Records]

PERSONAL OPINION - I absolutely love this record..........until the female backing starts singing, somehow kills it for me.

Des Parker

[Dave Pinch]

robb must have a box full tucked away same as all that magnetics rubbish

dave

[Raresoul45s]

I've also only had one other copy for sale until last week, price today is £600 to £700.

Manny's last auction copy just under £650, my set sell copy sold off my site for £650 last weekend so thats the value of it today as I see it.

Still a very rare record imho.

Merry Christmas all

Darren

[Chalky]

$837 dollars for one through ebay not too long ago, demo, so £600 sounds about right.

[Robbk]

Coulda fooled me Robb. I've never ever found one in 40 years. It was as rare as hen's teeth in the mid 70's. Did a load turn up somewhere?

Ian D

I saw several boxes of it at United Record Distributors in Chicago near the end of the '60s or the beginning of the '70s. I could have bought them all for 50 cents apiece. But I left better records than that there. Somebody got United's leftovers in the '70s (Anderson ended up with some of it. I don't think those boxes were destroyed. But that wasn't a rare record during the '60s. I used to see lots of copies of that, the Bobby Copney and the Bobby Treetop, as well as most of the later Tuff singles.

[Pete S]

I saw several boxes of it at United Record Distributors in Chicago near the end of the '60s or the beginning of the '70s. I could have bought them all for 50 cents apiece. But I left better records than that there. Somebody got United's leftovers in the '70s (Anderson ended up with some of it. I don't think those boxes were destroyed. But that wasn't a rare record during the '60s. I used to see lots of copies of that, the Bobby Copney and the Bobby Treetop, as well as most of the later Tuff singles.

Over here it's the scarcest of the lot, the others turn up regularly, not this one. Are they all dj copies?

Don't like it myself...

[Guest gordon russell]

The original isn't all that hard to get.

.

l used to have a white demo.......think it ended up with Sir Dickie Watt.......in all my years not seen another ...rarer than maybe you think tezxza

[Ian Dewhirst]

I saw several boxes of it at United Record Distributors in Chicago near the end of the '60s or the beginning of the '70s. I could have bought them all for 50 cents apiece. But I left better records than that there. Somebody got United's leftovers in the '70s (Anderson ended up with some of it. I don't think those boxes were destroyed. But that wasn't a rare record during the '60s. I used to see lots of copies of that, the Bobby Copney and the Bobby Treetop, as well as most of the later Tuff singles.

Ah, well that explains it better. I don't think any of those made it over here or to anyone connected with the scene otherwise it would have been at the Bobby Treetop/E. Rodney Jones/Bobby Copney/Ronnie Savoy level. Mind you, I guess most rare records were around in some quantity back then if you were in the right places. Shame no one's invented a time machine yet........

Ian D

[Robbk]

Over here it's the scarcest of the lot, the others turn up regularly, not this one. Are they all dj copies?

Don't like it myself...

No, They were yellow store stock. I don't think they were destroyed, as United's stock was seen by a lot of people. I guess they just never got to UK.

[Dave Pinch]

so they might just be still kickin around somewhere waitin to be found...theres every chance i spoze

[Robbk]

so they might just be still kickin around somewhere waitin to be found...theres every chance i spoze

Haven't most of the warehouses been cleaned out? I saw an awful lot of United's Chicago stock sitting at John Anderson's in Kings Lynn in the early '80s. I think that stuff was gathered up by somebody. it just wasn't thought of as a good Northern style in 1980. But maybe all the stock in those boxes found their way to US collectors back in the '70s.

[Theothertosspot]

The original isn't all that hard to get. Why would a boot go for so high? I guess that when there are hundreds of collectors looking on e-Bay, there are always a few that want a particular record so badly, they are willing to overpay for a facsimile boot, just to have the sounds on vinyl.

According to the "top five hundred" its the hardest to get and some other trivia. Anyway the boot (7tis) is all yellow, whereas the proper job has shaded/brown writing/logo.

Remember last time I heard it played out loud, Soul Sam played it followed by Buster and Eddie (brill record) somewhere n Notts

Regards

[Guest giant]

I've also only had one other copy for sale until last week, price today is £600 to £700.

Manny's last auction copy just under £650, my set sell copy sold off my site for £650 last weekend so thats the value of it today as I see it.

Still a very rare record imho.

Merry Christmas all

Darren

100% agree with you Darren

[Soulfulsolutions]

I sold a copy for £670 in November. in addition to the buyer who was delightd with his near mint demo copy, I had 6 other callers, 2 of which enquired with me to sell it to them at higher than my asking price. These 6 are well known serious Dj's and collectors who were genuinely gutted to have missed out on an elusive 45 for them.

