Amsterdam Russ

And you can get most of it on YouTube! Their attitude has changed over the years, but it still seems inconsistent. I'd previous uploaded a couple of Loma tracks without problem, but when I tried the same thing with Ike & Tina Turner's 'Somebody needs you' I got a message it was blocked at the behest of Warner Bros!

That must have been one hell of a blow, Pete. I appreciate that 300 clips is an awful lot of work. Were you uploading mainly Motown tracks then?

Unfortunately the person to ultimately blame for deleting the account - and thus all the videos is me. When Google took over YouTube they made all registered users have a Google account and then linked that to the YouTube account (one account to rule them all). Thing is, I already had separate YouTube and Google accounts. This confused Google/YouTube no end and meant that every time I logged into YouTube, they asked which account it was that I wanted to use. The original YouTube account enabled me to manage my channel. The Google account logged me into YouTube, but without the channel being associated with it. Or so I thought. Over the weekend I couldn't get into YouTube with the proper account, only the 'inactive' one. I cleared browser cookies/cache, etc, and eventually managed to log in with the right one. This conflict of accounts has been going on for ages and so I decided to delete the 'inactive' one because, as I said, my HarveySoulFinger channel wasn't associated with it. Wrong! Somehow, and I've no idea why, this account was linked, even though it told me that no channel was connected to it. So, when I deleted it, I also deleted the channel. Initially I thought this wouldn't be a problem - I could just log back into YouTube with the proper account. Wrong again! All I got was a message saying the channel had been deleted. I quickly tried to see if there was a way to reinstate the account, but the methods prescribed on the Google/YouTube help pages didn't work. So, in most respects I was my own nemesis. Except that I hold Google/YouTube responsible for creating the account conflict in the first place and for making things so complex to understand. This is what makes the whole thing even more frustrating. Worse is that starting again means that the tunes that were up there for periods of years will drop right down in the YouTube and Google rankings. Videos I re-add will appear to be duplicates of stuff that's already on YouTube, although most of the stuff I added wasn't on YouTube to start with, which was why I added them. @ Dave - I'll give your suggestion a try right away...

Earlier this week my YouTube channel of four years, and which went under the name of HarveySoulFinger, was deleted. I had something like 79 vids of classic and semi-obscure Northern Soul, R&B and some gospel. There was also about a dozen or more unreleased tracks of various types. The channel had over 300,000 views and had accumulated over 400 subscribers, and I know a number of people here had subscribed to it. I'm now trying to rebuild the channel under a new name - Loma Russ - and am re-uploading the video tracks one by one. It's a slow job because as well as uploading them there's also descriptions and tags to be done. Reckon I'm about halfway now. What's really sad about the deletion of the account is that over the four years it was active, a number of artists, friends of artists, and relatives of deceased artists, had kindly commented on posts. As examples, there were comments from relatives of Joan Baker (Everybody's talking), Beverly Shaffer and James "Lucky" Carmichael. A member of Dry Well had made a number of comments about the origin of the group and how they came to sing "Gypsy" (and refuting the long-held belief that Ellen and the Shan-dels was the first release). A music colleague of legendary song writer Jimmy Webb had provided much insight about his friend and the lyrics to one of his compositions that was recorded by Thelma Houston, and which had never been released as a 45 (I have a 45 acetate of it). All those comment are now gone, and that's a real shame. For anyone who might be interested, my new channel is here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOmXkufN7J1zgy116jwvXww Please do subscribe if it's at all of interest. I'll continue to upload the now deleted tracks and get round to doing some new ones. I've a couple of great unreleased soul gems to add. No idea how long it'll take to get back to the previous numbers of views and subscribers. I think it's going to be a long haul! Thanks for reading.

Vernacular not allowed in class! Movement/Scene = same thing in this context. One just has more letters, a sense of formality, and an extra syllable than the other.

Oxford Dictionary of English: Movement 2 [ often with modifier ] a group of people working together to advance their shared political, social, or artistic ideas: the labour movement. Maybe others think it's a load of bowels, but I'd say that 'Northern Soul' with its "Keep the Faith" musical philosophy could definitely be considered as a movement.

