Ian Dewhirst

Looking forward to this , i don`t suppose you have an interview with the man himself about Vol 2.................. or am i just being greedy .

Funnily enough I do Garv. I'll be posting up in a day or two mate!

Ian D

The sun comes out and hey presto........released on Monday!

HURTCD099 Mellow Mellow - 15TH Anniversary Crystal Edition 28/3/11

CD 1

1. All Because Of You Leroy Hutson 7.02

2. Why Can't We Be Lovers Holland & Dozier 4.01

3. Cloud Of Sunshine Jae Mason 3.29

4. I'm Back For More Al Johnson & Jean Carn 5.05

5. Give Me Some Emotion Webster Lewis 4.01

6. What Do You Want Me To Do Lou Courtney 2.49

7. Call Me (Come Back Home) Al Green 3.01

8. The Sweetest Pain Dexter Wansel ft Jean Carn 5.42

9. Ain't You Had Enough Phyllis Hyman 4.11

10. If Only You Knew Patti Labelle 4.44

11. Just As Long As I Know You're Mine Dee Dee Sharp Gamble 4.14

12. The O'Jays Darlin' Darlin' Baby 4.15

13. Living In The Footsteps Of Another Girl Maryann Farra & Satin Soul 2.15

14. Keep Goin' On Gary Bartz 4.27

15. This Feeling's Killing Me The Jones Girls 3.30

16. Oh Girl The Chi-Lites 3.43

17. Spend It On Love Side Effect 3.35

18. Gotta Get You Home With Me Tonight Eugene Wilde 5.19

Total 75.45

CD2

1. Come Into My Life Joyce Sims 3.43

2. I Choose You Paris 5.52

3. Heaven Only Knows Teddy Pendergrass 4.08

4. Use To Be My Girl The O'Jays 3.59

5. My Love Don't Come Easy Jean Carn 5.05

6. Tell Me Why MFSB feat Carla Benson 3.55

7. Let's Make A Baby Billy Paul 7.09

8. Do You Get Enough Love Shirley Jones 4.34

9. I'm So Much In Love With You Anthony White 4.41

10. Love For The Sake Of Love Claudia Barry 5.15

11. Devotion Earth Wind and Fire 4.48

12. Soft Lights Sweet Music and You Millie Jackson & Isaac Hayes 4.24

13. Count On Me Natural Four 4.03

14. Mon Belle Amour Ann Peebles 3.40

15. Don't Leave Me Starving For Your Love Laura Lee 2.57

16. Look At The Boy Jean Plum 2.32

17. Aretha, Sing One For Me George Jackson 2.55

Total 73.50

Amazon

Ian D

It's here at last! All copies ordered out in the post today

For those not yet ordered it, you can do so here https://www.soul-inte....uk/release.htm

Phil

Yabba Dabba do! At last. Don't forget to pop mine in the post!

Ian D

Looks like finished copies for Friday touch wood!

Ian D

SI-005

Wow. Stunning mate. That is a record I want to own.

I'm still of the opinion that this record is one of the best double-siders of all time. I find it amazing that a record of this calibre, via both the A & B sides, somehow still managed to fall through the gaps on it's original release.

Well it's here now LOL.......

Can't wait to get it in my hands at last!

Roughly when did you say the delivery date was Paul.........?

Ian D

" Sorry mate no trainers allowed ":thumbsup:

:thumbsup:

Ian D

Sounds good to me, maybe I'll have to wear their plimmies when I'm on stage.

Maybe you can get 'em to kick in for a new dancefloor whilst they're at it?

Ian D

Excellent stuff. I love it when stuff like this happens because it makes people realise the quality of old music that they wouldn't ever get to hear under normal circumstances. It was a similar thing when Boots raided that Soul Jazz album for the previously generally unknown "Here Come The Girls" - Ernie K. Doe and probably pumped up Soul Jazz's sales nicely. So good for them.

Same for Numero. They go to a massive amount of effort to dig up this stuff so it's nice when something like this happens. Well done to all!

Ian D

That's also Wanda Young Rogers singing with the Andantes. As with '...Magician' Gladys was not even in the studio when this track was recorded.

Please, if you've going to post a tune up in tribute, at least have courtesy to check who the lead vocalist is.

