Oh Yays

The last two weekends have been fruitful at the car boots.

More of the stack in the second picture soon. The stack of 45s in the first picture all came from one seller whose car boot was in fact the back of a hearse! As I walked up to his pitch he called out “soul, funk and r&b, all dead stock, £1 each”. Before me were about eight boxes and I could immediately see they appeared to be all US singles (i.e. the ones with the large centres). I thought I had died and gone to heaven and was contemplating the need for a run to the cashpoint. As it turned out there were multiple copies of most titles so there were probably no more than about 60 different titles in all (LOTS of James Brown – I Cried, Soul Power and Super Bad). They clearly were nearly all unplayed dead stock, and mostly soul and funk as stated. Apparently they had been pulled out of a US warehouse in 1972, and had languished ever since in some small corner of England. That back story gets me every time. 

In the end I settled on about 20 titles, the artists in question being: The O’Jays x2 – Ronettes – The Soul Children – C.L Blast - Johnny Jones – Madlyn Quebec – Sam & Dave - Eddie Floyd – Vicki Nelson – CODs – Earl Van Dyke - Natura’elles – Fantastic Four x2 – James Brown – Mandrill , and the only non soul/funkers - The Family – Strawberry Alarm Clock – Kay Tolliver.

A few of these are real stand outs but it is the O’Jays single that is really grabbing me at the moment. What a double sider from their pre PIR days. Looking on ebay it does seem to regularly sell when it turns up, but usually for less than a tenner. I should have picked up some more copies. I should have at least bought one more because I might wear out my sole copy pretty quick.

In the coming days I’ll put up a few more from the bunch I think. 

The O’Jays – Going Going Gone  1968

The O’Jays –The Choice  1968

The same weekend, coincidentally I found a copy of The O’Jays In Philedelphia. Before they settled on PIR in the Seventies, The O’Jays appeared on a number of different labels in the Sixties. After Bell they were, for a short time, on Neptune. This was a nice find, and I can’t imagine it turns up very often , especially in this sparkling condition. There is something special about an album on a small label that you are only used to finding 45s on. I didn’t notice until I got home that it had a drill hole. I have never seen a drill hole on an album before. Luckily the aim was true and the hole did go through the label and not the playing surface! 

The O’Jays – Deeper (In Love With You)  1969