Ian Dewhirst

Absolutely Brilliant!! THIS is EXACTLY what we are looking for on this thread!! Information GODDAMMIT! Whoops, drunk now but having fun. Let's keep this thread rockin'....... Best stuff I'd read in years LOL..... Ian D

Was over your way a couple of years ago - I went into New York and then swung down to Newark/Princeton area before heading up to Buffalo to check a load out. Didn't find much Northern but did pretty good on rare 12"'s (but even those are drying up now it seems). I hit a lot of out-of-way little towns and found some basements full of stuff but it was very hard work to dig out anything heart-poundingly exciting. Also, the WORST thing these days is the fact that the shops/dealers want YOU to do the hunting and then, after several hours of digging, you take 'em the pile over and they just key in the titles to a computer and check on E-Bay/Gem etc and then base their prices on that! It's taken a LOT of the fun out of things IMHO. I was in Toronto last year and went into one shop and asked how much the 12"'s were and the guy said a dollar each. I then spent 2 hours and dug out some FANTASTIC goodies, took 'em to the counter and started counting out dollars and the guy said "can you give me, like, 15-20 minutes? I need to check with the owner"? I said" "what do you need to check with the owner for? You told me they were a dollar each" He said "well, the owner told me that if I saw anyone who knew what they were doing, then I needed to check with him". I said, "you should have told me that BEFORE I wasted 2 hours of my life pulling these out". TWAT! Everyone's so clued up these days LOL..... Anyone ever checked out Salt Lake City? I just have a feeling....... Ian D

Haha LOL! Thanks Kev. I was waiting for that one! Was this one the cellar in Baltimore you told me about or did you have an earlier hit? I'm sure you went to the States before that didn't you.......? Ian D

I actually re-issued the album when I was @ Simply Vinyl which is why I have the masters so easily at hand LOL!. Been playing through hours of stuff over here - so much of this stuff was great but not necessarily Northern and I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the Mike Post Coalition had everything exactly perfect for our purposes. Which leads us nicely back onto the Mike Post thread again......... Would really like to know more about why the track was recorded so going into research mode....... Ian D

Oh blast, gotta go.....Alexander Patton on the other line LOL..... Ian D

Yep, can do all of them over the next few weeks Urrrs - we're big Roy, Family Of Eve and Leroy fans anyway. And Alan will be chuffed at the 'Fluff' Freeman comparison - he's into that sort of thing! Ian D

Blimey, we have exactly the same taste Ady. Who's your other 3? Ian D

Oh, forgot, now posted in Radio section but for the benefit of those on this thread here's the link:- https://www.sixmillionsteps.com/6MS-2008-03-23-Starpoint.mp3 And his name's Alan Champ Urrrs, hence the sledgehammer wit! Ian D

This is what I have to deal with every week! Strange breeds down 'ere....... Ian D

Yep, the Japs were out in force in the mid 70's mainly looking for different stuff from us at the time. In fact, the very first store I went to in L.A. had three Japs going through the 25 cent box and they passed a couple of copies of "Seven The Loser" - Eric Lomax (big at the time) which I snapped up once they'd finished. Things got worse in the 80's I think. I went to the Austin Record Fair and they were queuing up with U-Haul trucks @ 5.30am and basically going from stall to stall saying "how much for everything?" A pain in the ass LOL..... I had a brilliant hit about 15 years ago at the Wimbledon Record Fair when I found a guy who had a stack of Amy/Mala U.S. promos - he used to a label manager @ RCA and had the stuff from the 60's....... Also, one of the best finds of this type was the original UK Decca/London library which had everything in there, both U.S. and U.K. I got in once for about half-an-hour and got Lee Roye, Johnny Caswell, Jean Carter and Sweet Three for my trouble. A few years later Decca got sold and I think the original label manager got most of the gear 'cos he was advertising in Record Collector for a few years after..... Who knows how many garages, lofts and lock-ups still have stuff in? The next great hit could be round the next corner......... Ian D

"Slink" - The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Ian D 17_Slink.mp3

"Run Spy Run" - The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Ian D 18_Run_Spy_Run.mp3

"The Invaders" - The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Ian D 09_The_Invaders.mp3

This is my fave guys from The Man From U.N.C.L.E. sets - "Off & Running"..... A stomper with a great sax break...... Will post the others for comparison purposes... Ian D 15_Off___Running.mp3

I left my missus on the beach in L.A. whilst I checked a place out and returned to find a Jesus-Freak hitting on her! On the next trip, we went to Clearwater in Florida and I left her on the beach again and came back just before sunset to find half a dozen Latino guys surrounding her saying she reminded 'em of Sam Fox! Nope, girlfriends and wives don't make crate-digging easy that's for sure! Ian D