Here, looking great and miming to her final Marvelettes A side, is Gladys Horton:

https://www.youtube.c...h?v=HKQbpSLW1jE

My mistake Tony, so apologies. So my favourite 2 records by the Marvelettes both turned out not to feature Gladys Horton but I still wish her the best.

Note to self: must research better before I post...........

Ian D

RIP Gladys.

Ian D

let's hope there'll be as much interest in my biorhythms revival all dayer at the digbeth laundrette.

Now that is an EVENT! Plus I can wash my jeans at the same time!

Ian D

Ian,

The biggest mooning scenario was at one of the massive Bank Holiday All-Dayers we did at Blackpool Mecca.

Ian and Paul said it was a matter of honour that we had more people mooning than they would have at the Purley All-Dayer taking place at same time.

Good as gold maybe a 1,000 plus people showed their asses - and the Mecca manager, who was new, went absolutely mad at me and threatened to stop the All-Dayer there and then. I had to say if he wanted a riot he should go ahead and do so, and luckily he saw sense and backed off.

Moodiest artist we ever had at those Mecca All-Dayers was Chris Hills (not Chris Hill the DJ) of Players Association. He was a nightmare, and nothing we did was good enough for him. With 3,000 plus people in it must have been one of the best audiences he ever played to, but he moaned about everything.

Others - like Sylvester, Al Hudson, Brass Construction,Crown Heights Affair - were great to deal with.

Worse artist was Eddie Kendricks - he cancelled his UK tour and left us in the lurch.

Happy Days,

Neil

PS - Although it's not until July, tickets are already selling for The Ritz. Reunion.

They can be purchased on line - www.soulvation.biz

Happy days indeed Neil.

It's weird when you look back innit?

Ian D

Back to the Ritz and only a 15 min walk for me ..

This is the same weekend as Radcliffe all niter?? a good chance for folk to really make a weekend of it in Manchester....

Gonna be much interest in this one off for sure....

Bank hols for Ireland and Scotland , i know a few from over the water who could be up for this..

Yep, it'll be an event for sure Stevie. I think it'll be the first time that all the original DJ's have been together on the same bill since the heyday of the Ritz in the mid 70's.

Will the decks still be as bad? Will that bouncy, springy dancefloor still pound to the stomping of 2000 feet some 35 years later? What kind of set will Levine play? Will there be a spate of elderly discombobulated but happy people staggering around Manchester city centre in the early hours of 01/08/11?

Questions, questions.......

Wouldn't miss this for the world!

Ian D

Is this the start of botties over Briton pt2?

Mmmm. Somehow the thought of 1000 wrinkled old arses being exposed in 2011 doesn't have the same romantic imagery of the very same 1000 arses that were exposed in 1976.

Some things are better left unsaid Dave...........

Mind you, I bet there's absolutely nobody who will be there on the day who will object to getting their arse out if given the slightest encouragement........

To be honest that's one of things which worries me about this gig............

Ian D

Oh great, so that's coach to Mecca from Chorley, cadge a lift to Wigan, train to Manchester, Ritz for 12am, no problem

Help?

That's the spirit lad! Let's try all that pain again some 35 years later and see if we can still bear up!

Somehow I think the Manchester hotels will be booming on this particular Sunday night.

Mmmm. Note to self: Keep Monday off!

Ian D

Well it's taken 30 years but the Heart Of England Soul is back at The Manchester Ritz for an All-Dayer!

The event is promoted by Music & Media Consultancy & Soulvation and takes place on Sunday July 31 from 3pm till 11pm.

Features orginal Ritz DJ's back at The Ritxz n Whitworth Street (West) -

IAN LEVINE - RICHARD SEARLING - COLIN CURTIS - NEIL RUSHTON - IAN DEWHIRST & PAUL SCHOFIELD

INFO AND ADVANCE TICKETS AVAILABLE FROM THE SOULVATION WEB SITE -

WWW.SOULVATION.BIZ

All the Best,

Neil

Click here to view the article

Wow. Jesus Christ. What a line-up! How the hell did they manage to re-assemble the original jocks again? Must've cost 'em a fortune just to get 'em all out of retirement.........

