Stevesilktulip

Soul Source seems to be cosying up to clueless BBC presenters. I remember, around the time Craig Charles' Coronation Street character was - all of a sudden - a big northern soulie, I saw him interviewed and he admitted he was never much into northern soul and Frank Wilson seemed to be the only record he knew.

Haven't seen it and probably won't but can't get exited either way. Regarding Stuart Maconie, on a northern soul show on radio 2 a few years back, he said he loves the music but doesn't like the politics. To illustrate this he told the story of when he tried to play 'the Night' but found himself on the wrong side of a compilation so played 'Grease' on the basis they'd know it. He just likes every pop music fad deemed 'cool' by the telly since he saw the Beatles aged about three.

Perhaps the first thing to say is that John Lias is probably the most impressive and important soul fan in the world to date and, on current trajectory, that could turn out to be ever. I've been an admirer since his top 100 turned up in Voices from the Shadows about three decades ago and these tomes constitute the best chance yet of soul music becoming an accepted artform, comparable - in its own way - with classical music and jazz (alongside my mixclouds, though I'm well aware that myths are constructed in words not music - just read a few hundred of the few hundred million words that have been written about the Beatles). He's four or five years older than me and has been a soul fan for four or five years longer than me, so he was very young. This is reflected in some of the broad slippage between his preferences and mine which could deflect from my claim that it's potentially timeless music, though I imagine the passage of time will 'iron out' such discrepancies. Ironically, Lias doesn't make the claim that soul music is an artform though he thinks there's a case for deep soul and has said he expects people to still be listening to James Brown a century from now. I would agree about deep soul and was thrilled to see two OV Wright albums so high in his top 100, but would place the bar significantly lower, though I don't see a case for Michael Jackson, Barry White and much else. Incidentally, both of us seem to prefer the first era of James Brown we came across, and my preference is for a number of the classic seventies funk bands ahead of Sly and the Family Stone who were such a massive influence on them all. It remains to be seen whether it will be remembered at all and, if so, in a way similar to amateur dramatics favourites Gilbert and Sullivan or the scholarly study of Stravinsky, Shostakovich et al. My brilliant Cultural Studies lecturer claimed a definition of art is if it's 'worthy of study' and - since the Death of the Author (composer) - I would argue that something is art if the reader (listener) treats it as such, and I would further argue that Lias has certainly done that with his subject. Furthermore, I find it wholly inadequate to line up the great soul artists with people like the Rolling Stones, Bowie and Madonna. I don't agree with the premise that the age of soul music came to an end in 1982 when CD sales apparently overtook those of vinyls. I was still involved in the soul scene at the start of the nineties and the only person who could afford CDs was Steve Davis and there was still virtually nothing available from soul's golden age. Even within his rules, I don't understand the inclusion of Lanier and Co, Ernie Isley and Chris Jasper and the exclusion of Anita Baker, one of the greatest voices in recorded music who made two of the best soul albums of the eighties. I recognise the difficulty presented by jazz-funk and, while I'm no particular fan of George Benson (until I dipped back further than Breezin to find almost supernatural skill on the guitar), his voice is not dissimilar to Donny Hathaway and Stevie Wonder - whose voices I'm similarly agnostic about - and I believe Breezin through Give me the Night probably should have been included. Incidentally I don't feel the need to apologise for preferring Latimore to Stevie Wonder. He gets his blues boundary fairly spot on but perhaps goes further into disco than I would have I was relieved to find no Tina Turner - not even with Ike - and Dusty Springfield, though I fear he may have wished to include the latter. My view is that her inclusion as soul should now be put to bed, alongside Janice Joplin. I'm uncomfortable about excluding the Average White Band but concede it begs the question of how far to go. Hi Tension and maybe Light of the World would do for me. One thing serious soul fans always seem to underestimate is P Funk, like rock people who don't get Zappa. Underneath the star wars, cartoon, comedy there's some serious music going down, generally courtesy of Bernie Worrell though - like Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Muddy Waters, James Brown and Zappa - Clinton is in the middle pulling it all together. And I really don't get why the Rotary Connection are not there. I think there may have been albums by Carl Hall and Hot Sauce but I'm not certain and really don't care. I think we can sleep safely in our beds that there isn't a What's Going On or a Show Must Go On gone astray. A couple of artists I have major disagreements with in volume two. While I know many people whose preference in Womack is for the Poets, they're almost exclusively people for whom this was the first of his stuff they heard. It brings up a debate about what constitutes a good album but I'd rather have Safety Zone for Daylight than all the Poets. For me, he's always been the Preacher. Curtis Mayfield is an artist I can become very emotional about and I think if older people could accept the brilliance of his early solo stuff and younger folk could find his Impressions, he could be recognised was one of the giants of music history. I remember a Blues and Soul at the end of the seventies which sought to round up the decade and claimed that Back to the World and America Today were his finest albums. Time and the mass pop media laying claim to soul music has turned the general preference towards Curtis and particularly Superfly. The latter is almost inarguably the greatest soundtrack album of all, and it's strongest tracks are magnificence, but it inevitably has it's love and chase themes. America Today is a fine set and his last great album, but it lacks the scale and killer cuts of Curtis, Roots, Superfly and Back to the World, all of which I'd have had to include in a top 100. Headers would have been a useful addition to the book; while I can generally identify artists who are spread over many pages from album titles, others may be less fortunate. Furthermore, there's a lot of emphasis on chart positions, which really don't interest me in soul any more than they do in jazz, blues, reggae or anything else. However, I'm now knit picking and these volumes must be part of the essential kit of every serious soul fan worldwide. I leant my brother them individually but found myself contacting him regularly to look up something or other. I'm now confident for the first time that I'm within earshot of hearing nearly everything that would interest me, bearing in mind there are many artists I don't feel the need to listen to everything they ever made. We all owe him an enormous debt for what it is no exaggeration to say is a staggering achievement of human endeavour, not least because he's trawled through hundreds of terrible albums so we don't have to. The one thing which will force him back to the publishers for a revised edition is his claim that Frankie Beverly, Philip Bailey and Lenny Williams are the greatest vocalists from the self-contained(ish) bands. Bailey is an undeniable virtuoso but is very specialist which found him co-lead vocalist most of the time. Lenny Williams I would describe as next best. The greatest lead vocalists of the funk bands, who stand with the great solos vocalists and the great leads in the great vocal harmony groups are Frankie Beverly and Ronald Isley. I imagine he hears Ronald as the lead vocalist in the group who recorded at Motown - his preferred material from them - but there's no doubt they became a huge force in soul music with the younger Isleys through the seventies.

