Seano

Sounds fascinating - just emailed him and hoping to hear soon!

Just seen the end of the video - nice touch, I'd begun to assume I was looking at the album sleeve or something.

I wouldn't have even known how to describe the production, but spot on that the voice and phrasing is still there which is great to know. Doesn't leave you with much choice than to buy it anyway, and maybe hope there's an alternative take somewhere to be found....

Great record. I picked up a demo on Dynamo in New York for $10 in Academy Records a few years ago. It became my wife's favourite record!

Been impressed with the ones I've bought so far. Added all of these to my Amazon wish list - Christmas can wait!

My first copy was on UK People (B-side is 'The Miracle', so not the instrumental). Then a few years ago I picked up the Scepter demo on a visit to New York, I've posted it here: https://www.parkroadict.co.uk/Site/Soul_Blog/Soul_Blog.html And here's the label scan: Sean

At the end of July we went off to Meganissi, small Greek island near Lefkas. A bar on a beach called Fanari was playing a Reggae radio station (which I think was Reggae 141) all the time and at one point there was a fantastic soulful track which I wasn't able to get the title of. But it added to the interest I've developed talking with Eddie and Roger here in Banbury who have been into the crossover between reggae and northern for quite some time. Took me to buying the Trojan CD 'Work your soul' on which for me, the stand-out track in Glen Miller's 'Where is the love'.

What I loved about buying soul packs was the range of music. Yes, there’d be some stuff you thought was rubbish, but the great thing was the slow burn of the sounds that you knew were good but didn’t sound right, or the thrill of the occasional well known sound. The exception to this was one of my first packs, of 40 records that were all bootlegs. I’d guess known and popular sounds only counted for about 10% of the records at best in general, but personally I don’t see that as a bad thing at all. You quickly zeroed in on Soul Bowl as the source of the most consistently good stuff, and the task of sifting through that exciting package as soon as it arrived included making a pile of the ones you already knew, the ones you thought should be interesting, and all the others. The great thing about those last two groups was that if you didn’t know the record anyway, then you didn’t know which side to try - so it really encouraged that mentality of checking both sides of the record and often discovering some brilliant ‘B’ sides. Of the ones some people have already mentioned I got these over the years in soul packs: Carlena Weaver - Jealousy on Audel Erine Marbray - Ain’t nobody’s business on Wee Young Folk - Lonely Girl on Mar-V-Lus Jimmy Robbins - I just can’t please you on Jerhart Ethics - Standing in the darkness on Vent Darrow Fletcher - What good am I without you on Jacklyn (along with Infatuation and What have I got now, and My judgement day on Groovy) SoulfulTwins - I can’t let you go on Sable A couple more worth mentioning... Pat and the Blenders - Just because on Fast Eddie (the more common release) Brief Encounter - Human on Sound Plus Sean

I used to help Gary on the early spot, not sure if I'm the Sean you're referring to or if there was another guy playing later. Gary had been looking for people with a few records who could do a spot, and whilst I had some good records from soul packs and junk shops, I didn't have the confidence of fronting it! Loved these days - not just the buzz of playing records, but just the fact that new stuff was coming out all the time and not just new releases. Your list of Keb's cover ups gives a great feel of the time - he gave me a tape from a guy called Steve Pullman that just had the most brilliant stuff on it that took years, and even decades to actually hit the scene in a big way. I wasn't that into the Mod side, but everybody was into the music and Notre Dame was a magical little secret bang in the middle of the city! I remember my sister and her boyfriend coming up one night to stay over, parking optimistically in a side street, getting towed and and us all having to get a cab out to the lockup area, not being able to pay the fine and having to walk from Elephant and Castle (or nearby) back to Woolwich. I've link to a few flyers from the time and other bits on Flickr. Sean

Back in the day of tape-swapping I found myself making a compilation aimed at friends and people at work who wanted to know what Northern Soul was; we all know the thing - "So who's your favourite group?" "What tunes would I know?" and of course "Yeah but that was all over in the 70's wasn't it?" So I tried to pick ones I felt epitomised the variety and continuation of the music. I put things into 'boxes' to give it a bit of logic, even though as we see in the ever-evolving scene this doesn't really make sense. At the time I had a few in each of these categories: 60's stompers 70's and modern Motown Known artists Oddities I guess an updated tape these days would have to expand that quite a lot, stuff like Jazzy, Latin, R&B, Funk, Crossover, Shufflers, House and a whole lot more. To be honest it just means that you get closer and closer to just saying each sound is unique and unless you're into it there's no verbal description that fully captures what makes one record work and others get ignored.

62 doesn't seem that old does it? Very sad to hear this news, I didn't know much of his music and poetry, but enough to respect his work and know it was worth listening to. That helped with a recent find in Head in Leamington, "Me and the Devil", a 2010 track. I posted it a little while back in February: https://www.parkroadict.co.uk/Site/Soul_Blog/Entries/2011/2/6_Gil_Scott-Heron.html No question this man's work will live on beyond him, irrespective of how the US media may be treating his death I'm pretty sure musicians and music lovers will continue to be influenced by him and no doubt sample and rework his writings.

Sounds like a great night, heard about it at the Banbury Soul Night last week and hoping to get tickets sorted - just sent off the email.

I'm getting my order in.