I was thinking the other day about my early record collecting. Me and my friend Frank use to travel from Stockport up to Manchester . First we'd check out the junk shops looking for any Motown,Black/Red Atlantic,Blue/Yellow Stax,then on to Spin Inn on Cross St. After a looksee there we would cut across to Rare Records on John Dalton St. It was more of a Classical/Jazz/folksy type of store,but downstairs they used to put up a list on the wall of their latest 45,s just in. Artists like Joy Lovejoy,Roscoe Robinson,Ronnie Milsap,Roger Collins,Billy Harner etc. Now this would be about 1971,before i even started going to The Pendelum. So the question i ask is,had these re-releases not been deleted by their record company,s, so all the shop had to do was phone up a record distributor and say for instance"can you send me thirty copies of Joy Lovejoy-In Orbit. They couldn't have had large quantities of these tracks as sometimes there would scribble out some of the list and add sold out. If this wasn,t the case then who was responsible for selling these tracks to the shops in the first place Sometimes i would ask the assistant for a certain record and he would take this large book,look it up and usually reply"Sorry its deleted". The tracks on the lists were always NS records of which i purchased many. Any info please.

I was thinking the other day about my early record collecting. Me and my friend Frank use to travel from Stockport up to Manchester . First we'd check out the junk shops looking for any Motown,Black/Red Atlantic,Blue/Yellow Stax,then on to Spin Inn on Cross St. After a looksee there we would cut across to Rare Records on John Dalton St. It was more of a Classical/Jazz/folksy type of store,but downstairs they used to put up a list on the wall of their latest 45,s just in. Artists like Joy Lovejoy,Roscoe Robinson,Ronnie Milsap,Roger Collins,Billy Harner etc. Now this would be about 1971,before i even started going to The Pendelum. So the question i ask is,had these re-releases not been deleted by their record company,s, so all the shop had to do was phone up a record distributor and say for instance"can you send me thirty copies of Joy Lovejoy-In Orbit. They couldn't have had large quantities of these tracks as sometimes there would scribble out some of the list and add sold out. If this wasn,t the case then who was responsible for selling these tracks to the shops in the first place Sometimes i would ask the assistant for a certain record and he would take this large book,look it up and usually reply"Sorry its deleted". The tracks on the lists were always NS records of which i purchased many. Any info please.

All the records you mention (except Rodger Collins) were reissues of that period but they might not have been stocked in anything but the bigger stores and specialist shops, they were all on legitimate UK reissues and the shop owner would have been able to look them up in a book like Music Master to ascertain if they were deleted or not, and then order the records in, all the record shops had these books at the time.

I would have thought it the other way round,ie that it was the big shops that you couldnt find them.

I would have thought it the other way round,ie that it was the big shops that you couldnt find them.

Where are they going to retail them then?

When i used to ask in for items in the bigger shops like Nield and Hardy they would just say something like "never heard of it" Maybe somebody used to go into rare records and tell the owner that if he ordered some copies of these , that they would sell well.

Spin Inn was a little different as not only were they selling soul re-releases, but were also selling a small quantity of imports.

Edited January 23, 201312 yr by nrc

When i used to ask in for items in the bigger shops like Nield and Hardy they would just say something like "never heard of it" Maybe somebody used to go into rare records and tell the owner that if he ordered some copies of these , that they would sell well.

Sorry I meant the really big stores, HMV etc. I also used to have to order records until smaller, specialist shops started opening.

Thanks for that. Like you say most likely re-issues of the day. It was the time of the wheel so maybe they had quite a few popping in asking for a certain record, or a list of records so they ordered a few more copies at the same time. Still was enjoyable to pop in on Sat morning and see what they had.

When 45's like Gene Chandler's "Nothing Can Stop Me" (on Soul City) & all the reactivated Motown 45's started hitting the UK Pop Charts, all the British Record Companies woke up to their soul 'back catalogue' (though by 69 / 70 some labels had lost the rights to certain tracks that had put out in the mid 60's).

To press up a 45 & put it out there without any promotion at all cost next to nothing from the likes of EMI, Decca, Polydor, etc.

So they had very little to lose if say Jamo Thomas's "I Spy" or an old Chess or Bell track did next to nothing when reactivated.

For every re-release 45 that just sold enough copies to cover the new pressing costs, loads (Tams, O'Jays, Tami Lynn, Fascinations) made enough to keep the Accounting Dept. very happy.

Of course, the blunderbuss effect soon kicked in & just about any soul dance track they had the rights to was put out.

nrc it's interesting that you mentioned HMV because their main branch on Market St. m/c was a bit of an exception. Derek Howe managed certainly the vinyl side of things around the time you mentioned and he used to stock loads of in-demand imports to the extent that they formed a whole display in one window. It may be that enterprising managers of these none indie shops had some level of autonomy as I recall Harlequin in Berwick St, Soho allowing Dave Burton to stock imports including pressings in the 70s. In the 60s I also recall buying imports form One Stop Records, South Molton St. in the West End. They also had a branch on the concourse at Piccadilly Stn m/c.