Lanier and Co and Ralph Graham, though I'm not that fussed. What tortures me are five cuts that I had as vinyls and have as rips but would pay highly for a compilation with any of them on: Stan Ivory - Come Live with Me, Rance Allen - Where Did I go Wrong, Deon Jackson - I'll Always Love You, Bobby McClure - You Bring Out the Love in Me and Epicenter/ Sandra Feva - You Can't Come up here no More. The latter I had on a seven but the rip is a twelve which renders the seven version redundant.

Having read more of the blog, I get that the objection to covering the early Upnorth Weekenders was because they barely featured northern soul at all. However, I realised almost in hindsight that many thought they were about modern soul as an offshoot of northern, and based on the Mecca and the seventies records played at nighters in the eighties; a view I didn't and don't share. It was more about people, often with a background in northern soul, jazz-funk or club music - and I'd done all three - but had been listening to 'real soul' at home for years. I disentangled myself from them in 91 which is the year Kev Roberts reckons kick-started the northern revival and I would argue they led directly to Cleethorpes, Prestatyn and weekenders throughout the land which have become the new temples of northern soul. We'd had to move from Fleetwood because the soul room was far too small, and I recall thinking we should have swapped the two rooms, though I don't remember if I ever suggested it to Alex. He would have never gone for it because he always wanted it to be like Caister, Bognor and the original Prestatyn's, but with a small soul room stuck on, not least because he wanted them to be all about him and knew the soul room was more about me, in the same way the jazz room was more about Simon Mansell. The Upnorth Weekenders did not lead to the northern soul revival - indeed they should have prevented it - and the northern weekenders would have happened anyway, but at a different time and in different ways.

Nobody does their cause any favours by claiming the artists miraculously recieve money when vinyls are exchanged between dealers and collectors. There isn't a serious singer, musician or producer on the planet who thinks CDs are in any way less valid, authentic or worthy than vinyls were in their day. On the contrary, they want you to buy their CDs and go and watch them live as the only chances they have of ever getting paid. Once they've gone, - and most of them already have - they want your kids to stream it and your descendants to implant it directly into their brains so they can listen with perfect sound quality just by thinking about it. They don't want this music - an artform, in its own way comparable to classical music and jazz - to become nothing more than insipid nostalgia for a few people, most of whom weren't even there. The people who made the decision it has to be vinyls have a vested interest in maintaining them, because they have lots of them and probably make money from them, just like the bootleggers did. Collecting vinyls, or any memorabilia, is a perfectly good hobby, but the vinyls community - still miniscule, despite mammoth campaigns over several years by the record companies and the media - is not about being a music fan, so nobody who would rather play or listen to rubbish on vinyls than the best music in existence on any other format should not mistake themselves for soul fans.

