Garethx

A record which always blows non-soul scene people away when they hear it for the first time is Oscar Wright on Hemisphere. On deeper reflection on the original question maybe the single record which sums up everything weird and wonderful about the Northern Soul phenomenon is Paul Anka's "Can't Help Loving You". It couldn't have been released on a bigger record label and the artist was practically a worldwide household name yet it took a youth cult in the UK to rescue it from the dustbin of abject failure and obscurity. Maybe nothing else better sums up the idea that it's the sound, not the artist or the artist's racial identity which makes a Northern Soul record different from simply a Soul Record. Love it or hate it this is quintessential, textbook NS. I would have loved to have been there when it was uncovered.

Edwin Starr "I Have Faith In You". A new convert can still go out and buy an original copy of this brilliant record for the price of a couple of pints.

I have a white deejay copy as well Simon. Wasn't aware that it was particularly difficult in this format. As for the year of release I'm sticking my neck out with very late '70s.

Hi Looking for a clean copy of Way Out 2006 The Volcanic Eruption "Red Robin" c/w "I've Got Something Going For Me" TIA for any leads gareth

Martha Starr was from Greenville as Dave says and was a member of Moses Dillard's Tex-Town Display (along with the young Peabo Bryson). I'm guessing that live and session work with Dillard bought her to the attention of Bill Smith, hence the Charay recordings. Moses Dillard was part of the Sons of Moses of Soul Symphony fame of course. The Tex-Town name of the group has nothing to do with Texas, but instead refers to the fact that Greenville South Carolina was once the centre of the South's textile industry.

In my experience this is actually a really tough record to buy on US 45 issue. The demo has "I Wanna Feel Your Love" on both sides and should be around fairly easily (in fact there are copies on musicstack from $4) but the issue with her updated version of Lucky Jamal Davis's "Love Is Better Than Ever" on the reverse is rarely sighted on an American 7". I could be wrong but I think it was 12" only in the UK.

My take on it is this: the Constellation release was cusp of 64/65 according to Robert Pruter's Chicago Soul, released on the coat-tails of She's Gone / If He Makes You: a reasonably big hit in Chicago, LA and other markets. The record stiffed. Fast forward to 1966 and Constellation is going under. Ewart Abner has left the label as owner/president to try to sort out the mess that was the dying embers of the VeeJay empire. Gene Chandler's minor hit records are no longer enough to sustain Constellation so it is wound up. Gene Chandler's contract is sold to Chess / Checker and Bill Sheppard is free to tout his own masters (of which JLTW is one) around to other concerns. At the same time Billy The Kid Emerson and Denise LaSalle are having considerable local success with their take over the same backing track: A Love Reputation which would subsequently be sold with Denise LaSalle's contract to Chess. Bill Sheppard presses up a small number of deejay copies of the Nolan Chance 45 on his own logo to service radio d.j.s and try to get the record picked up or re-released. This is around the same time as Sheppard discovers and promotes The Esquires whose first 45s for Bunky all sell really well and facilitate the distribution of new Bunky product by Scepter / Wand. The Nolan Chance project is shelved and the small number of WDJs on Bunky are binned. Except one or (now) two. I've never seen one but I'm having a wild guess that it is a WDJ pressed at ARP in Michigan. The same plant as Frank Wilson on Soul and the existing Constellation WDJs of Just Like The Weather. The interesting number will be the master #: we know that it has a catalogue number C-161. If it has the master number C-65-279 it supports Steve's theory that it is likely and simply a mis-press of the Constellation demo. A label or run-out with a post-1965 number could back up the theory of a later release. The same metalwork would likely be used anyway, but they may have assigned it a different matrix. It will be very interesting to see a picture of the thing in any case. Steve's theory runs into a problem in that the first Bunky release would appear to be the local version of the Esquires 45 as mentioned above. The pressing plant would not have Bunky blanks lying around in winter 64/65. As for those not exactly blown away by another copy of this coming out of the woodwork I guess it's a sign that we've all become spoilt by the wealth of what would once have been pretty astounding finds with far more regularity these days. The internet has indeed made the world a far smaller place.

The bootlegs are single colour print, either blue on a white label or black on a blue label and don't have the Buddah logo along the bottom of the label. Originals, from at least three pressing plants are all two colour print on a pale blue label, black type with mauve "MM" and Buddah logos. There are both styrene and vinyl originals.

It would help if the original poster gave concrete examples to illustrate what he meant by a split and which specific venues or djs he was referring to. By 'The Rare Scene' is he talking about nighters? Soul nights? The North? The Midlands? Help us out. Failing to define the terms of the debate has once again led to a load of needless bickering and arguing at crossed purposes and on to the inevitable I Hate Crossover / I Hate R&B / I Love Funk etc. etc. posts.

B-side of Patches in the UK, Devil Woman on US copies. Neither should be more than the price of a pint, but what an absolutely magnificent soul record which sounds so good out loud. Pure FAME magic.

