Ady Croasdell

Hipshaker, Bobby Byrd was there singing alongside JB on one or two of the tracks, he was the echo voice. Time was limited so they concentrated on the main areas. One of my mates at cricket today (5 wickets and I'm bladdered) pointed out that JB's stuff was good up to Sex Machine and Say It Loud, but when it just got into a riff like Make It Funky it lost a lot of soul. All in all though he's a genius and like Bobby Bland or Little Johnny Taylor is a black American's soul singer more than a white European's. Discuss, if you can be arsed.

Cheers, that's kind of you. Gil's highest chart entry was #15 R&B and he didn't have one pop hit, I know he was mainly LPs but it's reflective of his lack of fame in the US.

I'm a huge fan of Gil's but can see why he wasn't in it, because he didn't sell many records and isn't known by the man in the street. I think they chose great artists last night and just about got it right. Sly was superb, I remember Dance To The Music as a new release, Oh for anything half as exciting to be recorded now. There was that great GSH documentary about 9months ago that catered for pervs like us. And footage and photos etc are always harder to find than the records. Anyone lend me a copy of the Southern Soul one and the first in the series? The gospel footage in the second one was incredible.

He was good on the telly last night and gave a cracking performance with the original line-up at TAC's Yarmouth Motown weekender about 15 years ago. 6TS wishes him a speedy recovery.

Right I'm going to say it (prompted by Geoff) and damn the consequences. I think there could be a few more oldies chucked into DJs playlists for the new punter or the returnee stomper. A hell of a lot of DJs don't play any in a spot and sometimes their playlists read better than they sound. This really isn't a dig at anyone in particular, I've got no one in mind and I'm sometimes guilty of it too. The oldies themselves should be a mix of the rare, the forgotten, the evergreen and even the crass; once in a while. I used to have this argument with some of the Stafford die hards and I think it's still appropriate today. Obviously it depends on the crowd, and sometimes it would be a bad move, but at other times it probably wouldn't kill anyone to play The Snake and it might give a couple of people a great night. I don't think an all oldies dance would work, whereas an all rare could as long as the crowd knew what it was going to be. An appropriate mix is the ideal. I think there are very few oldies DJs about down south, let alone good ones.

London will be in Cleethorpes. That's why!

I agree with Mikey that the R&B played at the Dome last year didn't help the crowd and in general is much better for smaller clubs like Shake than gaffs with big dancefloors. I also think that the standard of DJing now isn't great. People like Greg and Shifty are missed and though I enjoyed myself at the Dome on Friday I don't think many of the DJs pleased the crowd that was there. Far too much playing a record because they'd planned to play it beforehand and not enough sizing up the crowd and giving them what they want. Lots of collectors don't make great DJs, which is fine at small scale dos where people are doing it for the love of it. Bigger dos are tough. I find it tough to play new stuff in London nowadays, there's a definite need for a good mix of oldies, rarities and the odd collector's or personal favourite but ONLY once you've got the crowd on your side.

Thanks but someone must have a copy of Plus Four, it's not too hard. A scan of both sides would be helpful

Wossit sound like?

Great, thanks Dazz. Hard luck Gareth, apparently he was Willie Parker.

Can anyone lend me a copy of The Happiest Girl In The World by them on Warner bros? And has anyone seen demos of GWP or GWP's Grapevine except for Frankie Newsome? And did that come out on Sagport? And wasn't he someone else before he was FN?

Levine's not Algerian, I think he's a Lancastrian. You're mixing him up with Simon Soussan who was Lebanese! (insert your own imaginary smilies)

That's a cracker, I've soaked my socks.

It came from an unmarked tape that Andy was leant by Johnnie Mae and/or her son. We really used Audrey as a guess name as we didn't know. If Audrey is too young, I think Sgharon may be a good bet as she wrote it so it could be her original version. Ady PS You left Chris King out of your dream scenario!

I made contact with Audrey Matthews earlier this year, regarding the unissued version of "I have no choice" that Adey played, credited to Audrey. It transpired that it wasn't her, as she was only about 10yrs old when the track was recorded, as she is only 48 now! It turns out it was probably by Sharon McMahon, who wrote the song, and may have recorded the track on tape as a promo for the song. We know, of course, that the song was picked up by Johnnie Mae. However, Saron McMahon's is THE version IMHO, absolutely sublime, it knocks spots of Johnnie Mae's effort. Black Nastys version is a very poor 3rd link

And big thanks to Dave Welding who organised getting the tapes restored from the unusable by Ace's Sound Mastering studios. Dave quite rightly has a cut too.

Is there a site that's knowledgeable about the records, this seems mainly social and a radio show. I'm a fax 'n' info man (and the loose skin on girls' elbows when their arms are straight).

Kent's putting Bill Bush out, licensed from the proper people of course, on Northern Soul's Classiest rareties Vol 2. I don't get how so many people seem to be against it, it seems like a very good soul dance record to me! But then again, I'm not a fan of 'Pyramid'.