purist

I bought a record from Sousann after the usual "ignore the title" spiel back in the 70's. I knew it wasn't really right for playing but i agreed with him that it has "something". Maybe 20+ years later rummaging through some old boxes I found it out again, covered it up and had decent success with it at Albrighton. The proper name was something like - "They Had A Party At The Watergate" and how corny can you get, it was by "The Revealers". I bet old Dickie Nixon thought it was a peach , ahem, I'll get my coat

They say that "Taste, like cheese. matures over the years", so how come I still get a massive buzz off some right old Wigan vinyl tat, Footsee for example ( just got shouted at for posting Theme From Joe 90 on FB :-D )

The biggest run out grooves ever ?? Is this why ppl are having problems with skips, because the grooves cannot be deep or wide enough at 45rpm? (do they look like 33rpm e.p. grooves to anybody else?) Is it just me or do about half the tracks need to be revved up to plus 3 to sound anywhere near how we first got to know them? When we knew it as "Its Killing Me" at Stafford it fairly romped along, this mix seems very pedestrian. The Temps, another I first heard at Stafford needed to be on plus 4 to sound "right", Suspicion also better around plus 3, and oddly enough even the Isleys sounded slower than the Album we've all been playing for years, so I plus 2'd that and it sounded more like it. And before anybody asks, yes my deck speed is correct to the strobe, and no other tracks seemed wrong to my ears (although Stormy is better again at plus 2.8) When I get a minute I'm gonna clock the bpm of the Isleys on the album and on this new 7 to confirm. Last thought, what would it cost to get a carver done of the missing Marvin Gaye with scanned label for all those wondering whether to send their incomplete sets back? The cost could be offset by selling the extra copy of Barbara McNair on evilbay, at least it'd be better than nothing?

and which Eddie Parker

the youtube posted was rooie16, anybody know who that is? pm me if so, in case they dont want their name shouted all over the net, thanx

Did anyone ever get a copy of this and the other 2 of the same nite? If so could you post them up somewhere we could view them, or even put them on disc (thinking with the reunion doo coming up it'd be nice to see them again)

so how many votes for Billy Woods issue and how many for Don Varner on Veep?

Steve "It ain't no secret" was a big tune in the earlier 70's, imho, and I hate to disagree with you, it was "in demand". It was almost a blueprint of the stomping thumping northern that rose during the pre-wigan Cats/Torch era (maybe it was a classic example of "Midlands Soul" as opposed to Northern Soul, a phrase often quoted in these parts as a way of saying midlands venues were leading the way in breaking this new stomping style of music) where the beat had to really bang and the singers generally had to wail a bit to be heard over the banging bass line through those big bass bins much loved in the old days (when you'd feel the floor shake under your feet). At that time one of the local shops would pin up all their new stock in their sleeves under the title "Hot New Releases", which of course 99% weren't. It started at 65p or 13/-, then rose up until it got up to 85p a go. I don't specifically remember seeing this pale blue press on the wall, but I do remember in that very shop hearing the one on Keanya label for the first time, and it being discussed along the lines of " It's good, but it'll never go massive like her first one" (meaning the blue rock one) So I asked which one they meant and it was played. That was the first time I actually knew what it was, but I knew it straight away because I'd been dancing to it for a longish time. As I say, maybe it was a regional thing, especially as DJ's kept as many tunes to themselves for as long as possible, but a strong relationship existed between these 2 clubs and the sources for reissued material in the east mids and USA (and Chicago in particular) and a good way of dating it is that Bob C the Cats DJ died on the journey to east mids to replenish the stock for his shop and I'm fairly certain that was early 72. One point that nobody has yet made is that all of the pale blue label Blue Rocks that I've seen are Northern sides. I've yet to see any 45 on the pale blue label that is a ballad, but I'm happy to be proved wrong ( i remember Boomerang was done on this pale blue label. How many different release examples of the pale blue label are there?) and finally Esther - Recently I asked Chris Burton about a specific Torch Dayer promotion which we both think was March 74, and I specifically remember the Barnabus Collins track being red hot there, which added to the knowing this to be her 2nd hit on the scene, means the Blue Rock one was some date before that. So not the all out proof that an invoice ordering them in 72 would prove, but a lot of jigsaw pieces which together add up to a lot. hth p.s. does anybody know date wise when the small 45 Okeh's turned up?