Gonna be brilliant Neil. If Paul and I can have our customary arguement with Levine then that'll just be cream on the top LOL.....

Have they updated the decks in the last 35 years...........?

Ian D

Otis Williams - I Got To Have You - Soul Intention

You beat me to it! Stirling work and the labels look brill mate. Can't wait to get one in my own clutches LOL......

Ian D

Hello Phil,

It's a nice strong follow-up to your recent 45 by The Four Tops.

And it's another obvious double 'A' side because both sides will be equally popular. In fact, these Otis Williams tracks would have been ideal for the Blackpool Mecca era.

Paul

Copy that Paul. This would have been a double-sided monster if anyone had found it back then I'm sure!

Ian D

In terms of sales overall in the music industry Vinyl is still the top selling format for music (when available) and more of todays bands (indie ect ) release singles on 7" 45s which doesnt point to the demise of Vinyl!!

Sorry Ed but that's rubbish mate. Vinyl is the worst selling format for music and has been for the last 20 years. Even the only remaining music chain in the UK doesn't stock it anymore.

Ian D

Carl Fortnum and Gary Spencer have got some beauties to tell from the last gold rush in Texas ... late 80s ...

Ah, that makes sense then. Texas appeared to be cleaned out when I went in '89. I spent a few days there on both ends of a 6 week trip but didn't find much. Had great hits in Little Rock, Decatur, Des Moines, St Louis, Chicago and Madison though......

Ian D

Andy...Good speaking with you. My 70's stories coming atcha next week.

Well make sure you get the Soussan L.A. Warehouse skylight break-in/Casualeers story in there 'cos that's waaaaay up there plus some more info on that basement in Baltimore would be good..............

Ian D

Thank you Ian, thats brilliant and the sort of thing we are looking for

You're welcome Nicola. I try to lure people out if I can 'cos there's some fantastic stories out there. Val Shively once told me a terrific story about a couple of the high-level Doo Wop collectors falling out with one of the guys pulling a gun after a deal was reneged upon. He obviously got the record. So talk to Val 'cos he'll probably also tell you about that crazy Black guy with an Afro from Canada who he kicked out of the shop whilst I was there and a zillion other tales.

Great project. Must be fun to compile all this stuff. Best of luck!

Ian D

OK, here's my contribution which is a Manifesto article I did mid last year............

An area which will probably be of interest to Manifesto readers will undoubtedly be the subject of record hunting or 'crate-digging' as it's popularly known these days.

When I first ventured to the States in 1976 it was pretty much untapped for the most part with only a handful of Northern Soul collectors and dealers taking that early trip across the Atlantic.

Graham Warr from Birmingham was one of the first collectors to take the plunge – a bold move back in the days before cheap flights and the ease of travel which we enjoy these days. Graham was soon followed by Ian Levine who enjoyed regular holidays in Florida with his parents and thus the opportunity to boost his already sizeable collection even more. The notorious Simon Soussan moved from Leeds to Mexico City before making the jump to Los Angeles and establishing himself as the first U.S. based Northern Soul dealer, whilst John Anderson from Scotland was also making his initial forays to the U.S. establishing the then tiny Soul Bowl operation in the process.

But America is a big place and, in the mid 1970's, was still a largely untapped goldmine for Northern Soul. In what we hope will become a regular feature in Manifesto, we decided to cover some of the stories of those halcyon days to give people a glimpse of the twists and turns that can happen in crate-digging which can turn a mundane day into a phenomenal one.

Here's a few from me to kick the series off.........

I was in east L.A. driving around looking for a Saturday morning 'swap-meet' (or flea market) and somehow I just couldn't find the place where the swap meet was meant to be. I was driving mile after mile along all these roads with heavy industrial complexes and factories as far as the eye could see but no sign of any swap meet.

As I was driving along one of these bleak, endless roads I noticed a hamburger stall coming up on the roadside with quite a few people milling around, so I slowed down, figuring I could ask someone where the swap meet might be. It was then that I noticed that there was a sort of household goods market right next to the hamburger van.

