Hooker1951

I've never seen any re runs of (Thank your Lucky Stars)Granada production, early to mid 1960,s every Saturday evening 6pm hosted by the late Brian Matthews every other week there would be a American R n B artist or group mid programme it would be great to see some of those again, I'm old enough to remember and watch first time round the Ready Steady Go specials Tamla revue , Otis reading show ect and always remember an Old Grey Whistle test showing a clip of Tommy Neil singing Going to a happening, Of course two of the greatest Rock n Roll shows ever recorded live on Granada were the Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis shows featuring The Shirrelles, Gene Vincent, with Sounds incorporated backing band back in 1964 were saved thank God and can still be seen Remember the Good Times ML

In Retrospect in the current state of NS, There are a great many factors what have led to its position today. The Fragmentation of the scene, IE , How deep do the punters visiting venues really love their music , Are they visiting a venue to enjoy the music top of the list or to meet old friends, or for that nostalgic feeling triggering past memories , or a mix of all , some will prioritise one before the other, there is a absence of energy in many venues these days that obviously is a lot to do with people ageing which in a lot of cases brings on cynicism besides losing the physical energy a potent mix at best. The DJ,s in many occasions don't seem to be able to tell the jokes in the right order or the tunes, and so the energy of the music is not hitting the dance floor or the listeners for that matter enough to kick the vibe in, I as a promoter always tried to make my venues exciting and dynamic so people would remember that night and I would like to think that at least some of the time I succeeded, All these pointers add up to a formidable obstacle to overcome to get things right, Can it be done? Yes but only with a great deal of effort and not just living in the past, kind Regards ML

It's sad to say but it is the truth , When I have promoted together with various friends Soul nights and all nighters, alldayers ect, I have moved my dates on many various occasions when asked to do a favour for another promoter , I can tell you now that favour was never ever returned', ML

In total agreement with you on this one , No original thinking here just plagiarism following the easy route to collecting or dj'ing even if it costs more money , Pretty sad really, It's much easier being yourself and that you found or were instrumental in pushing a sound ML

Let's face it its all over, there are more NS DJ,s than soldiers in the Chinese army, pretend ones anyway,There are more soul nights on than nights in a week, you can't go for a safe walk through your own town at night now without the risk of getting mugged with a local soul night, The best music in the world watered down to suit the plebs and conform with Mr and Mrs Average , It's not their fault , it's just the way our society works , they outnumber us 100 to 1 but we don't want to be Mr and Mrs Average that's what makes us different, So maybe before we get carried away with all these suicidal thoughts about NS we should realise that there are people on here that are singing of the same hymn sheet what do agree with what's going on its finding some kind of strategy if their is one that's the problem , This problem is affecting True SOULIES happiness and Action is needed , Ideas anyone? ML

Let's all take a cyanide capsule each and end it all before all these soul nights gang up together and kill us all with bad tunes, { Enjoy yourself it's later than you think} ML

If you've got soul you will feel it if you haven't Lord have mercy and n your soul simple as that ML

In other words the proper soul music is and will always be fantastic it's the people who are knackered, cynical, and opinionated that's what happens when you get old if you let it Remember all the Good times the rest don't matter ML

Hi Roburt There were roulette tables , card games and full gambling area upstairs in Mr M,s aka the palais suite right at far end of the club, I worked there from 1970 till 73. As a doorman actually lived in the club slept in it for a short while in between homes was there when Gerry Marshall took full ownership and changed the palace to Mr M,s aka Mr Marshalls a typical Saturday night on stage would be a juggler, fire eater , country western singer, followed by a top of the bill example Solomon King, Lou Christie, ect , While in the Empress Ballroom it would be Club Soul till around Midnight and then local beat groups interspersed with local pop tunes Friday nights would be American Soul Artists in the Empress Ballroom , Edwin Starr, Artur Conley , Jimmy Ruffian ect who ever was on the circuit. At the time I was actually at the club the first Day Mike Walker was taken on he Did a bit of DJ.ing in the Beachcomber for the kids Monday and Friday's until 11pm I actually sent him to the record shop for him to buy me a copy of Chairman of the board by Chaitman of the board Russ was not on the scene at that time kind Regards ML

I Did say let's not go there! ML

I visited myself on 3. Occasions to the fabled 100 club and was very disappointed 3 times it was hit and miss, more miss and the punters a good percentage of them were far from being hard core SOULIES , one night I visited there was a little gang shooting water pistols at one another in the cloakroom, these individuals visited some of the promotions up North and frankly were at the bottom of the pile but they wouldn't dare of behaved like that up here, I was surprised at the time with the lack of atmosphere it felt totally mis mash and definitely didn't get you there this was early 1990's it might just of bad luck on my part I chose those nights but I don't think so, Emperors New Clothes comes to mind ML

Lets not go there LoL, ML

JMM has the edge definitely here the other two or nice JMM s is excellent ML

I'm a big fan of the Artistics but on this particular record Johnny Howard as the edge ML

It was Whitney who got her husband on the hard stuff not the other way round , She chose that life, not anybody else, there are Slimeballs now in her family and her so called friends who will tell stories true and untrue just to get easy money for their next fix , My question is this if they knew then which they say they did why wait till she,s dead to open their mouths, Her chaos should have died with her not to blame other people who can't defend theirselves , Whitney was no Angel get real, ML

Calm down fellas its much to hot to be stressed out by a poll on good touch of soul pop sounds grab a Solero sit down and remember all the good times LoL, ML

I'm not knocking these two recordings by Dusty and Susan they are easy listening pop tunes with a touch of soul which as Spain Pete said is relevant to the listener how much soul they get out of it, obviously people have fond memories of a time when they heard it for the first time or a time when they were in love dancing to it ect, as regards genres NS is a massive Umbrella consisting oh many genres ie, RnB, TAMLA , POPCORN ROCK NROLL all mean to say there are more soulful tunes to decide on a Poll that hit you right between eyes ML

It makes sense to me, is this a Soul forum or am I missing something? ML

Both versions lack my interprataion of NS or Soul just catchy pop records with a little twist with the production and backing singers, Nothing against Dusty but Helen Shapiro had the better voice for me with this Genre, Better still was Julie Grant from Blackpool around at the same time she did versions of Drifters and Baby Washington material and did a good job a real powerful soul voice but never got the acclaim they got, in fact she beat Helen into second place in a singing talent contest circa Butlins 1960 ML

The problem with this thread is there is no solution , When a scene is fragmented and watered down like the NS scene has become it becomes a magnet for wannabes and johnny come lately,s it opens door for them that were closed to them before because in the day they would have just not been good enough, like other music scenes particular Dance which became watered down a lot quicker and ruined than NS , You can waste a hell of a lot of negative energy on things you can't change especially worrying about people on the fringes of NS cocking things up with no knowledge bootlegs, ect better to concentrate on what's left of the Good scene the Good people and what's left of the good venues ML

GG,,s Tower of Strength got him in a lot of trouble he couldn't keep it under control ML

Good information on a great artist, always liked Gene,s Tower much better than Frankie,s he had a lovely voice, always remember seeing him in the film he made over here in 1962 was it called "" it's Trad Dad ". .? Good stuff Roburt ML

The gear was faster then the music had to keep up with it LoL no seriously the version I have is slightly slower than that and it ve had that over 30 years ML

I still play the instrumental version out and it always gets a good response it's a fantastic piece of music stands up with the vocal versions ML