Worked like a dream mate! Never seen dance floors expend as much energy as when AOTR came on! "Rona's Theme" was difficult to find as well. An L.A. release and I only ever found one in all the time I was there. Ian D

Oh my God Mcleanmuir - you're gonna give a lot of SS'ers nightmares over the Chinatown story! It's funny but there were tons of distributors in downtown L.A. when I was there at the time but I seldom bothered going through 'em 'cos there was too much Latino gear to go through. I think West Pico was where a lot of 'em were.... Also I went to House Of Oldies in Philadelphia once and there were simply too many records!!! If you can imagine a huge building one block long, one block wide and five stories high packed with thousands of 20' x 20' wooden crates on every floor with circa 50K of 45's in each you have some idea of what was available at the time. I spent 3 hours in one crate alone but it was all Country & Western and I got demoralised too quickly! I hit a few places about 18 months ago but it's all changed with the Internet, E-Bay and the Price Guides these days. I had a guy in New Jersey trying to convince me that the Total Eclipses was a $1000 'rare Northern Soul' record LOL........ Mmmm. Well this has livened up an otherwise dullish day! Happy Easter..... Ian D

Glad ya like 'em Bearsy. Missed you at Prestatyn but I'll catch up next time....... Couldn't really miss with this thread on SS though could we LOL? It's really all we want to read about innit? Including me! I love a good record story...... Ian D

No luck in it Kiddo! Dedicated hunting and being in the right place at the right time and making my luck LOL..... Also, any success stories need to be tempered with the not-so-good tales. So here's one..... I got to Philly on my way back from L.A. in December '76. I had two large suitcases with me and went from the airport into the city centre. It was so cold my hands were freezing up just carrying my cases. I then decided to visit Val Shively's place in Upper Darby and made the mistake of deciding I could get there via public transport (Philly's version of the tube). What I didn't realise is that a suntanned English white guy carrying two cases stood out like a sore thumb on that particular tube journey which went through the worst parts of Philly on the way to Upper Darby. Also, I was the ONLY white guy on the tube and everyone was flat-out staring at me and whispering "he must be crazy", "is he asking to be mugged" etc, etc...... Anyway, I got off at Upper Derby, came out of the station and realised I was being followed by a nasty looking guy. So I got around the next corner and legged it halfway down the street and jumped into a shop entrance. About 20 seconds later, the guy went past the doorway almost running and I thought I'd got away with it but he must have caught me out of the corner of his eye and he stopped and walked back towards the shop entrance. I was shitting myself.... He approached me and said "Hey man, have you got the time......" But I was nervous and thought he was going to knife me and my arm shot up in a kind-of reflex action and my little finger caught him square on in his right eye. Just at that point, a cop car pulled up and two cops jumped out and asked me if everything was OK. It turns out that they'd seen me come out of the station with my suitcases and wondered what the hell a white guy was doing walking around with two suitcases on that particular line. They told the guy to get lost and ended-up dropping me off at Val's. Val was great and I ended up stopping at his place where he spent the whole night telling me some FANTASTIC stories about the rare Doo-Wop scene and the lengths that some people went to just to get hold of a record - guns, threats, intimidation etc, etc. If I get time I'll bang a couple of 'em down...... The next day I was in the back of Val's shop when I suddenly heard a commotion with Val shouting out "Hey f*%k you. Get the f*%k out of my shop NOW! You ain't buying anything else here ya scumbag". I walked around the racks and looked over and Val was facing off a huge black guy with an Afro and a full-length black leather coat. Eventually the guy left and Val told me that the guy was a collector from Toronto and had messed all his filing up on previous visits and was an asshole to deal with. Anyway, I had to leave for the airport and my cab arrived about 2 minutes later (once bitten, twice shy LOL), so I said to Val I'd catch him next time, grabbed my cases and got in the cab. Just then the black guy who'd been kicked out of Val's shop came over to the cab and said, "Hey man. Which way are ya going? If you give me a lift I'll split the fare". I said, "Well I'm going to the airport....." He said, "Oh cool man, I'll drop off on the way" and he jumped in. Anyway, he redirected the cab in the direction of where he was going and the cab driver looked at me and said "Are you OK with this"? I said, "Yeah, we're gonna split the fare, so it's OK". In the cab the Black guy told me that he travelled from Toronto around the U.S. and bought a lot of stuff to re-sell to the Japanese collectors - he had a few things on him - Mike & Bill records on Botanic and quite a few little label things which he said were Deep Soul collectors items in Japan. About 20 minutes later he started directing the cab down some dodgy streets and halfway down on of 'em, he turned to me and said, "Hey nice meeting you man" and then opened the door and hurled himself out of the cab whilst it was doing 20-25mph. The cab slammed the brakes on and stopped as I looked out the back window to see an afro-ed Black guy picking himself up off the road, shaking himself down and running off into the ghetto. And no, he never gave me any dosh, the bastard! So, it wasn't all roses. More later...... Ian D