It may well come up for sale with the major dealers a few times a year, but you'd expect that as their own stock or an auction item for a private seller, but generelly it's not common at all so you have to get first dibs on it when it does turn up.

Regards, Lee

[Guest Perception]

i was thinking the same ' why pay so much for a boot' some crazy people out there

They would probably pay more, if it was cracked and has writing on the labels!!!

Edited December 28, 2011 by Perception

[Soulman]

I saw several boxes of it at United Record Distributors in Chicago near the end of the '60s or the beginning of the '70s. I could have bought them all for 50 cents apiece. But I left better records than that there. Somebody got United's leftovers in the '70s (Anderson ended up with some of it. I don't think those boxes were destroyed. But that wasn't a rare record during the '60s. I used to see lots of copies of that, the Bobby Copney and the Bobby Treetop, as well as most of the later Tuff singles.

Living close by to John Anderson I saw and got the pick of a lot of what Soul Bowl had to offer. I have to admit I only ever saw him list Little Joe Roman a couple of times and I think I'm safe in saying he never had it in bulk. It's a track I've never owned as an original and I've had much rarer things from him. Guess I'll stick with my boot then and in some ways agree with Pete S, not the best record but in many ways a Northern classic that doesn't rock my boat although if John had had it, I'm sure I would have bought it.

Steve

Edited December 28, 2011 by soulman

[John Parker]

Very Very Tough record to find

Never seen a yellow issue...well excluding those boots from the 70 t's

Would be more than interested to see an original issue copy

[boba]

Robb, I can't imagine the boxes of this weren't trashed or destroyed. If a collector that was still alive had boxes of them, they would definitely make it to market now. In what case could the boxes be sitting somewhere now but not distributed? I don't think there's some warehouse that has boxes and boxes of 45s that nobody has been through.

[Dave Pinch]

Robb, I can't imagine the boxes of this weren't trashed or destroyed. If a collector that was still alive had boxes of them, they would definitely make it to market now. In what case could the boxes be sitting somewhere now but not distributed? I don't think there's some warehouse that has boxes and boxes of 45s that nobody has been through.

theres one in cincinatti bob

dave

[boba]

theres one in cincinatti bob

dave

yeah, all the little joe roman stock must have ended up there i guess

[Rick Cooper]

The only copy of ''When you're Lonesome'' I've ever had I got in Miami in 1977 from a small record shop owned by a very grumpy old man who used to distribute records in Chicago in the 60s. He had a load of old stock of labels such as Chess, St Lawrence, Constellation etc. We got multiple copies of Landslide(demo), Butch Baker ''Batman...'' Nolan Chance, Holly Maxwell but only one (issue) copy of LJR even though it was the first record we found. At the time I considered it the rarest and most valuable find from that haul. Ian Levine had played it a bit years before and it was still very rare.

At the time I was selling stuff to collectors in Japan and Holland so took records they would like. One from the same shop was Syl Johnson ''Do you know what love is'', I took about 25 to 30 copies and left loads more. I advertised this and others in ''Hot Buttered Soul'' and every copy went to Japan for about £1 each (is it about £200 now?). Anyway the point is UK collectors weren't the only ones buying up 60s records then, so the stocks Rob K saw in the late 60s could now be in Japan or Holland. If the flip of ''Lonesome'' is a mid tempo Chicago hard soul (Otis Clay, Syl Johnson etc) or deep soul ballad (James Carr, Don Varner etc) that could explain it. Or they could be landfill.

Rick

[Robbk]

The only copy of ''When you're Lonesome'' I've ever had I got in Miami in 1977 from a small record shop owned by a very grumpy old man who used to distribute records in Chicago in the 60s. He had a load of old stock of labels such as Chess, St Lawrence, Constellation etc. We got multiple copies of Landslide(demo), Butch Baker ''Batman...'' Nolan Chance, Holly Maxwell but only one (issue) copy of LJR even though it was the first record we found. At the time I considered it the rarest and most valuable find from that haul. Ian Levine had played it a bit years before and it was still very rare.

At the time I was selling stuff to collectors in Japan and Holland so took records they would like. One from the same shop was Syl Johnson ''Do you know what love is'', I took about 25 to 30 copies and left loads more. I advertised this and others in ''Hot Buttered Soul'' and every copy went to Japan for about £1 each (is it about £200 now?). Anyway the point is UK collectors weren't the only ones buying up 60s records then, so the stocks Rob K saw in the late 60s could now be in Japan or Holland. If the flip of ''Lonesome'' is a mid tempo Chicago hard soul (Otis Clay, Syl Johnson etc) or deep soul ballad (James Carr, Don Varner etc) that could explain it. Or they could be landfill.

