Garethx

No-one's mentioned The Sims Twins. So I will. The original male soul duo. Also, what about The Soul Twins? Both awesome singers, and maybe the best soul duo, in terms of their incredible singing ability, both as TST and as Gas & The Funk Factory. I absolutely love Eddie and Ernie. Lots of people mention "Outcast", and yes, it is good, but believe me, they made literally dozens of far better records, both as a duo and as solo artists. Another underrated duo, who always sang with tons of soul were Willie and Anthony from Miami.

The avatar is Dan "Way Of The Crowd" Folger. Agree with you John about Uncle Sam. When he's on form, few can touch him. Soul On!

I agree with you to a greater extent, John. But the rules (such as they are) do seem more defined. Who but Butch could make Joseph Webster such a big record? In the years since Stafford there seems to have been a move away from adventurous programming across the eras and genres. The gulf between 60s soul fans and fans of music recorded later seems as wide as it's ever been. The new avatar is a response to another thread on here about white men singing soul; Can anyone guess the identity of the Flynn-alike? He was responsible for one pretty famous Northern 'anthem'.

De Brossard 111: Rotations "I Can't Find Her / Searching In Vain"Â Law-Ton 1550: Rotations "If I Could Be Like Columbus / Don't Ever Hurt Me Girl"Â Â Â Think the Law-Ton disc is a very strong double sider.

The 45 on DeBrossard was something of a local hit in Cleveland, so there must be literally thousands of copies out there. Unfortunately for The Rotations, two of them were shot dead in a robbery before the record could break nationally.

Speaking of The Rotations, does anyone rate their "Don't Ever Hurt Me" on Lawton? Soul Sam and Arthur Fenn have been known to spin this in the last year or so.

Matt Jacob Graulund was selling a copy of "Bing Bong" a couple of weeks ago. Don't know if he still has it, but you could try him. Luther's "I'll Let You Slide" ain't the same track as The Saints on WigWam. Still pretty good though. I remember Tony Rounce playing Luther Vandross "I've Been Working" at the 100 Club in the dim and distant past. I sometimes think LV is underrated by soul fans. Then again, sometimes I think he's overrated. Go figure...

Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell "I'm Your Puppet" (from "Easy" Tamla) G.C. Cameron "Include Me In Your Life" (from "G.C. Cameron" Motown) Chuck Jackson "Let Someone Love You" (from "Teardrops Keep Falling On My Heart" VIP) Marvin Gaye "There Goes My Baby" (from "In The Groove" Tamla) Bobby Taylor "Don't Be Afraid" (from "Taylor Made Soul" Gordy) David Ruffin "The Roving Kind" (from "David Ruffin" Motown)

Matt I hate it when you sit on the fence.

Heard Kenny Smith's "Lord, What's Happening To Your People" at Fish Ain't Bitin' in Manchester last month. It sounded great over a good sound system. Got home and dusted mine down, and it started me wondering whether it would ever be a big record if discovered today. I'm not so sure. In the old days it seemed the punters' tastes were far broader: people were younger and had far more open minds, and the rules as to what was and what wasn't 'northern soul' were far less fully defined. As an extension of this theme, I wonder if many of the Stafford classics would take off on the current scene. Who would have the enterprising nature and taste to try to break a record like Johnny Gilliam's "Room Full Of Tears" today: nobody I suspect.

Just been listening to Eddie Holman's "Hold Me In Your Arms" on Grapevine again, and I have to say what a simply amazing record this is. I've never really thoroughly listened to the lyrics before, and they really make the record a masterpiece of regret and understated emotion. I'm guessing the reason it was never released at the time is that at over three minutes long it was deemed too long to be a single. Shame that it was dropped from allnighter playlists as soon as it was released on Grapevine. Before it came out it seemed you couldn't avoid it: it was played about ten times at Cleethorpes 2003. Oh well...

I thought King Diamond definitely had a connection with Detroit's O.C. Tolbert. Is he the Tolbert of "I Got It" on Rojac fame? I've never heard it mentioned that they are one in the same, but then again I'm relatively new to this forum. Can anyone confirm?