And anyone who likes Georgie Fame's souly stuff could do a lot worse then pick up his "Somebody Stole My Thunder" - Jazz-Soul Grooves 1967-1971 recently released set. Available here for a very reasonable £4.99 with free delivery:- https://www.play.com/Music/CD/4-/3328921/So...html?dpr=131424 And here's a 'lil taster of an almost Northern belter he did called "Peaceful" which is on this album - one of my favourite records of all time! Ian D 10_Peaceful.mp3

And if I ever see it I'll be the first to blag one Malc! There were actually quite a few of these type of releases from Warners back then. They were doing so well with soundtracks and the occasional monster hits from film or TV shows ("Dueling Banjos" from "Deliverance" springs to mind) that they seemed to be the No.1 company for these types of projects. I actually have around 30 cd's of this type of stuff which I've never ever played!! Will go through 'em just in case there's another AOTR knocking around LOL.... Ian D

Hi Russ, Wow. I wondered whatever happened to Chris Peake. He was actually one of Soussan's great sources in the early 70's along with another guy called Darryl Stolper (?) who had a collection to die for but wasn't selling when I bumped into him. Chris Peake actually told me that the word 'punk' was invented at his school when an unruly pupil got asked to leave the classroom and, as he left, he took a piss into a wastepaper basket by the teachers desk. This kind of behaviour was labelled punk thereafter. Chris was into early to mid 60's 'Garage' or 'Punk' bands from L.A. e.g. The Seeds etc, so he had tons of small indie west coast labels in the hundreds of thousands of 45's in his 3 bedroom bungalow in L.A. We used to go crate-digging together on the basis that he'd keep all the 'Garage/Punk' stuff and I'd keep the Soul gear. I used to like hitting places with him 'cos he scared the shit out of most people, so when I spoke in my polite English accent people would bend over backwards to sell us the records just to get away from him LOL... He was one scary guy and when I say he had records in his larder and fridge I really wasn't kidding. I think I found the Willie Hutch in his loo........... I shudder to think of what Dave and Carl got from him 'cos the last time I saw him was '76 and so much stuff came through after then. I can clearly remember leaving tons of future small L.A. label biggies because they were either too slow or considered too R'n'B at the time! Also I spent a few days in Frisco with Disco Bob in Daly City in '76. As you say an incredibly nice guy with a ton of great stories about local acts. One of the abiding memories of that trip was me going to what was then the hottest club in the world, San Francisco's 'Dance Your Ass Off' (as made famous by the Pop-A-Groove record) and realising very quickly that it was a gay club (I was just 21 and 'hot' apparently). I managed to get out with my ass intact LOL..... Also, I remember deciding to go to San Jose purely because I've always loved the Dionne Warwicke record "Do You Know The Way To San Jose". It was a lousy drive, it pissed down all the way there and all the way back and I didn't find jack! Win some, lose some! Keep 'em coming guys....... Lovely thread..... Ian D

Bring Him Back - Dusty Springfield Wish You Didn't Have To Go - Spooner & The Spoons Marble & Iron - Jimmy James Help Yourself (To All Of My Lovin') - Jimmy James Stand By Me - Cassius Clay First Round Knockout - Joe Frazier (Ain't That) A Lot Of Love - Taj Mahal Angel Baby - George Carrow Good Things Come To Those Who Wait - Willie Hatcher I Don't Want To Cry - Dick Jensen Black Is Black - Eddie Jacob's Exchange Didn't Say A Word - Patti Austin Standing In The Need Of Love - The Charmaines Save My Love For A Rainy Day - The Van-Dykes I'm Gonna Change - The Velours I Watched You Slowly Slip Away - Lou Courtney That's yer lot for the time being Al......... Ian D

Off the top of my head..... Ain't No Soul (Left In These Old Shoes) - Ray Paige Lonely Lover - Jimmy McFarland Stubborn Kinda Fellow - Buffalo Smoke One In A Million - Rhetta Hughes Take Me For A Little While - The Mirrettes I Can't Help Myself - Johnny Ross Open The Door to Your Heart - The Mob I Have Faith In You - Doni Burdick But's there's actually loads..... Trust you, Alan, I was trying to relax........... Ian D