For ages now people have been talking about how we should be bending over backwards for anyone remotely youngish in order to get them onto the scene.
From the amount of posts on here saying "is it any wonder the younger generation aren't getting into soul music" - you'd think that indifference to young folk was a new thing.
How many of you on here are able to say they their early days on the soul scene were a walk in the park?
What would have been the reaction at Wigan or Stafford or wherever if someone who had not been into it very long started walking round the place shouting about how many records he knew, how his knowledge on all aspects of soul music was unquestionable and how he'd forgotten more than you would ever know?
I can only speak from my own experiences, but when I started going to all nighters in the early 80's, if anyone started getting a bit cheeky they used to get pulled back down to earth pretty quickly.
Jeez, when I started buying records, sometimes I used to ask one of the lads to go and buy them for me I was too scared to go myself!
I will never forget one night at the Placemate 7 in Manchester, in the mid to late 80's, I was looking through the sales box of a certain DJ/dealer who I won't name (but he's as 'A' list as they come) when he shooed my hands out of the way and said with a smirk "a man's got to do what a man's got to do" then proceeded to slam the lid shut.
Did all the people in the record bar start shouting "is it any wonder there are no younger people getting into the soul scene"?
Or "you should be sharing your knowledge and helping kids who are just starting to collect records instead of slamming your box closed while they are having a look through".
Did they fig!
There will be a fair few members on here that would have been well 'established' on the scene when I was a newbie. How many of you were concerned about whether the likes of me kept going? How many went out of your way to ensure the newbie felt welcome?
I guess the point I am trying to make is that it has always been far from easy for newbie's to get accepted on the soul scene. It has never been handed to people on a plate. It was down to you to prove that you loved it. And you did have to prove it.
When I started there was no internet, so the way you got to know people and records was by going to the venues each week and by asking people to do you tapes. It took a long time to be accepted. And that acceptance came from one thing - going to venues week in week out.
It all seems a million miles away from today, where all you need to do is to shout loudly on an internet forum.