Hi Billy I was stating that Mick's £75 was a real bargain. Should be about the £125 mark. Mind you, this was always £100 at least fifteen years ago. Not a rare record, just a quality one. gareth

I don't think it's too great an exaggeration to say that without Pete Lawson there might not even be a rare soul scene today to talk about.

Dorothy of Dorothy & The Hesitations is Dorothy Moore. Brilliant soul record IMHO.

The World's Funkiest Band and Buddy Conner are sonically identical, but the label on the (orange) Buddy Conner is beautiful; Visually one of the best soul labels ever, surely, and maybe worth the price difference alone. At around £75 it's a real bargain. Since its initial spins twenty years ago it was always a three-figure record. It's funny, but before actually hearing the record I had always assumed with a name like "Buddy Conner" this had to be a white artist on a pop record masquerading as soul. Boy, was I wrong. Finding another 45 of his on Early Bird I was knocked out by his singing, with Buddy sounding not unlike Benny Latimore on a good day. I'm sure "When You're Alone" will have its day again.

People should start spinning the other side, "Gonna Step Aside": awesome too. That should give the record an extra two or three years of 'scene-life'.

This was released on a four CD box set released in the US in the mid 90s. Could dig it out later to check details. Has at least a dozen previously unreleased sides, some of them pretty good.

This topic is an interesting case of different strokes for different folks. Aesthetically, I would always go for an issue copy of a record rather than a DJ copy if given the choice. I can't think of anything more tedious than looking through boxes of sterile loooking WDJs. Give me the multicoloured issue labels any day. Deejay copies often lived lives cooped up on radio station shelves. The issues were left to take their chances in the big wide world; examples that survive in good nick are more fascinating to me for that reason. As an extension of this I've often thought collecting British issues of US soul records was odd for similar aesthetic reasons. Compare and contrast the wonderful and often weird world of US label graphics with the staid, post-war austerity "ration-book" feel of the Parlophones / UK Libertys / Londons of this world. Also, as a collector of 1970s soul, as has already been pointed out, it's often the case that the 'good' or now in-demand sides of 45s were only included on issue copies, which were often pressed in far shorter runs than the WDJs.

These thoughts kind of relate to the topic under discussion. I wonder if anyone else has ever noticed or had a similar experience of the following: The first copy of Jeff Perry's "Love Don't Come No Stronger" I ever had was the UK Arista white DJ. I only ever heard the US issue on a decent domestic system about two years ago at a mate's house and was completely bowled over by the vast difference in the two versions of the track. The UK demo is stereo, but only just. The handclaps at the start of the UK cut have no reverb or echo on them. The sax solo is set so far back in the mix that it's practically inaudible and the record has an all-round flatness and lack of sparkle. It really was like listening to two completely different records. I immediately offered to swap the (relatively more expensive) UK Demo for the bog standard US issue. Thinking back to how well received the Jeff Perry 45 was when an import (Blues & Soul Record of the Year 1976 etc.) I often wondered why it was never a massive pop hit. Perhaps the desperately poor quality radio station copy serviced to UK pop DJs was the real reason why this record never crossed over to the pop charts. Can anyone else think of another example where the UK release of a tune is so different to its American counterpart?

Do any Londoners of a certain age remember Terrence Stokes' stall in Carnaby Market (now Boots the Chemist) in the early 1980s? I remember buying so many good records from there (and also a fair deal of dross, it must be said). He briefly moved into a proper shop around the corner (Newburgh Street?) for a few months in about 1984. I bought a copy of Purple Mundi on Cat for £6 or £7 from him there. Where is he now? Also, an incredibly fertile hunting ground was Stan Brennan's Rocks Off shop in Hanway Street. Boxes of 45s left in by Ady C, Ian Clark, Val Palmer etc. Tons of good records, and the bonus of being served by Shane MacGowan too! Rock On in Camden Town was a literally amazing shop for more mainstream soul. There was a whole box of just Bobby Bland singles for example, with nothing more than £2 a pop. I remember my brother buying Margie Joseph's "One More Chance" on Volt there for 60p in 1983.

Toss-up between Wilson Love "Funny Money" NS and Delilah Moore "It Takes Love" Middle Earth.

