purist

It's always been in my mind that these 'nearly' instrumentals (In The Pocket, Backstreets, etc) were forerunners of "karaoke for artists", so they could take an acetate of them to a club and audition without the clubs live band having to be there. I cannot think of any other reason to have some backing tracks that are not the exact same as the released song (unless they were 'try outs', but then that wouldn't explain how they ended up being found where they were found I'm full of crackpot theories, and this is just one. I should have worked on X-Files or Warehouse 13

A staggering 285,000 views on youtube (thanks to Levanna) I suspect a 500 press might not have any trouble selling? as perhaps the tune is better known (and better liked) than many Niter tunes??

I'm not at all up to date on what has and what hasn't been bootlegged/legally reissued/w.h.y., but what was the 7" single sided Carrie Cleveland "Love Will Set You Free" for sale recently on ebay? I messaged the seller to ask about it but got no reply https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Carrie-Cleveland-Rare-7-Inch-Northern-Soul-Looking-up-/261583439831?ssPageName=ADME%3AX%3AAAQ%3AGB%3A1123&nma=true&si=NlyAHpQ9xe6JUbGd65bzVpcHdpw%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

funnily enough an american seller was auctioning one on ebay recently, not something you see often, made me wonder how it found it's way back across the ocean

Thanks for the info guys, now I've seen a picture. btw do any of you actually own a copy, and is it really rare (or have I just been unlucky not to have ever seen one?)

If Ive done my sums right this adds up to over £1705, but that using Ebays exchange rates, and today they've dropped so they just said on the news ( due to the uncertainty of the Scotland vote) (£2 Soul Bowl list b.i.t.d. - I nearly sent it back 'cause it had a small label damage, glad I kept it now )

While the great and the good of British label collectors are on this thread there's a question I'd like to ask. Not sure if it qualifies as a grail, but it's had a few plays on the scene from the USA Musicor 45 to my knowledge? It was a few years ago that I saw a Fontana copy on a sales list of Marilyn Powell "Please Go Away". The list was a mostly Popcorn/R'n'B list, and it originated from Europe, so I wondered if this was indeed a UK Fontana 45, or perhaps Dutch or one of the other likely European imprints. I've kept my eyes peeled for it ever since, but never seen it again. Does anyone have one? If so what's the country of origin?

Shame it wasn't the Disco promo 12 you found Pete, recently it's been fetching towards £300 (https://www.popsike.com/RARE-PLEASURE-LET-ME-DOWN-EASY-RARE-DJ-COPY-PROMO-12-UNPLAYED/160893721735.html On a tangent, years ago digging through came across a quantity of the US press 7", maybe 30 copies. Thought I could probably move on a few in swaps, so decided to take a dozen. Did a quick check to make sure they were all the same unplayed condition and kinda half noticed something different about the one label (I think I thought it was a different font?) There was so much stock to get through that trip I rapidly moved on with my searching and never gave it another thought. Years later I was going through my records looking for something to put in my cheapy x-over/modern swap box for that nite at Albrighton and found the remaining copies, still unplayed. Having learned from my mistakes of the past I thought I must make sure to hang on to a copy before they all go. I chose one at random, put in in a sleeve and dropped it into a 70's playbox. Time goes by and one nite I play it as a memory jerker in a modern set, and as i'm putting it back in it's sleeve the next DJ on is already on the stage and he said to me " can I have a look at that". I thought 'surely he knows this tune', but handed him the 45 anyway. As he gave it me back he said words to the effect of " I've never seen one like that before". Puzzled, I looked at it, and the penny dropped. I must have included this 'different looking one' years before, and luckily it was the one I'd added to my collection. Now the difference isn't all that great, but it's there and I think instinctively when you look through a quantity of 45's anything different registers in a part of your brain. We chatted for a while and he produced a copy from his DJ box and we compared the two. I don't know why it hadn't clicked with me but my copy was a promo. I think it looked different because the label colour was brighter, the print was much darker, and the white writing at the bottom of the label was larger and in a bigger font and much more prominent. For my own satisfaction I've checked back and found close to 200 copies sold on the net. Amongst those there's only 2 of these promos. Dunno about anyone else, but with common records I think it's nice to have them in their rarest format, so for once I think I've been lucky. I'm not great at prices but I reckon if the 7" issue is worth a tenner, surely my 7" demo has gotta be worth 20?

Any N/S sellerts planning on being there?

