Davenpete

Defo later than 1994 I'd have said - we had only just moved up to Cumbria and they were on when we were at our second house - 1996 I reckon.

Dx

Am I wrong in remembering James King doing a PA at Morecambe? Certainly remember taking a big stack of copies up there with Mark Sargeant just after it was released by Expansion. Still a brilliant record. All the Syncopate stuff was coming out about the same time - Lanier and Co 'Dancing in the Dark' was great. Dx

Went to most of them - they were great.

Dave

PS Just had a quick blast though the  tracks forgotten just how great the stuff played was back then.

Hate the song - it's too 'show tune/mock soul' to me - but a stunning voice and easily the best ever vocal performance on BGT.

Dx

27 minutes ago, davetay said:

Paul, It as took me untill now to remember what it was Lee Merell  "Off The Wall"

I've got that somewhere.

Dx

Talking of strange places to buy records - over the years I've bought lots of 45s at all night discos in backstreet working mens clubs and third rate nightclubs in places like Barnsley and Bolton.

Dx

2 hours ago, Roburt said:

I bought a new car from D C Cookes in Wath in the early 1980's,. I needed to return it 7 days later for some minor items to be sorted, so need to kill a couple of hours. Took a slow stroll towards Mexboro & while walking along Wath Rd (A6023) came across a 2nd hand shop. He had a few import 45's in a box out front. I checked thru these & found a box of Superiors, so went inside the shop. He told me he had bought them over 5 yrs earlier when he was running a market stall at the coast on weekends. Needless to say I cleared him out of the decent stuff.

Back in the 60's there were always great UK 45's to be found in 2nd hand shops on Beverly Rd in Hull. This was the area the uni students had digs in & when broke, they's sell stuff to the local shops. Got a near mint UK Chubby Checker "You JUst Don't Know" there. ALSO, with it being a port, you could also pick up Euro 45's. Also got a German copy of a Dee dee Sharpe Cameo track in the same place. UK shops like Woolworths were always great for discounted UK stuff, they had piles of UK Motown, Stax, Stateside LPs for just a quid around the early 70's. Around the same time Tandys stores (UK arm of Radio Shack) had loads of import LPs in their stores cheap. The Donny & Hull stores had dozens of copies of Darrell Bank's UK LP 'D B is Here' at about a quid each. Boyes Dept Stores in Hull had loads of those US import 45's (Verve, MGM, etc) in each store in the early to mid 70's, not a shop most soulies would have frequented.

Oldies Unlimited was also a decent place to get cheap (& sometimes obscure) soul 45's right up to the late 80's. They put the remnants of old stock in a disused chapel in the Telford area when a new shipment arrived. Got access to the chapel in the mid 80's and found loads of 60's / 70's soul 45's that we scooped up.

The Beverley Road shops were still there in the early 80s (next door to Issy Lipman's Tailor's - father of Maureen) when I was at Art College in Anlaby Road had a lot of Invictus as I remember, there was a good one opposite the Art College that sold Voices from the Shadows, Spring Bank had a couple that had a fair bit in too, plus Sid Scarborough's, but that was mainly boots - there was a lot of stuff in Hull, the cut out store in the market yielded a fair bit too even though it was gone through regularly (specially as Paul Maden had a stall in the covered market 50 yards away back then). There was a shop round the corner from Scarborough that had six white demos of Bricks Broken Bottle and Sticks for £6 each - hated it so didn't buy one. Dx

Found a spanking mint issue of The Valentines at Merton Abbey Mills market - it was the only US record there.

Also found a sealed original copy of an Irma Thomas album on IR in a charity shop in Kirkby Stephen - again the only US record in there.

Dx

My understanding of the cutout system was that, unlike in the UK where the records were effectively loaned to the shop that was selling them (who then paid for those they sold and returned the rest), that the shops in the US actually bought them prior to sale - and were then paid for any unsold copies they returned.

Any records that were returned were drilled or in the case of sleeves clipped so that when they were sent out for sale as cheaper bargain bin cutouts that they couldn't be fraudulently returned to the manufacturer as 'new' to collect the full refund.

I'm sure most people heard the BS story that used to go around that they were stung using the holes for use as ship's ballast!

Dx

It'll be Rubin on a bloody cat food advert next... Oh wait a minute.

Dx

A whole nest of the xxxxxxxx... This sums up the whole Div subculture, they've even got special div flags so you can spot them more easily.

Les Cokell went to Go Now by Bessie Banks. We also put his British copy of The Drifter in the coffin with him as he'd said a number of times he wanted.

Dx

23 hours ago, Mark R said:

History or English I thought???

And wasn't RS a buyer for Morrisons most recently before retirement?

 

Cheers,

Mark R

Yes I just came to the computer to correct that - Morrison's not Asda.

Wasn't Steve Whittle a maintenance engineer at Heinz?

Re-the diversity of people on the scene - I went to a few nighters with a professional Thatcher from Littlehampton (near Southampton) way.

Dx

1 hour ago, Hooker1951 said:

I was a gangster, enforcer, Security boss  M C at raves security consultant, now I'm a retired gangster enforcer, Security boss M C and security consultant but making people happy playing NS was the best job of all

LoL, ML

And it was much appreciated.

D&P

12 hours ago, Peter99 said:

Richard Searling has had numerous jobs in the music industry. 

 

Er he was the Lighting and Music buyer for Asda for about 25 years. Prior to that A&R for RCA UK.

I knew someone at nighters who was taught by MB - there used to be button badges saying 'I've been educated by Soul Sam'.

Dx

FFS - as nasty as it gets.

Looks like another re-writing of history to avoid acknowledging the UK (northern) soul scene proper.

...I thought you only got 'white sheet kids' in the southern states of america - very big on setting fire to crosses on people's lawns I believe.

Dx

Give me Mel and Tim any day.

Dx

Wonderful stuff - really miss hearing these sorts of spins.

Stone Crush - OT Sykes

Shadow of a Memory - Minnie and the Minuettes

Forgotten how good the Escorts is - got a copy kicking around somewhere.

The two guys bottom right have to be Cheech and Chong and Grace Jones is at the very top.

Dx

Bombers were wonderful things - enabled us to dance to this Benny Hill paced comedy northern and love it.

Dx

11 hours ago, PabloWinchester said:

I don't think that much to the overall song, but the intro to The Ambers "I Love You Baby" is my fave intro to a NS tune.

Yours?
 

 

Would've said Potion of Love has a much better intro myself. Dx

3 minutes ago, Pete S said:

There was a Val Simpson track on those boots a couple of years back on a Tamla label but I can't remember the title - it had only been an LP track

This is it - 'I just wanna be there' is album only. Dx

Remember Paul Philips telling me years ago that, whenever they had a poll in Echoes, not only were by far the highest votes for 'what would you like to see MORE of in Echoes' for Northern, but also for the 'what would you like to see LESS of in Echoes'... Funny, we don't spend our time trying to stick it to poxy reggae fans.

These lot are just arseholes though - have you seen the Oi band (more hair than brains) doing Fuck Northern Soul on Youtube - these are the sort of bonehead nazi c*nts that turned me off scooters and rallies (bearing in mind I was secretary of the biggest club in the country, by a factor 2, for a good many years).

Used to have loads of this type where I come from - funny they're all into Northern now that psychobilly has dissappeared up its own arse.

Dx