Brett Cheers for the plugs. You're probably right on The Royal Esquires. But while it was played at Wigan and is bloody fast, I've always thought of it as being a bit different to a traditional northern sound: there's a fair amount of jazz in there. The mainstream northern rooms probably weren't really ready for it twenty years ago. Kolla I think a fair proportion of people on the modern or crossover scenes would share your loathing of some of the records you mention: but these are, in the main, sounds that have stayed on the northern scene almost exclusively; they're as overplayed and played out as records can possibly be, and I class them alongside the 1960s northern oldies that we're all sick to death of hearing (insert your own choices here).

Chris 2001 Black Essence is an amazing record. The problem in all of this arises in that promoters in the UK find it very difficult to sell the concept of a club without resorting to arcane terminology. When you pick up a flyer for a club and it just states "Quality Soul" or whatever, people tend to get scared. The labels, unhelpful as they are, will stay for that very reason. I always chuckle to myself when I see promotional material for Fish's "Without Boundaries" night in Staffordshire. I'm always tempted to go there just to ask for a record which I know they will refuse to play. Tee Hee...

I don't think "Crossover" as a genre is that helpful a term. Originally it was coined for records which were just good soul that couldn't actually be pigeon-holed as anything else by record dealers. I wouldn't really class Jan Jones, Charles Johnson or Velvet Hammer as Crossover. They all started life as dancefloor records on the old modern northern scene, at venues like Wigan, Bradford and Stafford, where a lot of records which were only a couple of years old (or newer) at the time were played and enjoyed by all. As the 1980s moved on and contemporary production techniques overtook much iindependently produced soul (crashing drum machines, heavily synthesised strings and horns etc.) the modern sound split from the mainstream northern venues. Records like Jan Jones, Alfie Davison etc. continued to be played on the traditional northern scene, while the modern scene kind of dwindled and mutated into something else, that was not necessarily venue or dancefloor based. Around the late 1980s and early 1990s what modern venues there were started programming a lot of older-sounding records: it was a kind of backlash against the vapid sounds of contemporary major label output and the diminishing returns of finding independents with the required sound. The older material sounded somehow fresher, and really served to kickstart a moribund collecting scene. A lot of forgotten Mecca and Cleethorpes obscurites got dusted down, together with more than a pinch of earthier southern soul. Big records of this vintage were labelled Crossover: they appealed to punters from both 'modern' and 'northern' camps. Sounds I remember from this time were things like Willie Tee "First Taste Of Hurt", Cliff Nobles "This Feeling Of Lonlieness" John Edwards "The Look On Your Face", Bobby Reed "The Time Is Right For Love", Maurice Jackson "Lucky Fellow", Margie Joseph "One More Chance", Roz Ryan "You're My Only Temptation", Annette Snell "It's All Over Now", Vic Marcel "You Still Got Me" etc. Most or all of these had a decidedly midtempo bent, but there was room for other types of sound: John Simeone "Who Do You Love", Tyrone St Germain "In A World So Cold", The Ghetto Children on Roulette and so on. In summing up, I guess, the Crossover genre can really be pinned down to those records which sounded technologically older, yet still strongly appealed to modern soul fans, regardless of the records' age. I remember the incredible Stomp nights at Camden Dingwalls put on by Simon Dunmore and Ian Clark. Two of the biggest records there were Bill Wright "A Man In Love" and John & The Weirdest "No Time"; what was their common denominator? Quality, I guess. Sticking my neck out, I'd say most of the current northern or rare soul scene are into Crossover, whether they know it or not. Tunes like The Vanguards "Good Times Bad Times", The Montclairs "Hey You!", The Royal Esquires "Ain't Gonna Run" are classic Crossover material. John Pugh played The Vanguards to acclaim on crossover floors over a decade ago, and the first person I ever heard play The Montclairs out was Garry Dennis, many, many moons ago. Records like "Pyramid" always appealed to fans of 60s, 70s, 80s whatever. Great records will always "cross over" in that they will be appreciated by anyone with a sufficiently adventurous palate. I would have hoped by now we could have dispensed with any labels other than an umbrella term like "Rare Soul."