Ady, I seem to remember back before the soul source days when a lot of us were on Soul Talk chat list (prob late 90's?) anyway, in one discussion about Kent albums which had unreleased tracks on them I was jokingly moaning about carrying a couple of Kent LP's with me to DJ at a regular "1980's & Stafford" memory nite, so that I could play Upset My Heart/You Could Be My Remedy/ I'm A Lover Chuck Carter and some other Keb, Guy & Your unreleased exclusives from that era, and it led to a discussion where you said words to the effect of "I'm happy for DJ's to cut a 7" disc to play out from Kent CD's & LP's", and then some joke about hoping that the DJ concerned actually bought the CD/LP in question and didn't just beg it from a friend. I sat down and wrote out a list of unreleased Kent tracks and thought "as soon as I've got some spare cash I'll get these cut". Needless to say 15+ years later I still have the list, but don't have any of these cut, mainly because all my spare cash goes on buying records, predominantly old 45's, LP's & Acetates(or yet another record box) but, and here is the key - occasionally I find I simply have to buy a newly minted 45 because they are so bloody good. Case in point for me, Dave Hamilton's Who Are You Trying To Fool. That is such an awesome tune I cant understand anybody who likes N/S not owning one and carrying it in their playbox? Having said that any DJ worth their salt should have their own unknown/hardly known tunes in their box which should take preference over some tune that's available to all, shouldn't they? Then it's a case of your Kent Select/100 Club vying for turntable time with whatever rarity or recently acquired long time want that the DJmakes up the rest of their set with. So quality does matter, but equally exposure. For the first 30 odd years of our scene most records heard for the first time could be immediately categorised into "brilliant", or "just great" (with the very occasional whats he playing this chite for) It seems to me that discoveries in recent years often require "working" much more by DJ's. When you started with, for example Hy Tones "Good News" I thought it was bordering between average and okay, definitely nothing to get super excited about. Maybe a dozen venue plays later it struck me that it is indeed a brilliant tune, but if I'd been in my local shop or a youtube link I wouldn't have played it a dozen times, so it wouldn't have hit me and my money would have gone elsewhere. Finally, it also comes down to venues more than DJ's. There isn't a vast amount of well attended nites that play outside either the two opposite ends of the scale" Nostalgia Northern" or " Lifeline". Places where playing a Kent 45 wouldn't be frowned upon and neither would they clear the floor. I remember a few years back at Albrighton (which, for example, was one of those venues I'm talking about from the middle ground) that each years 100 club anniversary single would get played all year until the next new one joined the list, but even then the real great ones weren't completely dropped. I think Lock & Key, When The Boy That You Love, San Fran TKO's etc, kept getting played for years. Like everybody has said, we all want you to keep going, looking for 'proper' northern newies and getting them played and making them available, but I should imagine it's something you have to work very hard at, keeping an up to date list of DJ's who not only could, but who actually would, give needle time to your new finds. best of luck, keep going, just leave the funky tunes in the vaults

really tough ask to list only twenty, great selections though, with a couple of excellent choices that surprised me. Corking set !

In my life I've sold a very small number of records from my collection, certainly a lot less than one percent of all the records I've bought, so I like to think of my boxes as a vinyl black hole ("once it goes in it doesn't come out") but this is one that got away, twice. I had an average copy and let it go twenty plus years back, because I got a unplayed copy. The trouble with having unplayed copies of records is there's a tendancy to not want to play them, so I stupidly let it go thinking I'd get myself an average copy to play. That was maybe ten- fifteen years ago and I still haven't got hold of a play copy. Yes I know I should have kept the unplayed copy until I'd got the next one in my hands, but I used to see it all the time, and considering the flood of boots/reissues I'd have thought a copy would find its way back to me. As I approach 50 years of collecting records I wonder if I'll ever get it right.........

As an RCA 45 collector, encompassing all styles which loosely fit under the N/S umbrella my attitude to non US 45's is that the only become interesting (and worth money) if they are a) very unusual/obscure/never seen one in all the years I've been collecting, b) not available on a US 45, or only available as a US WDJ RCA c) have recent (current spins) dance floor appeal d) and this is only a maybe, if the non US ones come with a great picture sleeve The things like your Canadian Edwin Starr, which would be buttons if it was a Ric-Tic 45, are probably the same on RCA Canada. Having said that I've seen Laura Lee To Win Your Heart on a very clean WDJ US fetch 100, but the more obscure Canadian RCA stock copy sold for 150. I do quite like the Canadian red issue labels though, but the green stockers are nice looking labels imho

Hi Vince, it's not only the seller who can see how many people are watching. I'm not the seller of these but for example today, Jimmie Bo Horn = 140 watchers (22 bids, 11 bidders) Candi Staton = 78 watchers (10 bids etc), Sherri Taylor = 74 watchers. Dusty Wilson = 71 watchers etc These are not page views, I just put JBH on my watch list and it increased by one.

When I first started on ebay (when it was in it's infancy) I found and bought about a months worth of records on the first night. Just as I was about to switch off I saw an Empires "Youre On Top Girl", starting bid 150 dollars. I was dog tired but still remember thinking, ' blimey, this ebay lark is easy. I'll get that when it finishes tomorrow' Of course like you said I forgot to bid in time and it ended with no bids. Since then I've done it hundreds of times, but I've never let myself down as badly as that (good job really cause I promised myself if I ever bought a ridiculous bargain, say a four figure record for ten dollars, it would be a sign my collecting days were over)

The record label might be Cooking, but I'd save that word for describing the band ! Fabulous performance ( just saw Paul singing DYCITS on FB, which he absolutely "smashed it" as the kids say ;-) Thanks very much for posting these videos

Here's what's puzzling me, how come a record on ebay can have 80 watchers but ends with one low bid? Why are people watching records they presumably have no interest in buying? Is this a common practice ? I suspect I know why some folk do this, but I'd like to hear others views

Enjoyed the programme. Not complaining at all, just would like to ask a question for info purposes - Did anyone on here vote in this "nations favourite" vote? Was it a list of pre-chosen titles and you had to pick one, or could you say what you liked? One surprised me by it's omission - I honestly thought that they would have included "Needle In A Haystack", surely it's got to be the most played Motown track ever in the UK ? For the last 40+ years it's been played at just about every wedding/anniversary party/etc when the party DJ says "and now some Motown", so i reckon if FW is overplayed on our scene by comparison NIAH has probably clocked up 1000 plays for every one of DILY

Sorry to take the thread backwards a step and away from the many and varied delights of S-O-T, but a question popped into my head for Mace - When previously did you do the Niters at the Queens Hall, and was the Stafford 20th anniversary the final one?

You've made an old man cry, as reading this I suddenly realised with my arthritis I can no longer make a fist.....

which willie tee?

If 150 SS collectors all bought a ticket for £100, assuming the seller would take £15,000 right now, then the winning ticket drawn gets to keep the record. Hands up how many of us would risk a ton to have a go?

surely they're carvers?