30 YEARS OF SOUL

I am 40, and I’ve been a total soul freak for almost 30 years - yes, that means from 1968, when I was just ten. I was living in Cyprus then, and my first idols were the Stones and the Dave Clark Five, but soon after that my older brother Bin found a US Army radio station  that was broadcasting from Turkey, where we heard for the first time   James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Sam& Dave etc., who really blew our minds. The DJing style helped too, superbly fast, with a lot of jingles, puns on the lyrics, etc.: Some of the first soul records we ever heard were - Nobody but me - Human Beinz,   Shake a tail’s feather - both by the 5 Du-tones and J & B Purify, Boogaloo - Tom & Jerrio, Lovers Holiday - Peggy Scott & Jo Jo Benson, Apples peaches pumpkin pie - Jay & the Techniques, Sweet sweet lovin’ - Platters, Say I am - Tommy James and the Shoundels (I consider that soul music), Little Latin Lupe Lu - Mitch Ryder.

All great happy stuff with a dash of northern soul before anyone knew what that was. With such exciting music in abundance, my interest in mainstream rock groups grew weaker, to the bewilderment of my peers who were just starting to get into rock & pop music.

After a year in Cyprus my family moved back to Israel. Although Bin built a 50 meter cable antenna on the roof of our building, we could not receive that US Army station anymore, except for a few summer nights. But we found other radio stations that played even better soul music! While in London Radio 1 was playing a boring top 40 playlist, you would not believe what rare soul gems were played by government owned stations of almost every Middle East state,  from which Bin and I got a real soul education.

We had a good 50 meter antenna, and it paid off: little by little we discovered the right programs to listen to for soul. There were many “pop music” programs in the stations of the area, no special soul show, but when you said “pop” in those days, there was usually a regular dosage of soul. Usually there were uninterrupted music programs, no DJ, no introduction of the songs, and we were sitting there, taping the good stuff and trying to sort out who’s singing what. We started buying records too, not so many at first, since as young kids there was not a lot of money to be spent. We bought the Israeli releases of Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, James Brown, Sam and Dave LP’s. Also a lot of European compilation LP’s. No 45’s though, there were almost no singles in Israel, just a few EP’s. Gradually we learned through the radio and through records about Solomon Burke, Etta James, Arthur Conley, Clarence Carter, Johnnie Taylor, James Carr, and got a better knowledge of Motown, although southern soul was always the predominant soul style in the our residence. But from the beginning, there were some records on our tapes that we could not find in the record stores in Israel: a few of the first of those mystery songs were:

Bar B Q - Wendy Rene (we couldn’t even guess the title - we thought she was saying something like - I like a 'party too')
Mr. Soul Satisfaction - Timmy Willis
Get down with it - Bobby Marchan
Sister’s got a boyfriend - Rufus Thomas
The funky judge - Bull & the Matadors
It takes a whole lotta woman  - Jerry Combs & the Mannix
Tomorrow - Lonnie Youngblood
Tired of being nobody - The Valentinos

and LOADS of others. It took Bin and I years of searching, but by now we’ve found I’d say 98% of those early radio mystery tunes, mainly on 45’s, some of them on compilations. This was great fun, because when we found a record, the joy was double - we not only had it, but we got to know who it was by! There are still some mysteries to this day though. Some of them are presented in audio in the “wants & mystery page” in my web site.

On those early radio days there was also a lot of stuff that I later re-encountered as northern soul. Bin and I knew nothing about that scene until around 1980, but we knew and loved Sweet Sherry - J.J. Barnes, Just because of you - Rocky Roberts & the Airedales, Just ain’t no love - Barbara Acklin, You gotta pay the price - Gloria Taylor, I spy for the FBI - Jamo Thomas, What can a man do - Showstoppers, Soul self satisfaction - Earl Jackson - we got all of these from the radio. And on compilation records we bought   we discovered That’s enough - Roscoe Robinson (that was in Super Soul, anyone know this great original 60’s comp on Wand?), I can’t please you - Jimmy Robins, 60 minutes of you love (Homer Banks, on the Minit - Soul Food comp). So when Bin and I made a pilgrimage to England in 1982, having heard rumors about this strange northern soul phenomena, it blew our minds that these English people were dancing to those tracks by the hundreds and thousands. Until then we were under the impression that the whole world had forgotten about (or rather, had never known) this old soul music. Yes, the 70’s were a great period for us musically, learning so much about the music through listening to the radio and buying (cheap) records, but it was tough emotionally to be so isolated. So the first time I saw a soul 45 for sale for 50 quid, I was actually overjoyed, not thinking about the negative financial consequences this would have (on my own budget) - no more cheap records, but recognition at last.

For the last couple of years I've had an urge to help start a soul/northern soul scene in Israel. I've met some other people in Israel who are into soul (I mean, what we mean by soul music, not that current crap), we've had a few events, but we are still too few. Hopefully the Israeli Northern Soul Movement will gather some momentum in the months to come, and if it does, I'll keep you informed about it!

Cheers
Yoni