The Monitors version is indeed great, but features a different rhythm track: the original use of Marvin's "God Is Love' 45. The Originals features (as far as I can tell) the same backing track as the version by MG on Let's Get It On.

I know there is a version of this is on the expanded CD edition of Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On" but did it ever sneak out on vinyl earlier on? A non-USA single or compilation album track?

Can only echo all of the above. A very sad day.

Pete is correct. Northern Soul is basically a genre in which there are no rules to be broken, so none of these names should surprise any of us.

Chris Cerf is a very good example. I started a topic on here a good few years ago about his involvement in a US military intelligence operation to use music in conflict situations: specifically in bombarding terrorists with apalling sounds in hostage situations. I wonder if the big hats at the Pentagon had ever heard his Amy 45?

I've banged on here many times about what a great attempt at blue-eyed soul the Ronnie Milsap Scepter sides were so I don't think of them as strange choices. Funnily enough I never connected that Bernadette Peters on ABC was that Bernadette Peters. Seems obvious now, though. Who can forget her appearance in The Jerk? A great comic actress. The thing about records like BP, Dolly Parton, Connie Stevens etc. is that at least they were aimed at the discotheque and were using production styles which were current in contemporary black music: either Motown soundalikes or Stax-like in the case of Charlie Rich's soul records, so it's no surprise that they can still stand up against more 'authentic' examples. Often the producers, arrangers and songwriters were the same as on the black-fronted records, particularly on major labels. Ray Merrell is an odd one though.

I think this is the Goldspot version with just a bit of a tweak to the EQing.

I'm currently having some "PLEASE THROW UNDERARM" rubber stamps made up.

Both pressed at Specialty Records of Olyphant, Pennsylvania (denoted by the SP suffix after the master number). The typesetting was done for Specialty by a company called Keystone in Scranton PA. Specialty took over from MGM as the de-facto 'main' Atlantic pressing plant in 1965. The size of orders at individual pressing plants would depend on many things, such as which region a particular record was likely to sell well in, but I like to think of the SP pressings as the nicest way to get classic Atlantic 45s of the soul era because of the quality of the pressings themselves and the superior typesetting used. A quick look at popsike reveals that there are also copies of FA-37 pressed at Plastic Products in Memphis (PL suffix) and Monarch in LA (MO suffix). The Monarch and Plastic demos are basically the issue label minus the red ink on the logotype, which is rendered in black only. My preference would be for the Specialty press. In my experience their vinyl was of higher quality than PP and preferable to the styrene of Monarch. On a purely personal note I've never really cared for the hand-drawn Flaming Arrow device so was pleased to get a demo with the 'Flaming Arrow' just in script. In short not a re-issue and probably the best way to own the record (others may disagree!)

Sleeve construction. Bootleggers would have to go to quite some lengths these days to replicate the heavy board with glued 'slick' used in US sleeves from the early '70s.

Pat once told me he bought this from Ian Levine in the same deal in which he acquired Walter & The Admerations on LaCindy. Remained known in small circles ever since and has always sounded superb whenever it gets an airing in a big hall. I think it's potentially one of the great downbeat Northern records and probably doesn't achieve as big a sale price as it should given its quality and relative rarity. The other side as clipped above is very ordinary in my opinion but "Now She Wants To Leave" is a great soul record.

I think Ken and Paul are absolutely spot on. Definitely a demo singer recording 'in the style of' Chuck Jackson rather than the real thing and the vocal is very reminiscent of Ronnie Milsap's Scepter sides: so much so that it's as likely to be him as anyone else. Milsap's ability to sound like other singers was so uncanny that it's almost a case of him never actually sounding like himself. His country hits from later in his career are so different to what came earlier that it's hard to reconcile that he was at one time probably the most 'authentic' sounding blue-eyed soul man of them all. Joey Levine is an interesting songwriter whose mid 60s output ran the gamut of the sublime (How Big Is Big) to the ridiculous (Yummy, Yummy, Yummy).

Bill Pinkney & The Original Drifters on Game from the Carolinas. To me it's the best version and used to be a 'tape-swappers' fave'. I haven't heard it mentioned for a long time. Dave Crawford is listed as writer and the publisher is Harry Balk's Gomba Music.

I've also seen James Carr's "Lover's Competition" (Goldwax 112) on the black label. Tollie was re-absorbed back into VeeJay in summer 1965. VeeJay filed for bankruptcy the following year.

The black design dates from VeeJay distribution of the label. Veejay pressed at several locations throughout the States, with each plant having its own typesetting and layout variations. Good sources of this information are the various sites devoted to The Beatles pre-Capitol US releases. Here's a particularly useful one which helps explain possible variations of VeeJay distributed labels such as Goldwax or Champion: https://thebeatles-collection.com/wordpress/category/vee-jay/