Not part of the scene, but in my 45 going on 46 years as a soul fan, the chasm between Soul Music and the soul scene has never been so vast, which I'm sure is not the intention of the nice people at Soul Source. The order is very, very rough and reflects a mixed clientele including a gang of drunk local gals who just wanted to sing karaoke: Latimore - Dig a Little Deeper (2017) OV Wright - Let's Straighten it Out Eddie Hinton - I'll Come Running Emotions - So I can love you John Edwards - Tin Man Jackey Beavers - Trying to get back Dells - It's all up to you Garland Green - Ain't that Good Enough Melvin Moore - All of a Sudden Margie Joseph - Let's Stay Together Teddy Pendergrass (featured artist) - Love TKO, Be Sure, Is it still good to ya Harold Melvin - You know how to make me feel, Wake up Everybody Johnnie Taylor - What About my Love Chimes - Still Trying to Find Swing Out Sister - Am I the Same Girl, Love Won't let you Down Womack - If you think you're lonely now, How could you break my heart, So Many Sides (request) Beloyd, Flowers, Gloria Scott Jesse James - If You Want a Love Affair (request) Darrell Banks - Only the Strong Survive Gabor Szabo - Breezin George Benson - Affirmation Donald Byrd - Just my Imagination, Dominoes (live) James Brown - There was a Time (Apollo 2) Eloise Laws - Love Factory Willie Hutch - The Way we Were Keith Barrow - You Know you Want to be Loved Spinners - Ghetto Child Bataan - The Bottle Aretha - Oh No Not my Baby Al Johnson feat Jean Carn(e) - Back for More Isleys - Here we go Again William Bell and Mavis Staples - Leave the Girl Alone Barbara Lynne - Trying to love Two Ashford and Simpson - Top of the Stairs Temptations - Ball of Confusion Four Tops - Keeper of the Castle Marvin - Where are we Going, God is Love, Mercy Mercy Me William Devaughn - Be Thankful (original version) Maze - The Look in your Eyes (live) Young Holt Unlimited - California Montage Millie Jackson - House for Sale, Summer

I never know why people get so troubled by the term Modern Soul. Modern Classical Music began at the end of C19th and ended around the middle of C20th and Modern Jazz started in the forties and ended at the end of the sixties. Some people say Modern Soul is everything since about 1970 but any sensible definition would have the word seventies in there but may also include some late sixties, the eighties and early nineties, but really shouldn't include C21st neo/nu soul. Crossover is jazz-funk; the term was grabbed years ago and in a soul context is entirely meaningless and no two people agree on a definition anyway.

Re the Ritson book, there are claims that Snowboy's book on the acid jazz/ funk/ dance scene was a kind of sequel, but that's only half the story, and not the side you're concentrating on, though there's definite overlaps.

At Berwick, the soul rm wasn't open long and I doubt there was any northern played; I cerainly never heard any. The funk mob had Prestatyn years before Searling et al. I think it would be 88 when I went. The rm which became the northern rm played house (or whatever tag it had in 88). Chris Hill raised a banner in another rm saying Acid Free Zone and played one of the best sets I've ever heard. He looked thoroughly p!$$ed off.

I'm surprised the first real soul weekenders didn't get more than a single mention of Southport. Stuart Cosgrave described them as northern soul although they were never that, beyond Mr Searling doing an hour in the jazz room on a saturday afternoon. How times have changed. These weekenders were critical as a stepping stone from Caister, Bognor and the original Prestatyn Weekenders and were responsible for launching all the weekenders that followed. I'm assured many still claim Fleetwood in particular was the greatest soul room ever, and Sam Dees' performace, even for a PA. was utterly extraordinary. Myself, Searling and others gradually drifted away and Mr Lowes eventually got the weekender he always wanted, but for a time it seemed that anything was possible.

The CD sections are being neglected because of the so-called vinyls revival, which was something of a damp squib last year, though the record companies, backed by the media, are seriously stepping up their campaign this year. Somebody said to me recently, we won you lost. I thought he was a fanatical brexiteer and, as with brexit, we've all lost.

Don't you just love lazy afternoons at work where you can just youtube choons. Been through the Hayley list and, while there's nothing I'd have sold a granny for (and my grannies came cheap) there's nothing terrible either. Would have appreciated them more in the mid-seventies when I was always on the lookout for stuff nobody was playing. Some great singing, especially Gilford and Scruggs, Delphs, Mancha and of course JJ. I'll no doubt have to buy all the albums on payday.

I'm a Soul Fan (actually a Black Music fan verging on Music Fan), not a (northern) soul on vinyls fan. I buy a couple of dozen albums a month and discovered years ago that the Amazon basket (the worst company in the world but in a monopoly situation) will only hold 600 items, though I could always cheat it a bit. I've recently found out I can only cheat it by another 50 items meaning I have about 200 items on hand-written sheets. I'm not desperate for new stuff to arrive.

Great to hear Curtis still adding guitar at this stage.