So I parked up, because I was sick of driving and fancied a coffee and there were a couple of coffee type stalls within the market. So I got a coffee and started to have a mooch around the market. It was all stepladders, dusters, cleaning fluids, tool kits, buckets, bowls and thousands of other household goods. I'd pretty much covered the whole market when I noticed a stall nearest the road which had a couple of boxes of 45's in amongst all the household goods....

I wandered over, set my coffee down and started flicking through the 45's. It really wasn't very promising - I expected lots of junk and some of the records looked beaten up.......but.......

Bingo!

I suddenly found a copy of "We Were Made For Each Other" by Terrible Tom on Maverick.......and then another one right after it!

My heart started thudding. What else could be there........?

A few more records later I found "You Don't Love Me Anymore" - Johnny Caswell on a pink Decca demo. Things were looking up suddenly. After I'd gone through both boxes I'd found a few more medium rare records - Candace Love, Fred Hughes and a couple of others. I asked the guy how much they were and he said, "Oh, just gimme 25 cents each man". So I gave him a couple of bucks and said, "Wow. I found a few things here. It's a shame you don't have any more."

The guy looked at me and said "You want more 45's"?

I said, "Yeah, that's what I'm looking for".

And the guy said, "Yo, come around here" and waved me round to the back of his stall where there was a huge rain-soaked tarpaulin covering an area about 20' x 20'...

He then grabbed hold of one side of the tarpaulin and threw it back to reveal......

about 20,000 45's!

He laughed and said "Help yourself. Good luck."

They were in a right state! Some of them were warped from the sun, others had been wet at some time and were water-damaged and most of the sleeves were falling apart or rotting.

But everything away from the edges of the tarpaulin and in the middle of all this plastic was fine!

I found 50 x "Love Factory" - Eloise Laws on Music Merchant, 50 x "Memories" by the Segments Of Time on Sussex and at least a couple of hundred other goodies which were all in decent nick considering the circumstances.

I also found the rarest record ever on the Belgium scene at the time - "Heartless Lover" by the Dick Baker Combo which I sold a week later for £1500 - a huge amount of money in '76 - the guy even flew in from Belgium to collect it personally!

So a shit day turned into a good one in the end.

Thing's can work like that. Perhaps the best hit I had happened towards the end of a completely fruitless visit to Denver Colorado in late 1980's........

In 1988 I was stuck in a pretty boring job in between my more exciting jobs when I got a phone call from my ex boss who used to own the Warehouse in Leeds. He'd recently moved out to Denver, Colorado and was thinking about opening a club out there, so he invited me over for 10 days and offered to send the plane tickets!

Which was perfect! Anything to get out of the MCPS in Streatham which was slowly killing me.....

Also, at the back of my mind, I figured that Denver is in the middle of nowhere so the chances of any Northern collectors actually CHOOSING to go to Denver or even Colorado was remote - they'd have to go roughly 1000 miles from anywhere else to the middle of cowboy country to look for Northern. Unlikely.....

So I got there, got settled in at my bosses pad and then began a week of trawling every store in Denver whilst looking at potential club premises.

And.......nothing!

A complete bust.

Just crap.

I couldn't believe it. Quite often there'd be promising situations, i.e., plenty of the right labels from the right era and cheap. But somehow there were never the right artists or smaller labels and WAAAY too much Country & Western for my liking.....

It got to day 9 - the day before I was due to fly back and there was one store about 15 miles out of Denver which I hadn't tried yet. The only problem was that my ex-boss was busy that day and wouldn't be able to run me over there. I'd have to get there via about three buses which would be a pain in the ass.

Anyway, I set off. It took me almost 2 hours to get there but when I got there my heart started pounding! The shop looked FANTASTIC with 100ft long racks of 45's from floor to ceiling. So I got digging....

And nothing! Tons of the right labels, lots of the right artists but NO NORTHERN!!

The shop owner even let me in the back room to go through the unsorted stuff so I got covered in cobwebs, rat shit and dust going through hundred-count boxes of Luther Ingram, Staple Singers and Bar-Kays records but still NO NORTHERN!

After a couple of hours and covered in shit from head-to-toe, I called it a day and headed back to the bus stop for the trek back. To add insult to injury, I'd just missed a bus and the next one was in an hour. So I had an hour to kill in the middle of Buttf*ck, Denver with no records!

Great.