The difference is clear, the one above sells in the range £20-25 whereas the white logo "original" sells for approx treble, but of course as often happens this only applies where both buyer and seller know what the difference is. I have seen them sold the wrong way round, but if you buy the white logo off, lets say Soul Bowl for example, then you will have to pay £75 upwards in my experience, but you continue to see the one above in cheapo boxes in venues . Having said that, buy a WDJ, say £100+ maybe ? then you are on solid ground

Ive enjoyed this thread. I'm in the camp that says there's definitely two different female vocalists and not one vocalist double tracking ( the phrasing is different, I find the one that sounds like a little girl delightful, yet the other vocal which is cleaner, more crisp and the pronunciations sound more correct, edges it of the two, imho) But that wasn't the thing I wanted to say. I wonder of we're all overthinking it, Occam's Razor... the label credits a Phyllis Fortier as co-writer. Everybody else has took various leaps into the wild blue, so here's another theory. As songwriters they get a chance to write for some artist, a track on a major artists multi million selling album is worth far more than a regional hit on their own label in dollar terms, so Nate gets his wife/sister/cousin into the studio to record what is in effect a demo to show the prospective artist, let's say for arguements sake, Cilla Black, how they envisage the song working. Rather than send off a cheapo looking acetate they decide to sport a few bucks and have the record pressed to give the potential artist, Cilla, the feeling that the song has already had some traction/radio plays ( Cilla liked doing her own versions of US soul tracks if her catalogue is anything to go by) I n order to press up this sales device they need a flipside, okay lets knock one off. Hey lets use some old backing track thats lying around in the studio to keep costs down, a quick twiddle here, oh pass me that accordian, yes def sounds better now Sadly the song doesn't make the final cut for Cilla's album, so they give a few away here and there, send a few off to potential buyers at home and abroad etc. Mystery Solved, Sandy Golden is Phyllis Fortier !!! (PLEASE NOTE - other works of fiction/non fiction are also available. The values of vinyl theories may go up, as well as down )

great looking book and imagine having the US equivalent also ! I've often thought down the years that I bet Ive got some sleeves that someone else is looking for and I bet others have sleeves I'd like. Maybe a system like saturday morning swapshop might be worth a try, for example -" Have Grapevine UK sleeve, swap for Loma US" ?

anywhere that we can hear THE ALBERT - MISERY ?

I'm in the "it's a real copy" camp, but just for fun want to point out that much is being made of the credits, about how these names have other productions known so that somehow legitimises the record.. The problem with that is I seem to remember names turning up on boots, something like Mick Smith or was it Ginger Taylor. Sorry my memory isn't what it was, seem to remember being shown it on some sort of Motown unreleased boot was it?? (maybe Wilko had a hand in it, he was a great one for keeping the fun in going out)

Surely this points to it being a vanity press by the artist or her representatives (talking about the cheapo shoddy label design)

I have, sure I've got some in the collection. Remember thinking at first glance it might be drumsticks ( so that's what i've refered to it as "the drumsticks one", when chatting about run out groove stamps)

Pete, this reminds me, Max was always going on about a collector he knew up in Scotland who kept a massive & brilliant collection in a leaky garden shed. Max kept trying to get him to either store them somehwere safe and more importantly, dry, or sell them. Wonder if this is the result ?

Best thing would be if the prices were showed with all options, for example - £9.60 if you pay cash and collect it from my house and come at a suitable time, but don't expect a cuppa, or to be allowed to use my toilet. £10 if you pay paypal and collect it from my house, again at a suitable time, but not if the football is on. £12 if you send me cash in the post and want me to post it you £12.50 if you pay paypal and want it posted to you standard post £16.55 if you send me cash and want it sent back to you insured and next day delivery £17.65 if you pay paypal and want it sent back to you insured and next day delivery my maths ain't brilliant, but roughly all these things mean the seller gets no more than £9.60, even though somebody has shelled out as much as £17.65.Makes venue buying look better doesn't it ? Can't leave it like that though, from there we could have further price increases for the use of "brand new mailer" ( why do folk think this is a plus? I'd rather people recycle old cardboard, save the planet, man ! ) or my absolute favourite that I see regularly on ebay.com, "also includes a charge for me to drive it to the nearest post office which is 60 miles away, which is why I only go once a week or so, depending on if I've had many orders, meaning if I've only got a couple of records to post out you'll have to wait until I sell at least another ten to make it worth my time, which I'm only charging you at 20 dollars an hour" absolute bargain ;-)

As a teenager in '71ish, I had a top printed with the slogan Keep the Faith, done in a very artistic arch shape. I obviously thought I was the muts when i wore it (sad) Everywhere I went people wanted to buy it off me, or rob it off me, and it became a wear & wash item ( we didn't have that many cool clothes, spent too much money on vinyl) Made friends that lasted lifetimes because of it, and as has been said it was like a secret handshake when people acknowledged you for wearing it. Now like most folk have said I doubt I've used the phrase since before Wigan opened her doors, and I'd sat and read this thread with a smile - then yesterday in a Victor Meldrew " I Don't Believe It" moment I was about to cross a road in the town centre when a corporation lorry drove past, the window rolled down and a voice shouted " Keep The Faith, Johnny Boy". So for those moments when you see somebody who you knew back in the olden days I think you are allowed to use it. I get p*ssed off when fake people hijack everything from the name 'Northern', down to the big trousers, so am i surprised that fakers have stolen this too, nah, not at all, but it makes them simple to spot

Thanks for the info. Do you mean the Connoisseur label that Buddy Smith got issued on, or some other one? I've a feeling I've seen a pale label with green writing on, possibly George Hibson or a similar track on this other label? on a tangent, Is there a track listing for the blue Connoisseur label? Seem to remember a version of Genie, poss by Pat Lewis, ??

