Ian Dewhirst

Best blind find I ever had was the Si Hightower mini album Test Pressing from a skip outside Monarch in L.A. in '76. A true one-off I believe..... Ian D

I stumbled into this whilst researching a project and I had it spinning around my head ever since.... .......plainly ridiculous. A blistering Ben E. King Northern Soul version of a Christmas anthem which is now lodged in my brain.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxIRBzG_mQE Ian D

Hahaha. Brilliant Penny. I love your posts. Ian D

Blimey, "Out Of Time", brilliant record though it is, was a pop hit. I thought you were talking about "Don't Just Look At Me"....... Ian D

You mean the one's that can no longer compete with their 18 year old selves from 45 years back dancing to "You're Gonna Make Me Love You" and "Too Late" Kev? You can get away with a mild sway to Willie Tee. Plus, it's a brilliant record as well...... Ian D

My experience exactly. Tons of people say they love Northern Soul but none of 'em know anything about it. It comes in and out of fashion all the time. I remember hearing exactly the same stuff in London in the late 90's when there last seemed to be an influx of people apparently into Northern but they were basically just catching the fad of the moment....... Ian D

It goes in cycles in my experience. It was underground when I started at the beginning of the 70's and then it was overground by 1975 or thereabouts. The amount of people that tell me that they love Northern Soul yet can't give me a single title seems to have multiplied in the last few weeks though..... Ian D

That's 'cos it's the perfect tempo for 50+ ers..... Ian D

Latest count 7200. Plus more arriving tonight. It's the biggest Northern turn-out I think I've ever seen. Plus sunny too.... Ian D

Yep. Packed to the brim and apparently 6K here. Staggering. Ian D

Which was exactly the point I made earlier. Fast dance music generally = drugs whatever the decade. Ian D

That's amazing. Effectively one sixtieth of the UK population watched that show. I thought the figures would be good because there was a nice feel about the program but that's a phenomenal figure for the Culture Show. They could make a series out of the amount of footage they have! Ian D

Please bear in mind the way the program was edited which didn't necessarily have time to deal with the complete context of all those sound bites. The point was that there has always been a parallel between fast music and the drugs du jour whatever the decade. Essentially most types of uptempo dance music since the 60's have generally had a drug of choice whether it was speed in the 60's and 70's, coke and E in the 80's, Ketamin in the 90's or MDMA in the 00's. So 70's Northern Soul = speed and late 80's House = E. The BPM and age group was essentially the same. That's not in any way trying to compare the music but rather the sociological circumstances. They could have used a lot of other stuff but they chose that which is OK by me. I never took drugs when I was into Northern Soul, but I was in the minority. Ian D

I reckon they have much more than 20 hours. They got loads of great footage and we've only seen a tiny percentage thus far. If this show finds an audience, then watch this space... Ian D

I reckon they have much more than 20 hours. They got loads of great footage and we've only seen a tiny percentage thus far. If this show finds an audience, then watch this space... Ian D

Wombat - I'm Gettin' On Life (Gemni) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux6Fj5zXLJs Hated it with a vengeance for the last 40 years but now I think it's a fascinating slice of social commentary. Plus anyone who decides his one shot at stardom will be aided by calling himself Wombat deserves a vote ay? Ian D

Her best performance I reckon.... Ian

There was some horrific mis-spelling of titles back then too. "Slau Fizz", Bock to Boc" and "Skying In The Snow" come to mind...... Ian D

He is a legend. I got loads off him in the early 70's. I once suggested that my wages from Tuesday Nights @ Burnley Cricket Club should go directly to Brad 'cos that's pretty much what was happening anyway........ Ian D

Me too. The last time I had a meaningful conversation with a guy in this position, he admitted the kind of amounts he was spending and that he had a major problem. Haven't seen him since. He seems to have completely disappeared. I hope he's OK...... Ian D

I'm seriously amazed! A complaint on Soul Source about a record that's suddenly catching attention because it's selling for massive multiples of it's original price????? OK, I agree in principle. Now will everyone on Soul Source who I've ever sold records to over the last 40 years please return them and I'll refund everyone the original price I charged? Yep, that will make it OK with me at least and I'll think much better of the people in question. Ian D

Val Shively told me some incredible stories about guns in people's faces and generally distasteful behavior on the Doo-Wop 45 collectors scene in the late 60's/early 70's. I've had people I knew try and nick records from my house and I know Tim Brown's had similar problems with people he'd known for 20+ years and previously trusted. In these cases obviously people lost their integrity in their greed to own a record and that's arguably far worse than any financial loss. Anything that can push relatively normal people into such lengths to obtain a piece of plastic can't be healthy can it? Beware obsessiveness in any form. It distorts reality. Ian D

I first gave up collecting major rarities in 1976. After swapping the Exception on Capitol for the Four Perfections, paying 10p for Lenny Curtis, £2 for the Pointer Sisters, £15 for the Carstairs, £20 for the Detroit Executives, £30 for Frankie 'Loveman' Crocker and £40 for the Tomangoes among many others within the same price brackets, I got in a bidding war for Bernie Williams which eventually went for £120 cash and two £15 swaps, which was around £90 too much for my liking. So that's when I made the decision to flog my existing collection and to go to the U.S. and find 'em at a more reasonable price, which was an action I've never regretted and which, ultimately, led me to a lifetime in music. So I'm pretty happy that's the direction I went. I've probably had 3 or 4 decent Northern collections since then, most of which tended to coincide with when I had more disposable income. So I thought the prices were going crazy in 1976 but great records were still obtainable for a reasonable amount. These days it's a rich man's game, especially if you're in the mega rarity mode and unless you have a 40 year old collection. I got in more financial messes between, say, between 1972 and 1976 when my weekly wage was around £22.00. Chuck in another £10-15 a week for deejaying and some record dealing which probably took my income to circa £120-30 a month. Knock off £50 for living expenses and that would leave about £70-80 a month, of which the majority went on records. So when records started breeching the 2 months disposable income level, that's when I decided I couldn't continue punishing myself any longer. Besides I had tons of other stuff I wanted to do and which needed money too and it's been that way ever since. I still buy stuff all the time but across a wide swathe of styles and generally cheap. I think the most I've ever spent on a record is about £500 and that was an exception to the rule. I thought it was good topic by the way. I can remember having to stay in for a week or two because of some purchases and that almost killed me at the time ....... Ian D

I'm pretty sure I've got that Kev. I have a feeling that it could be from some re-records that Harold Melvin did post PIR but I'll need to check. I've got an album full of fantastic different versions of some of the PIR stuff. I've gotta shoot off now but I'll try and dig the album out and refresh my memory..... Ian D

Also, in many cases, Tom is not gratuitously adding length for the sake of it but rather restoring the originals to the length that's actually on the masters! As a perfect example, the original recording of Robert Upchurch's "The Devil Made Me Do It" turned out to be 11 minutes long. We never knew that until the tape arrived. The only thing we'd ever heard up to then was the 4 minute edit from the master 'cos that's all that had ever been made available. This is a prime Philly session with all the key musicians including the late Vincent Montana playing their asses off over an 11 minute jam. That would have been lost forever if we hadn't dug it out. Ian D