Another Banksy

There! All it takes is a couple of comments on one of my posts (thanks Davyh and dvd) and a successful weekend of digging to banish my blogging blues and put an end to my latest posting crisis.

There was a little record fair in town at the weekend. It happens roughly quarterly and tends to be focussed on 50s and 60s R&R, rockabilly and early R&B. I think I may have mentioned it before. There are usually a few soul boxes as well and this time one of my favourite dealers made an appearance. He always carries a good selection of soul 45s it seems and this time was no exception. So while the room was filled with the sound of rockabilly on various decks hooked up to speakers, I was pulling soul 45s, spinning them on a portable deck, and desperately trying to hear them with headphones clasped tight to my ears.

I picked up six 45s in the end that I later admitted to Mrs Darce left a bit of a hole in the wallet – “you spent how much?!”. Yes, well, £25 on just one of those 45s sounds a lot to the uninitiated I guess. It’s quite a lot for me to pay as well really, but I know it’s peanuts to many of the vinyl hungry. The rest of them didn’t come close to being that expensive though, and it’s one of these I’m featuring here, and is the one I’m really punching the air about.

A while ago I featured a Bessie Banks 45that was an issue copy of a release I had only ever seen as a same sided demo before. Well here we are again with another Bessie Banks release that, although is out there as an issue, seems to mainly surface as a same sided demo. This was Bessie’s only outing on Volt, neither incarnation are easy to find, and when they do turn up they usually seem to sell for quite a bit more than I paid for my copy. I bought it for the “Try To Leave Me…” side, one of the greatest examples of soul music you could wish to find, mellow and deep all at the same time. But turning it over what did I find? Another song in the same mould almost as good as the A side, and that puts this 45 fair and square in the “killer” category. 

I notice that “Aint No Easy Way” has very recently made a couple of appearances on YouTube.  But apart from that there doesn’t appear to have ever been a “buzz” about this song. It clearly warrants some “buzz”, and Bessie Banks is a singer held in high regard too, in soul circles at least; so I wonder if a batch of issue copies have been found recently in some forgotten warehouse and are now trickling out into the wild? Certainly the only picture of it on YouTube shows a copy just like my latest prize – an issue copy with a promo stamp on it.      

Bessie Banks – Ain’t No Easy Way 1974

And the sublime…

Bessie Banks – Try To Leave Me If You Can 1974

There are a couple of car boot sales ‘round abouts that are continuing on into the winter. Sunday’s early morning visit to one of them (where I had to cope with malfunctioning fingers due to the cold!) turned out to be worth it too. A nice little batch of obscure reggae 45s, mainly of the Lovers variety. Some of those next time.