Frankie Crocker

Yep. Missed a couple of copies on eBay being too soft. Snagged one a few years ago. Not seen many at all since then.

This is a tough record to acquire. eBay auctions have pushed the value up and up. I had to pay a silly price for mine but glad I did as the price will continue to rise.

Thanks for this Steve. Bootleg badges, whatever next. So, a home-made hand-made item, perhaps one of several. I had no idea this practice had even taken place. I dislike private listings as there’s very little to justify them and the scope for subtefuge is considerable.

Probably not even though the name could not be seen. It was in a bad state, badly worn and seloptaped. Nobody would put this in a frame for memorabilia. What sort of scroat thieves in the workplace?

This is plain bonkers. Surely the promoters can sit around in a pub to discuss how to organise things. Or is it a case of ego-soul, I was here first, my vinyls are more original than yours, they’re my decks and I’m going home...

End figure was £89.99 and 14 bids recorded. All bids were secret and private with the identity of the bidder(s) well and truly masked by eBay. The bids were as dodgy looking as they get looking at the timings and amounts. The patch was put up for sale with a tatty looking membership card but surely nobody would want this...

Yes, familiar with this... I was there. Badge in question is one that first appeared as a maroon Keep The Faith five petal rose, very similar to the yellow patch issued at the first allniter on 23/9/73.

Never seen one of these before. One on eBay due to finish in one hour. Is this genuine? Other white Wigan badges seem to have yellow trim. Bidding on the item looks highly suspicious so caution should be exercised...

Maybe better to have too many soul events than not enough? The more there are, the shorter the journey to them. Sure, this dilutes the crowds somewhat, but at least folk are more likely to have something within travelling distance every weekend. The quality of the sounds is another issue but of course in part determined by the considerable number of would-be DJ’s...no chance of Mel Britt being spun at 50 venues every weekend. Without these DJ’s, there’s less crate digging and fewer new sounds surfacing. These are key players in taking the scene forward so give credit when it’s due. The scene continues to evolve and we should be glad that it survives in any form. I say put on more and more events and let the cream rise to the top.

But on a soul scene that is vinyl driven and DJ/promoter led, OVO events may well deter the uninitiated. It’s all very well sitting in the house listening to a CD or Spotify and enjoying the music, but if you are deterred from gathering records or amassing a DJ box, the scene will wither and die. Don’t forget there are people on the scene to purely collect records - they never dance and talk records all night. The scene needs record collectors to flourish and the dwindling availability of good rare tunes surely has to impact on the next generation of potential buyers, dealers, DJ’s and promoters.

Exactly the point I tried to make earlier...If there is no vinyl culture or negligible record playing in the house, how on earth are youngsters going to stumble across Northern Soul? Digital streaming can only offer limited enjoyment - to dance to the music, people would have to take a giant step and visit a Soul Night. There are plenty of sounds you can only hear in a dancehall setting AND they sound better belted out on a big system - makes you wonder why more people don’t sample it as they plainly like music being glued to their phones all the time.

Ah, but what if you like the music, and can’t get your hands on any of it in vinyl form? What does the future hold if there’s no youngsters digging for the next batch of latest discoveries? There are tunes for the dancefloor and others for the house: what people might enjoy at home does not necessarily match what some hot-box DJ could be flogging down the local village hall...For every 50 records you play in the house, only a few might be good enough to play in public, and then, only if you are a DJ. As I mentioned earlier, the tradition of buying vinyl has died out so youngsters are left with digital music, hardly an adequate substitute. As well as the prohibitive cost of records to potential recruits, there’s also the apparent rarity as so many good sounds are locked away in private collections. The scene lacks a youthful element with a commitment to buying vinyl so the future is open to question even though the quality of the music has stood the test of time.

Hi Tim. On the one hand, trouser width may appear to be a trite issue. On the other, the discussion relates to past values and norms - if you don’t know where you’ve come from, how do you have a clue where you might end up? Sure the scene keeps harping back to a Golden Age, but perhaps some of those things that made it rosy then are missing now. A conversation on the scene today may well include remarks saying all’s fab as you can wear what you want, but that demotes the importance of cultural identity linked to music, dancing and fashion on which the scene was based in the first place.

No, of course not. But in the 70’s, many, perhaps most households owned a record player. The adults bought the records and the children played with them. Teenagers spent their pocket money on chart records and some went a lot further getting into obscure forms of music, acquiring a serious vinyl addiction as they went along. This of course rarely happens nowadays, even with a diddy vinyl upsurge we keep hearing about.

It just occurred to me, is it the high prices of records that could be deterring youngsters from joining the scene or is it a range of other factors? Sure, not everyone on the scene today actually buys records but is it the impossibility of building a large collection putting off potential youngsters?

Fair point. Know what you mean. There’s You Tube clips I just can’t bear to watch. On the other hand, some video clips show off the dress-making skills of lasses who have evidently gone the extra mile to attire themselves in bespoke way to enjoy dancing to the music that moves us.