Rick

Exactly! At the time I saw the boxes, The Little Joe Roman would NOT have been right for NS fans, but would have been a perfect sound for Japan and their Southern Soul style tastes. That is probably why Anderson only took a few copies (rather than full boxes of it), and why sellers for the Japanese market probably grabbed the boxes a little later.

[boba]

Exactly! At the time I saw the boxes, The Little Joe Roman would NOT have been right for NS fans, but would have been a perfect sound for Japan and their Southern Soul style tastes. That is probably why Anderson only took a few copies (rather than full boxes of it), and why sellers for the Japanese market probably grabbed the boxes a little later.

Anderson sold to Japan. He had a whole separate Japanese-only list btw.

[Andy Rix]

I just wonder if the writer, Charles Daniels, who went on to C&W fame with 'The Devil Went Down To Georgia' (a big UK hit record) cut the demo on this ..... that would be interesting !!!

I agree that in the UK it's always been a tough record to acquire ... not that expensive in the early days but price didn't reflect rarity as we've all learnt

Andy

[Ian Dewhirst]

I just wonder if the writer, Charles Daniels, who went on to C&W fame with 'The Devil Went Down To Georgia' (a big UK hit record) cut the demo on this ..... that would be interesting !!!

I agree that in the UK it's always been a tough record to acquire ... not that expensive in the early days but price didn't reflect rarity as we've all learnt

Andy

That's gotta be a different Charles Daniels surely Andy?

How do you go from a killer Little Joe Romans uptempo Soul record from Chicago to a rip-roaring out and out C&W record from (presumably) Nashville?

Gotta be a different Charles Daniels I would have thought.....?

Ian D

[Ian Dewhirst]

Exactly! At the time I saw the boxes, The Little Joe Roman would NOT have been right for NS fans, but would have been a perfect sound for Japan and their Southern Soul style tastes. That is probably why Anderson only took a few copies (rather than full boxes of it), and why sellers for the Japanese market probably grabbed the boxes a little later.

In which case Flynny should have dug up some copies?

I keep hearing these fantastic stories about some dedicated Japanese collectors going over to the U.S. in the late 60's and scooping up multiples of some super rare stuff which have been in Japan ever since.

It wouldn't surprise me at all. I kept stumbling into serious Japanese collectors all over the U.S. in 1976. Because the yen was so strong at the time, the Japanese collectors could get to a shop or record fair stall and make a pre-emptive offer to buy the entire stock without any problems at all. In fact, the key issue to Northern collectors at the time was to get to a stall before they did.

It kinda makes sense. I know a hell of a lot of stuff is sourced in Japan these days and they've been collecting rare Deep Soul for as long as I can remember so there's probably more chance of finding seriously rare stuff in Japan than anywhere else these days.

But that Little Joe Romans record is still a seriously rare record in my eyes along with "So Sweet So Satisfying" - Bobby Treetop and even "Peace Of Mind" - E. Rodney Jones. I'd love to know what the respective original pressing runs were..........

Ian D

[Benji]

I keep hearing these fantastic stories about some dedicated Japanese collectors going over to the U.S. in the late 60's and scooping up multiples of some super rare stuff which have been in Japan ever since.

A friend told me he once met a japanese collector who bought all Shrine 45s as new releases.

[Ian Dewhirst]

A friend told me he once met a japanese collector who bought all Shrine 45s as new releases.

By all accounts there was a collective of serious Japanese collectors who were doing the rounds in the late 60's. According to some very reliable sources they were taking at least 10 copies of everything direct from the companies at the time (especially from Detroit). This doesn't surprise me at all. In my experience the Japanese used to be every bit as tenacious as the early Northern diggers. It wouldn't be unusual for me to bump into these guys and end up arguing over a Little Charles record on Botanic or something similar.

When I was seriously digging for Northern in '76 the only competition I was worried about at the time was the Japanese because they would get in the way looking for that Deep Soul crap that we weren't interested in at the time........

Flynny has a better overview on the Japanese side of things which is presumably why he moved there in the late 90's. I bet more stuff has been found in Japan over the last 15 years then anywhere else...........

Ian D

[Robbk]

I ran into a LOT of Japanese collectors and buyers in USA in the late '60s and throughout the '70s. Sometimes I'd go back to a long-time source and find out their whole stock was bought by a Japanese buyer.

[boba]

That's gotta be a different Charles Daniels surely Andy?

