Frankie Crocker

Pips was behind the cathedral. Placemate 7 was the name of the club on the Wheel site in Whitworth Street. The Solem Bar at the university union had a great soul night on Tuesdays. There was a Sunday allayer on the road going past the prison but can not recall it. Do remember the suit of armour in the middle of the dance floor at Rafters. Across the street from Rafters was a club where Tommy Hunt featured, had palm trees in the upstairs room but can not recall the name. Sure was a good place to be in the mid to late 70's though.

Kinda sad that no one wants cheap records that are very good sounds in many cases. What happened to building up a collection gradually, aiming to buy everything that sounds good regardless of price? Now so many 'hot boxers' want to be DJ's... or is it the DJ's want to be 'hot boxers' which is lazy collecting IMO, maybe not even proper collecting, perhaps merely quick acquisition or something equally shallow. Time was, whoever had the most records, had a pretty good collection but now it's about who's got the rarest and most expensive sounds and can bag a spot on the pub/club circuit. The surplus of cheap records was inevitable when UK diggers turned up warehouses jammed with MPac, Marvlus and Jerhart etc - these labels pressed tens of thousands of records in the belief they would chart but very few sold in significant quantity. Maybe one day, the low-end records will be revived when the world realises there are more decent 1960's soul records waiting to be picked up than the total output of the music industry in the last 40 years.

Keb - good to hear you're alive and well. What a brilliant piece of journalism - award winning stuff. The British media coverage of the disaster has been lamentable so your piece was most illuminating. We were expecting you in London at the end of October for a Wigan crew reunion beer or two, so when your work is done, hopefully we'll see you and Edith back in Britain. As the saying goes, When The Going Gets Tough... May The Force be with you. ATB

Disagree. Northern Soul will never die. The future may lie in a profusion of small venues. Much depends on youngsters joining the ranks - with interested followers in Leeds and Lincs plus assorted other UK strongholds, the future is assured. Truly good music never dies once it's achieved classic status. Post fades out whistling the tune of Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life...

Russ Winstaney was THE MAN back in the day. He got the Casino off the ground and spun a bunch of good tunes that had not been heard at the Torch, Wheel or other venues. Russ was and still is a modest fella - the last DJ to lay claim to playing something first! Sure he played some inferior but danceable tracks but this was inevitable in the face of Mecca competition and the commercial nature of the 70's record industry. Seems it's become fashionable to criticise Russ, but if you were there at the time, it was pretty darned good. Most of us early to mid Wiganers will always be grateful for Russ' contribution to the scene.

Baz mate. You were there so you can say what you want. It's Friday night so you can drink what you want. Mine's a Crabbies...

Totally out of my depth here, but given the Doo Wop sound was produced in many locations such as Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh etc, surely it might prove difficult to track down the origins unless done on a geographical basis. Blundering on, I like the songs of Paul Robeson such as Ol' Man River from Showboat (1936). Could this artist rank amongst the earliest soul singers to have crossed over to a white audience or given the harmony- singing movement a bit of a nudge?

Who, is Greg Wilson? Evidently likes prose, but, without perfectly positioned punctuation, particularly commas, the text becomes an effort to read. Greg, if you're browsing son, check out Eats, Shoots and Leaves...

Some of the bands were in the business to make music, High School groups of friends that played to entertain and be part of the local social scene. Many were really talented and could cut a track in a few takes. They were never going to become rich making local sales on minor labels even with the backing of a local radio station so there must have been other factors. The chance of being picked up by a major label such as ABC, CBS, RCA, MGM etc would be a motivating factor as this was where serious money could be made.Some cuts were vanity projects like today's self-published books. Even the X Factor would have been at work with bands simply wanting a bit of exposure to be in the limelight. The talent in the 60's was abundant with church singers, instrumentalists and studio professionals combining to produce great music despite the limited prospects of financial success.

If it's literally the rarest, it must be one of a kind, therefore the first copy to turn up. Basically a record never seen before but maybe a track heard on a master tape or test press. Surely there must be other records that fit the description? So, it's not in Butch's playbox, maybe something only rumoured to exist but could be an issue of record only seen as a Demo or on a coloured vinyl. I reckon it's a Professionals white demo on red vinyl in a company sleeve...or something similar in an unusual format.

