"These Northern Soul tracks. They were being released by Americans; Were they aware of The Northern Soul market and react by producing more records like that? Surely it can't have been a coincidence that there were so many? Where do Stax Records fit into all this? I remember that Stax were really prominent around then."
the tragic thing about it is that most still dont know that they were ever danced to by us here in the uk throughout our teens and beyond... some even passed on without knowing they were loved and demanded here in the UK...
some people found out and made the scene even healthier.. even motown legends like brenda holloway and edwin starr moved to the uk and performed regularly here to the underground clubs.
there were so many i suppose because everyone had a message for the world in young black america, there were so many demos and promotional records cut that were never intended for release because the only 2 radio stations in the area that had got it had said they wouldnt play it, or some other weak reason, and no one was interested in them. they sat on shelves in record shops, unwanted throughout the 60s and many of the singers moved on to other things, assuming they'd never made it. it wasnt really until certain people in the north of the uk realised there was a whole goldmine of motown-like vinyl in america (people like richard searling/kev roberts/ian levine/russ winstanley/keith minshull and many many more) and flew over to the states to try and get hold of some of this amazing new raw music.... and then the search was on!
as the hype grew and grew around the north, more and more people went to "discover" these tunes nobody had wanted 5-10 years previously... often tracking record shop owners, cutting engineers, session musicians and their families etc and finding out the history behind the songs, all of which is well documented now, and most soulheads know anyway....
it got to the point that so many people were getting hold of these exclusive tunes that nobody else could get that the vinyl collecting aspect of it started majorly, people desparate to get the only 3 copies that were ever made of a record, and then get the status and the dj bookings for having the rarest collection....
"cover ups" - like i say, the vinyl collecting youth of northern england were off in a frenzy, finding more and more tunes that DESERVE their place in musical history, instead of rotting in an american basement eternally... but the problem was if they told everyone else everything about the record at the time, everyone else could trace their steps and find copies also, so dj's often make their own labels to the vinyl with fake names and titles on the record, to send other jealous people off on a wild goose chase, finding no information on the record they so desparately wanted!
a good example of this is a tune called "double cookin'" by the checkerboard squares. it's an instrumental tune, no lyrics, no clues, and i only found out about 10 years ago that the copy i had was totally wrong... until the late 90s i thought it was called "strings a go go" by the bob wilson sounds... fine example of a cover up and a wild goose chase lol it had me foxed!!
|