Just watched the programme. Well, skipped through to the 'Northern' bits. I have to say I'm quite shocked, not by the coverage give to the Northern Soul scene (which was horribly patronising to so the least), but by the standard of British television. Has it really become this bad? I gave up telly about 10 years ago because I thought that 90% of it was crap. At home we still watch programmes via the computer and on DVD - The Wire, Walking Dead, etc, - but I've not seen one of these domestic light entertainment shows for a good decade. It was horrible. The presenters are using the sort of slow speaking tone and adopting the type of attitude you might use if you were giving a talk to a class full of educationally challenged 8-year olds, and even then they still managed to come across as being incredibly patronising. Good Lord. People still pay a TV licence for this sort of thing? Most of the 'Northern' segments had me cringing. "Go on then Tom/Dick/Harry, show us your special trick!" (Oooh, aaah. Isn't he/she good, ladies and gentlemen?). It reminded me of old style holiday camp talent shows... "And here's Charlie from Scunthorpe, and he's got really knobbly knees. Show the people your knees, Charlie! Ooh, aren't they knobbly? Let's all give a big hand to Charlie from Scunthorpe. Now, who have we got next? Oh, here's Martha from Manchester. She's going to sing us a song, aren't you Martha?" I'm sure the people who participated enjoyed themselves immensely, and I'm sure it was great fun to be there. Good luck to them. It's the stuff of memories if you were there. For this viewer though, sadly all the programme did was to reinforce terrible cliches about the Northern Soul scene and carve into stone the scenes supposed retro dress code. More than that, it actually presented it as a retro scene, one which looks back to the dress styles and youthful exploits of soul boys and girls of the early 1970s. Beyond that, what's up with Lisa Stansfield's nostrils? For a moment I thought I was seeing the ghost of Kenneth Williams!

More like he/she is saying "shove that camera lens any closer and I'll rip your f*%#ng eyes out!" Cos that's exactly how it felt...

I agree entirely. It seemed like a nice thought though, that a company with a deep reliance on the Afro-American community might get involved in a sideline such as a record label. Running with the idea in my head, I also wondered - if it was run by General Motors - if the acts might have been plucked from the corporation's own productions lines and factory floors. As I say, a small flight of fancy at the time and one which quite appealed to me.

Another owl, this time in extreme close-up. One of my favourites out of all the countless photos that I've taken.

Eagle and owls seen at a mediaevel fayre here in Amsterdam...

For sure I must be an imbecile. Please, I suspect that a list of the top [insert number here] "most wanted 45s on the planet" would be very useful to a lot of us. Could you start with a top 10, perhaps?

He's not alone. Look out for Belgian music racconteur Eddy de Clerq and delve into his blog. He's not just limited to 'soul', but also covers many styles and has put together some outstanding compilations recently of what people here might appreciate as 'underground' music! https://soulsafari.wordpress.com

Who are the "big lads"? Please do tell... Are there enough of them to make a "Top 1/2/3/4/500" list?

Yes, I know. And my post says that I wondered about it back then.

Know anything about the label at all, Bob? Got a copy of the brilliant Johnny D 45 about 25 years ago and wondered back then if the label might have some connection to the General Motors Corporation. https://youtu.be/4JQ4qzm_4Dg

You're welcome, and yes, some great photos!!

Nice photo gallery on the BBC News website this morning showing readers' photos of Spring wildlife. http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/26628076

These puffins we saw on a boat trip to the Isle of May, which is off the coast of Fife in Scotland. The place is alive with lots of different types of sea birds and is well worth the visit. Herring gull - also Isle of May

From what I've seen, I think they're all in the woods of Amsterdam!

You're welcome

The answer is in the lyrics that you have...

Nice. Interesting that someone added a snippet of this to refosoul in 2008 with the following text: /more/soul-library/billy-vera-people-thats-why-private-unissued-promo-cd-r45509

That's exactly what I thought after multiple listens. Thing is though, the 'lonely hour' doesn't match up to the 'won't stand in my way'. Not certain that I'm right at all, but after continual listens - with and without headphones - that's all I can make it to be. Maybe a fresh pair of ears will hear something different. Brilliant, brilliant tune. Absolutely sublime lyrics - sheer poetry.

I moved from Maidstone to London in something like May of 1984. God, that's 30 years ago! Went to see Graham in Strood a couple of times after, but that was it. Never went back. In late 2007, I moved from London to just outside Amsterdam. Jo spent a weekend with here us last year and dj'd at the Amsterdam Soul Club. Life's funny, isn't it? If you'd told that young wannabe soulie that 20-odd years later he'd end up living 'abroad', and in Amsterdam, he wouldn't have believed you! Back on topic - the 80s were my formative Northern Soul years - and they were great... 100 Club, Hinckley, Peterborough, Leighton Buzzard, Bradford, Blackburn, Sheffield, Great Yarmouth, Herne Bay (!), Chesterfield (the place with the wonky church?), Brighton, and wherever else. Lost years, I don't think so!