So I went into a burger bar and got a burger and coffee and went to sit at the window booth. As I was chomping my burger I was casually looking out of the window looking across a parking lot and, beyond that a dual carriageway, when in the distance, at the other side of the dual carriageway, I saw a sign which said "1940 Jukebox Co".

I wasn't that excited but I had a bit more time to kill and I like those early Wurlitzer jukeboxes anyway, so I thought I'd have a wander over there and have a look. Nothing better to do.....

So I crossed the dual carriageway and walked up to a huge building which had a shop front with a couple of Wurlitzer jukeboxes in the window. I looked at them for a while and then casually wandered into the shop.

As I went through the door into the shop, I noticed an alcove on the right-hand side which was roped-off but which was full of racks of records in what looked to be strict alphabetical order.

I still wasn't that excited - I thought they'd all be ex-jukebox records, 'oldies but goodies' or the dreaded Ferlin Husky or Merle Haggard stuff which Denver seemed to be filled with.

There was a long-haired bearded native Indian bloke at the counter, so I wandered up and said "Wow. Love these jukeboxes man. What do you play on 'em"?

He said: "I've got over a million records in there (pointing at the alcove), so we ain't gonna run out anytime soon son".

I said: "Wow. A million ay? Are they for sale"?

He said: "Yep. As a matter of fact it's your lucky day son. I'm having a sale, so anything you want is 25 cents each."

And with that, he walked around the counter, down to the alcove, unhooked the rope to the entrance and ushered me in.

I took a deep breath. This actually looked promising. The alphabetizing of his stock was incredible with the 'A' section starting off with A, AA, AB, ABE, etc, etc which I thought was far too intricate for just ex-juke-box titles. But it could still all be Country and Western though so I still wasn't getting too excited....

So, I thought what record have I never managed to find in all my previous trips to the U.S.? One I really like preferably.....? And it had always bugged me that I'd never managed to find a Stanley Mitchell "Get It Baby" on Dynamo - one of my favourite records of all time.

So I went to the 'M' section, scrolled along - M..., MA..., ME..., MI...., MIT..., MITCH.........

And found 2 mint white promo copies of "Get It Baby" on Dynamo!

That was when my heart started pounding like a demented sledgehammer!

Everything was in there! All the major label stuff, lots of tiny indie labels, tons of New York, L.A., Detroit and Chicago goodies.

I ended up staying there until 12.00pm that night. The owner even locked me up in the shop so he could get some dinner. I bought 2,800 records for $700 and made close to £30,000 and massively increased my Northern collection at the time. It was easily the best hit I've ever had in my entire life. The nearest to the 'Holy Grail' I'd ever experienced an I'd come close a few times!

But only around 10-11 hours to cover a million records? I had to go back to the UK the next day, so the only thing I could do was target things I could remember and adopt a kind of 'scattergun' approach which is absolutely the worst way to clear a warehouse.

And to this day, I wake up in a cold sweat every so often, dreaming of what I probably left behind at the 1940 Jukebox Company.

A few months after my visit, Dave Raistrick from Skegness found the place and had a hell of a hit himself. But he couldn't understand why a lot of the obvious titles weren't there until he asked the guy whether anyone else from England had been there and the guy said. "Well there was this tall, dark-haired guy here a couple of months ago...........".

I caught up with Dave a year or two later at a record fair and he said "Denver, Colorado. Was that you"?

And I said "Yep"!

Ian Dewhirst May 2009

Good luck on the book Andy, put me down for one i could tell you a few storys but its not my place, i remember binning lady in green in the north sea straight after Cleepthorts all the best, cheers Billy.

I don't know about that - the binning of "Lady In Green" into the North Sea sounds like a winner to me. I'm surprised no one dived to recover it to be honest...........

And that'd be Cleethorpes Billy.

If it's a spelling thing, then send it to me and I'll edit accordingly. A Magnetics in the north sea after a session on the pier is a story that needs to be told. Were drugs involved by any chance....?

Ian D

Looking forward to reading this, especially loved reading the stories about you (Ian) in the U.S. in the 70's (the two part story) that you sent in to Manifesto - excellent!

Ste.

I forgot about that Ste. I'll post it up when I get home......

Ian D