One that I've been trying to buy for years now, I want it for the flip, so if anybodys got one with L.I.L. in bad condition I'll happily buy that :-) wishful thinking (btw, I saw it on a list, maybe Tim B? - for 300 but thought that was too much so left it)

slight tangent - the later releases I have on white labels. I presume they are promotional copies but they don't state that anywhere on the label. I've seen blue labelled copies which i presume to be stock issues, but the early releases all have some identification on them to class them as promotional ( DJ copy not for sale, PLUG SIDE etc) Think I've seen some white labelled copies with a printed star on them ( a place for example, but not on all copies) is that supposed to signify a promo? ( sorry, if this should be another thread can the mods shift it for me)

I think folk will do what they will do, and many of the replies have merit, but I feel the need to raise on point. With events like Spirit of Stafford & Spirit of Albrighton they were/are not purely nostalgia based events, like these anniversarys. They aimed at playing a percentage of era & venue specific memories, but also keeping the " play something new" spirit alive by also including new music that was appropriate ( i.e. tunes that had we found them in that era, we would have played them, but they've been discovered since the original venues closed so we couldn't play them back then, so we will now ;-) Imagine if they did a " Spirit of Wigan" themed nite, it would also be exactly the same because Wigan played a fair proportion of new music, so presumably they'd play a mix of Wigan memories and newies - if they had the desire to be accurate, they would, wouldn't they ?

Enjoyed the read but I do wish they'd talk to someone who experienced Stafford, 100 Club or any of the pivotal Niters & Soul Nites that happened in the intervening years before they put pen to paper.

My experience dates later than the Beatles early 60's Liverpool, but maybe explains things a little ( maybe not but often things dont really change that much) As a youngster in the mid-late 60's working for a fruit & veg wholesaler/retailer he'd take us to two main places to get the stock, Evesham for the home grown produce, and a 'rough market' not far from the docks (basically the produce was laid out in rows on the floor and they'd walk past each pile and throw buyers tickets on, as each got sold. He'd get me and another kid to hang back and swap the tickets about, knowing if we got caught we'd just get a cuff around the ear and it wouldn't reflect on him, but he'd buy the cheapest rubbish and get us to swap his tickets with the tickets on the best fruits, and because the sellers lads loaded for the buyers, nobody cottoned on) Afterwards our boss would take us around the nearby streets in around the dock area and to some local pubs where people would be hawking all sorts, quite literally at the roadside. He'd buy anything at all that he thought was cheap enough so he could turn a profit, and it's obvious the things he bought were "knock off", goods stolen from the ships. I'm fairly sure, although it's a long time ago, that my first VIP 45 (possibly my first Soul labelled record and not VIP?) came from one of these streetside sellers, with a stacked up pile of banana boxes made into a makeshift market stall, with brightly coloured import records ( not just US but West Indian & possibly European?) Most trips I'd spend all that I earned on records, knowing that I'd built up a regular number of buyers back home amongst the older mod kids, but even though the records were cheap I only earned fifteen shillings ( i have no memory of "wet" records at all) I think where folk are looking at this wrongly is that in any sales enterprise the seller needs to know what will sell, so these guys, what we'd later on call street hustlers, fully understood which tunes to get. They weren't just Black Music sellers, they had different boxes, some for the Teddy Boys, some for the Hippies and Greasers etc. I remember many a time people would come up and walk off with 2 /3 /4 cratefulls (because I asked if I'd looked through them yet, only to be told that they were other hawkers taking them to sell at other locations, or on other markets in other towns) This doesn't really match with a few handfuls of records bought over by random sailors, I tend to think it was organised criminal enterprise, cash business with the taxman seeing nothing, and the only difference is that on the stalls i was interested in they sold records or jeans, but the same guys moved stalls and sold coats, meat, anything. In the 80's I wholesaled Videotapes to rental libraries, and on a day out in Liverpool wasn't really surprised to see mountains of dodgy videos, of all the latest cinema hits for sale in almost identical circumstances to the record stall in the 60's. But going back to those days, I think that's why I always was quite happy to buy blind in later life, because of doing it as a kid. My "best" one was buying a load, maybe 25 copies of a record by somebody called Leroy Van Dyke. I asked the guy selling it if it was like Earl Van Dyke and in typical scousey salesmanship fashion he told me it was Earl's brother and they played together in the same band so this song was almost identical to Soul Stomp / Six by Six. Imagine my horror when i got home and it was desperately awful Country & Western. One last thought. I tend to date this period of my life as 67-69, but one thing I clearly remember was that I'd bought some copies of While You're Out Looking For Sugar, and for several weeks after I'd sold them people kept coming to my mom's house asking if I could get them one ( not just kids, but grown men and women) The record was the most indemand thing ever. I think it got released in the UK but guess they didn't make anywhere near enough to satisfy demand, because everybody kept chasing the import weeks later. In the end I even sold my own copy when offered a stupidly high price by a desperate DJ. hth

Its a glorious tune, but it's hardly what I'd call a ballad ( as i get older records this tempo are virtually stompers to me ! darn it, why do so many fabulous rare soul tunes turn out to be so bloomin' rare lol