Ady Croasdell

The first boots I found over there were Belgian boots for the Popcorn scene. I got about 10 Sam Fletchers on a dodgy Tollie label out of Downstairs records in NYC. I sold them on as what they were.

Thanks

Ha! I just found it ---Doh

Can anyone direct me to a soundfile or send me one, I only need to hear a few seconds. Ta Ady

Is it the same group as Softouch on Prodigal and Fantasy? I'm guessing not as there is a male voice in there.

Indeed, they left early 80s and from then on it was Jet microwaving shepherd's pies (once for Princess Ann!)

Apart from the Dramatics Inky Dinky Wang Dang Do on Wingate in Dec 66 and Little Ann One Way Street in mid 68, does anybody know of any other involvement between these Detroit characters?

I think there’s a lot of truth in that. In the early days scooter scene dos seemed to be good quality Northern, I think Oi and similar slipped in later: only what I heard, I never went

I’ve got about 8 in the box for the last three records and vary them slightly over time, dependant on the state of the crowd by 5.50am. Though the ender’s usually the same

Thanks Ron, Dave Ferguson kindly obliged. Ady

Northern Soul's Classiest Rarities Vol 5 CDKEND 432

All sorted now. Thanks

That's the alternate mix without guitar that we did on Northern Soul's Classiest Rarities Vol 5

Great info chaps but has nobody got an Ex copy they could lend? Ady

Thanks Trev, I'd forgotten that. Presumably the same version and sound? Ady

By a colleague at Ace in Ex condition please. CDs or vinyl and credit in return. Cheers Ady

Buy the Kent 45 Geoff, you'll get Garland Green 'Come Through Me' on the flip!

Real money reward available now

End of February but only an estimate

Could any kind soul lend me a copy, a box set of 45s in return! Ady

Agreed with all of that

Yes

Yes Returning to the birth of Northern Soul, the label boasted another single that helped the scene convert yet more aspiring night owls. With a title like ‘The Cat Walk’ c/w ‘Little Bit Of Soul’ and being recorded by Gerry & Paul and the Soul Emissaries, Fatback 411 was always going to get listened to by young Brits in search of that old, soul sound for their happening dances back in the north of England. This time they weren’t even slightly disappointed. By the early seventies, instrumentals were in vogue through the likes of Motown’s Earl Van Dyke and Ric Tic’s San Remo Strings, and when the first chords of ‘The Cat Walk’ blast out of the speakers, there’s no doubt that a classic dance record is playing. ‘Little Bit Of Soul’ maintains the danceable rhythm but doesn’t quite contain the magic that ‘Cat Walk’ conjures up. The Gerry of the group was Gerry Thomas, a NYC keyboard player who was also adept at the trumpet and a great musical arranger to boot. Gerry is a central figure in the Fatback story; he originally met Bill Curtis when they were both playing in a dance band run by Ron Anderson called Ron Anderson and the Versatiles. He left the band in 1968 to play in the Jimmy Castor Bunch and stayed with them for the next ten years. While he was with that group he wrote for them and performed on their big hits, but also developed an interest in the Fatback organisation which extended to him arranging the very first Fatback Band single. Paul was Paul Roland Martinez, a bass player and original member of Jimmy Castor’s various bands. In fact, it was Paul who introduced Gerry to Jimmy. Paul had been a member of the 50s group the Cadillacs, and that’s how he met Jimmy Castor, when Jimmy was doing some singing with the Teenagers after Frankie Lymon had left. Paul co-wrote ‘Little Bit Of Soul’ with Gerry while Gerry was sole composer of ‘The Cat Walk’. The Soul Emissaries were an ensemble of studio musicians who included, among others, Richard Tee, Jimmy Johnson and the king of New York session drummers, Bernard “Pretty” Purdie. Now here’s a story for the serious vinyl collector; better known as anoraks to the uninitiated. ‘The Cat Walk’ was a massive record on the Northern Soul scene in the very early 70s, so much so that it was one of the first records to be bootlegged. When I first came across the bootleg copy I soon realised that the sides of the record were reversed and what should have been ‘The Cat Walk’ was ‘Little Bit Of Soul’. This had always amused me, and when I met up with Gerry Thomas a few years ago I repeated the story to him. He confided to me that the record pressing company had got the sides the wrong way round in the first place and they had sent the masters back to get it pressed the right way before selling it. So did that mean the bootleg was an original, and which was the correct version of the titles? The fact that both sides were played at different times and they were both instrumentals made it seem like an insolvable problem. However, when we came to dub (what I thought was) the original record for this CD (it’s one of two singles for which the masters had been lost), I was amazed when our normally perfect Sound Mastering studios sent me the master CDR for approval and they had put the tracks in the wrong sequence. Luckily I didn’t go in with guns blazing, because when we compared our original single it was exactly the same as the bootleg and I was beginning to question my own sanity. Had there ever been a copy that had had my favourite side as ‘The Cat Walk’? A phone call to the ever-knowledgeable Mick Smith, a man who had been there at the time, and Keith Minshull, one of the first DJs to play the record, confirmed the existence of the original version that I remembered. All the early dance ads featuring ‘The Cat Walk’ as one of the star attractions at Wolverhampton’s Catacombs or the Bird’s Nest in West Hampstead had been correct after all. What I realised had happened was that there had been two different originals like Gerry had said and the bootleggers had chosen the wrong one to copy. It may not have meant much to the majority of soul fans but at least I could sleep peacefully again!

It gives you the option of playing it off-centre or not