I like much of what you say. But when I bought a pair of work trousers in Eastbourne in 1978, they were wide bottomed bags. Kids at the time had side pockets at thigh level on their school trousers. Sure, a new era of club fashion was dawning and becoming more visible on the High Street. Wigans Ovation reflected what people were wearing whenever they appeared on Top Of The Pops, a trend that went nationwide with Footsee exposure in 1975. In the mid to late 70’s, High Street chains were churning out wide waistband, multi-pocketed bags before jeans became narrower in 1977/78. Cuban-heels were taken on by brogues in 1973, the former fading away by 1974/75. By 1975, leather bomber jackets became vogue on the soul scene at a time when the public barely considered them but by the end of the decade, denim and cord jackets had been widely supplemented by them. Soul scene clothing in the 70’s was a distinctive part of the ritual. The underground scene embraced it with a passing nod to the Mod scene and football fan attire. By the end of the decade, Northern cult gear had given way to the new styles that prevail today. But if someone wants to wear 70’s retro-gear in 2018, I say let them - it was fine back in the day and should be accepted today.

It looked the height of coolness at the time in 1973/74 to us fresh to the scene. It looked great during the Golden Age. Sure it can look out of place in today’s venues but full marks for the retro-crowd for flying the flag. Other nostalgia scenes contine to wear their cult gear and it looks fine. By the early 80’s, Northern dress styles had moved on, perhaps in line with the music or the new recruits who opted for High Street fashion. The Casino pictures of the final months could have been taken at any Sixth Form bop or at least the less sweaty discos of the time.

Read the text properly. When Wigan was experiencing the boom years, tourist divvies could be spotted wearing regular jeans, Levi jackets and ordinary shoes as trainer’s were not as common as they are today. With the arrival of the 80’s disco-funk sounds, peg-leg jeans became vogue, worn with a dangly belt, capped t-shirt and occasionally plastic sandals. These new to the scene folk wanted to dress like Brian Ferry but they did’t hang around long as the Casino closed so they went back to dancing to Gary Numan on Top of the Pops. British fashion followed the soul scene in the 70’s but was always a year or two behind. Skinners followed Wranglers. Spencers followed cords. Bags followed parallels. Collared shirts followed bowling shirts. Cardigans, bomber jackets, leather trench coats, it was the underground soul scene that led the way. When New York disco wear crossed the Atlantic to Blackpool, then the Ritz, Birmingham Locarno etc, clubbers in Britain soon followed suit and so too did High Street fashion.

Cracking tune mate. On the All Platinum subsidiary label so it must be disco

It’s all a bit of a blur to me. Once we called the 70’s sounds ‘Newies’ but now we call it ‘Crossover’. Disco sounds or rather commercial nightclub music can be soulful hence it being appreciated by those with the gift of good taste. There’s Rare Soul and commercial soul but both have their merits and of course their weaknesses. The genres offer some context, if only for conversation - not all soul music is the same so pigeon holes help to differentiate things. The main thing is though, if it’s soulful, it’s good and that’s what really counts.

When Wigan opened in 1973, there was a self-imposed dress code for the gents and lasses. Not a uniform, but sharp gear for dancing in. This changed somewhat after 1977 with the disco-soul fashion pushed by Blackpool Mecca and the Manchester Ritz. By 1978 the scene was split dress-wise but the whole nation was wearing clobber popularised by soulies up and down the country. I think it’s good to see old soulies sporting the gear they once wore. It is not a uniform. Neither is it clown-wear as the naive suggest. It’s smart, distinctive, often made to measure and reminiscent of a golden age. Back in the day, only divvies wore trainers and narrow jeans to soul do’s. Nobody ever feared the punks at Wigan, they ran a mile and it was the drug squad who had trembling knees as they wasted their time on fruitless bag searches. As I’ve said before on Soul Source, trainers don’t enhance the look but I concede there’s a few nifty dancers who prefer them...somebody give them a pair of brogues for Christmas please...

Copy still up for grabs... A pristine copy just sold on a Manship auction for £322. This copy is not quite as perfect with a superficial stylus mark and a couple of storage rubs to the label. Comes in the company sleeve it was filed in having sat in a large collection for the last 40 years or so. All in all, a beautiful copy that needs a good home...

Very nice copy in Excellent condition up for grabs at £175 plus £7.50 postage to UK address, overseas by arrangement. One non-feelable stylus scratch and a couple of slight label rubs stop this being mint. PM to reserve please. Send email address for photos. Payment by PayPal preferred (buyer to cover fees). Thanks for looking.

Well known photo but you can not see Anna’s face. The Casino manager, Mike Walker, is at the table suggesting it is a ‘meet the press’ formality. The lasses around the table seem to be making up the numbers with a photographer. The suited gents in the background suggest this is not an Allniter photo but could be a Saturday evening disco snapshot. Still waiting for Anna to confirm she was an ‘early fan’ as the photo caption suggests.