Many of the tracks in the thread were big sounds in their day but there are literally hundreds of B sides that are so bad, they would not be worth listening to in the house, let alone spinning in public. A track that is so bad you can hardly believe it was committed to vinyl appears on YouTube by the Pristines, Do-Re-Me on Date. Could someone please put up a link to this as my iPad is playing up. Let the race to the bottom begin... Many thanks in anticipation and hope your gran likes it.

Now played this version which as Pete says has been tweaked, and in my opinion, lost the atmosphere of the Barbara Mercer version coming across as poppy and synthetic. Anticlimax of the day...

Superb Detroit soul. Shawn Robinson's version is brilliant but to those familiar with it, the Barbara Mercer version adds a hint of mystique to an already stunning soundtrack. Dean used to spin this at the 100 Club, presumably on an acetate of some sort. Have it on a home-made compilation titled Plugged In Soul that was doing the rounds on the tape-swappers circuit at the turn of the Millennium but not seen the track available commercially. Thanks for flagging this masterpiece up - best track I've heard today. Excuse me while I play it again...

Not much, say £10. It is widely available as it was a minor hit in the USA. I thought the white label was a Demo and the issue was the patterned label but I could be wrong there. Great tune anyway and one that helped many of us get onto the scene I would imagine back in the early 1970's.

Maybe that's why they called themselves PayPal and blackmail you 4% to keep things under wraps...

This is Sod's Law - the glut usually occurs at the end of the month when you're skint or just before Christmas when you're even more skint and not done any shopping... Sods Law applies to different records and particularly to those at the top of your wants list that are three figure records in the price guides. An even more interesting phenomena is the Cashing In Principle when eBay sellers offer a copy of a record that has just sold for silly money - expect plenty of Lonnie Lesters in the coming weeks following a recent stream of Jack Montgomery on Scepter, and to a lesser extent, Joe Jama, Soul Incorporated, Delites, Constellations, Maurice Williams etc. The frustration here is you by-pass two or three VG copies then settle on a VG+ and a week later, a nice mint copy pops up. The time to start really worrying will be when the records stop turning up...

You could be the owner of a London football club or his girlfriend with a liking for cultural artifacts. You could be a professional footballer who leaves his Porsche in a pond. You could be a retired snooker player reputed to have rooms full of soul records. With the numbers of Chinese, Russian, Indian and African high-rollers increasing, it's not the prices I'm concerned about but a takeover of the whole record market by nations still unaware of USA music collectibles.

Spot on Pete. Add Kismet and Twirl to the list. Look out for the X in the run- out to identify the pressing plant, the name of which eludes me at present.

Over 15 years ago I sold one to a guy at the 100 Club - he offered all the loose change in his pocket so was obviously keen and I didn't want to disappoint so accepted £18. This was before Lonnie took off. About 10 years ago I sold about 30 copies to mainly UK dealers in small lots. Another case of Northern Soul defying the rules of supply and demand - the supply goes up and the price goes up...

He's a tough fella - he'll be OK.

Pete - when was this? Recently?

Lonnie Lester is a £100 sound, decent and in limited supply nowadays. The buyer must live in the Amazon Forest or Ayers Rock to be oblivious to the going rate for this record...

Ayup Sooty. Is this not the badge of the CUFC Away Supporters' Club? Apparently Oxford supporters wore a similar badge mentioning the word 'Shufflers'... On a more sensible note, do Stax have the copyright of the fist logo or finger-up symbol whatever you want to call it?

Hi Pete. It is and it isn't. It is mainly about the grooves. Take the mythical Carsteers record 'I'm Gonna Drive Over You' on the Sticky label - if it sounds good, you're gonna buy it, but if the centre is missing on the UK (only release) you won't buy it because the centre is missing: if the record was dire and had a centre, you wouldn't buy it on the basis it was intact. I'm with you on this - pushing out centres on UK records is a flogging offence...

Great tune. I hope the record finds a good home. Saw Ray at the 100 club - what a belting voice.