How do you go from a killer Little Joe Romans uptempo Soul record from Chicago to a rip-roaring out and out C&W record from (presumably) Nashville?

Gotta be a different Charles Daniels I would have thought.....?

Ian D

charlie daniels early work was in a soul / r&b band that played around ohio (i guess george gell can give more info). His group was called the jaguars. I think they were not the alco group but were the whizz / paula group. you can see his name on the record here:

https://www.ohiosoulr...dings.com/w.htm

That doesn't mean it's the same charlie daniels as on the tuff 45, but it wouldn't be that unlikely for him to write a soul song.

Edited December 31, 2011 by boba

[boba]

ok I just looked at the record in popsike, it's an ohio production and has counterpart publishing on it.

it probably is the same charlie daniels.

[George G]

charlie daniels early work was in a soul / r&b band that played around ohio (i guess george gell can give more info). His group was called the jaguars. I think they were not the alco group but were the whizz / paula group. you can see his name on the record here:

https://www.ohiosoulr...dings.com/w.htm

That doesn't mean it's the same charlie daniels as on the tuff 45, but it wouldn't be that unlikely for him to write a soul song.

It's the same Charlie Daniels. However, the record mentioned was not cut in Ohio. At the time he was based out of Washington, DC. The band he was in, the Jaguars, had been around since the late 1950s. They recorded for Epic in the early 1960s. There's no connection to the Jaguars from Dayton, who were a salt and pepper group.

The Falls City/Counterpart publishing was used for stuff recorded at Ray Allen's studio in Louisville. The link between this operation and Daniels is not clear, I believe that he had sent some material to a connection in Louisville and that's how a handful of his songs ended up with that publishing.

There was no information about this record in Shad O'Shea/Howard Lovdal's archives when we went through them around 1990, so I know the record was cut in Louisville without his involvement, and not under the Counterpart record operation. Believe me, if there was money to be had, Shad would have kept the info!

[Theothertosspot]

Charles "Edward" Daniels also wrote "I've got you on my mind again" (Paula records and also released in the UK, forgot label) which was published by counterpart/falls city, and Billy Joe Young is thought to be Little Joe Roman.

Regards Bob

[George G]

Charles "Edward" Daniels also wrote "I've got you on my mind again" (Paula records and also released in the UK, forgot label) which was published by counterpart/falls city, and Billy Joe Young is thought to be Little Joe Roman.

Regards Bob

I bought a pic from this seller. They seem to have some intimate knowledge of BJY, the band, and the story behind the recordings. I'll let you know what I've learned as I am curious myself about some of these loose ends. I won't bother anyone here with arcana about the other Bad Boys/BJY recordings that I'm interested in, if anyone else wants to talk, send me a PM and we can compare notes.

https://www.ebay.com/...=item4ab286285c

Edited January 16, 2012 by George G

[Jim G]

Another one on Ebay going for big money. Now this one is from the late Chris Savoury's collection, but it still looks exactly the same as my boot, even the writing in the deadwax looks the same "AZ". Comments please?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/251162602899?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649#ht_553wt_1271

[Sjclement]

Another one on Ebay going for big money. Now this one is from the late Chris Savoury's collection, but it still looks exactly the same as my boot, even the writing in the deadwax looks the same "AZ". Comments please?

https://www.ebay.co.u...9#ht_553wt_1271

Judging by the other USA records for sale I'd say boot

[Julianb]

Judging by the other USA records for sale I'd say boot

emailed them about the Rubin which they have for sale. Looks like a boot as well. Still awaiting a reply.

[Jim G]

i will email them about this one also.

[Jim G]

Got an answer from the seller, good to a positive response.

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the feedback - was not aware - will post this response in the listing so buyers are aware.

Best regards

Paul

- buysellvinylandmemorabilia

[Rich B]

I havecertainly never seen a yellow stock copy. there asa ddj n my collection when sold in 2000. I rated it as one of the hardest I owned - mine came from Jim Wensciora when h old up about 87/88 - never even seen another one!

In the gentlemanly way he had, he sold me LJR, Gwen & Ray an Lou Pride for £300

Not that any of this means anything, just saying!

[45cellar]

The only copy I have ever seen was at Soul Bowl back in the 70s.

It was A White Demo being played for the person buying it from John.

Already spoken for else I would have bought it.

[Sjclement]

I have always loved Little Joe Roman "When Your Lonesome" and I know the original is a £600 to £900 record, but this one is the 70ts boot for £73, surely only a tenners worth, or am I wrong?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/260917195901

WOW! £255.00 and the bidding looked reasonably authentic, should I re-evaluate my re-issue looky-likey collection.