The Blue Peter Files #2

These dark nights have really brought on the torpor. But I've finally shaken off the hibernating tendancy to bring you the second instalment on the theme "here's one we made earlier".


Most people of a certain age will be familiar with The Whispers, but in the UK maybe only for their club classic “And The Beat Goes On”. This hit in 1980 in the UK (my time compass was a bit off with this one, I remembered it being earlier). It was the first real hit they had in the UK. I don’t frequent clubs anymore but I’m betting this one will still be played, it is, as they say, a classic of its type.

“And The Beat Goes On” and other records The Whispers cut in the late 70s and early 80s such as “It’s A Love Thing” were aimed very much at the club scene (I’ll call it “club scene” as disco was becoming a dirty word by then). I still have fond memories of playing those records and, of course, still have the 12” singles.

But, beyond the beat and the commercial gloss of those records, you don’t have to concentrate very hard to hear some very polished close harmony singing. They were a polished act with good reason, as the group had been singing together since 1962.

The Whispers started out life as the Eden Trio, singing on street corners in the Watts area of Los Angeles. Although originally a trio they soon developed into a five piece: Walter and Wallace Scott, Nicholas Caldwell, Marcus Hutson, and Gordy Harmon.. They acquired the name The Whispers in 1964 after being picked up by Lou Bedell at the Hollywood based Dore label. There they would release nine singles between 1964 and 1967, including “The Dip” which has been a favourite on the Northern scene for many years.


It would appear they took a gap year in 1968, but in 1969 they resurfaced on the Soul Clock label and that’s when the American national R&B and Pop hits started. Their second release on Soul Clock “The Time Will Come” broke into the national US R&B charts in August 1969. Their next release didn’t do anything but then, in 1970, their fourth release on the label “Seems Like I Gotta Do Wrong” went top 10 in the US R&B charts and made it to #50 in the pop charts. This single was something of a double header – flip it over and you found “Needle In A Haystack”. This had a feel to it that placed it earlier than 1970, and indeed it was because it had originally been released in 1967 on Dore.

At the end of 1970 they moved to Janus Records and scored a string of R&B hits that also occasionally dented the pop charts, including the wonderfully titled “I Only Meant To Wet My Feet”. Then in 1975 there was another label move to the Soul Train / Solar stable, where they stayed until the early 80s. Both “And The Beat Goes On” and “It’s A Love Thing” made the top 10 pop charts in the UK but they would have to wait until 1987 with “Rock Steady” to crack the US top 10 pop charts.


As I said I have a soft spot for their Solar hits – they bring back good memories. Their Janus output left me fairly cold back in the day as it was a bit too sweet for my liking – but on listening to some of it again I’m warming to it (must be my age). I admit I am not really familiar with their output after the early 80s. It’s their early output on Soul Clock and Dore that really does it for me though – clean, melodic, arrangements that complement the group’s beautiful voices and really allow them to shine - great soul music.

From 1964 right through to 1995 The Whispers enjoyed chart pretty much unbroken chart success, initially locally, then nationally, and finally internationally. In 1971 the group experienced their one and only personnel change – Gordy Harmon decided to leave in 1971 and was replaced by ex Friends of Distinction Leaveil Degree. Due to ill health Marcus Hutson had to retire from performing in 1989, and sadly passed away in 2000. Apart from that The Whispers are still intact and still performing.
Forty years from now I wonder how many recently formed groups you will be able to say that about?

The Whispers - The Time Will Come 1969

The Whispers - Needle In A Haystack 1967/1970

The Whispers - And The Beat Goes On 1979

(I know some of you have an aversion to zshare but as savefile seems to be having problems again it has to be zshare again I'm afraid).

Buy "Planets Of Life - The Soul Clock Recordings"

The Blue Peter Files #1

“Here’s one I/we made earlier” is a phrase that has become commonplace in the British English language during the last 40 years or so. Certainly during the last few weeks you will not have been able to open an English newspaper without encountering it, and with good reason. This phrase has its origins in the children’s TV show Blue Peter, which celebrated its 50th birthday last week and is now apparently the longest running children’s TV show in the world. Blue Peter holds a special place in many a British person’s heart, especially those of a certain age, e.g. like me who, at 50, can truly be said to have grown up with the program.

The picture here is of my Blue Peter badge. I seem to remember getting this for collecting and sending in milk bottle tops (for one of their annual charity appeals). This would have been sometime in the sixties and demonstrates that Blue Peter were ahead of the game in the recycling stakes. There was also a deluxe version of the badge which had a dark blue background and the ship picked out in gold (or silver?). I seemed to remember you had to do something a bit special to get that one, although the Wikipedia entry says that it was just issued to those who already had the white badge. In any event I never managed to get one, but I’m sure my next door neighbours did – they were pretty gung-ho about most things.

Now I just have to show you this….



When they weren’t cocking a snook at the old adage “never work with children or animals”, amongst other things, the Blue Peter presenters were always showing us things to make with any old bit of tat and general stuff that you were bound to be able to find lying around the house. Coat hangers, empty washing up bottles (well, empty after you had deposited the contents into a glass or some similar receptacle, inviting mum’s wrath), sticky back plastic, cornflake packets, that sort of thing. After some enthusiastic instruction they would, with a flourish and the words “here’s one we made earlier”, produce a completed example of their industry.

Happy days.

Right, now it’s time for some music, and I thought I would use “here’s one we made earlier” as the theme of this, and my next post.As I have no doubt described before, my love of music really started in the early seventies and I quickly developed a love of soul and funk music. In Britain Soul to the masses was Motown if nothing else. Motown had become established as something of a mainstream sound, and for me, through continued radio airplay and reissues of classic sixties hits, the lineage of acts such as Stevie Wonder and The Temptations was clear.

But I was also discovering all sorts of great new artists and groups. At least I assumed they were new groups. Then I gradually became aware that these acts weren’t new on the scene at all, they had been around for years – way back into the sixties – and they were just reinventing themselves, embracing new musical technologies and trends, and giving us vital new music. A cynic might say they were deserting their roots and simply riding a commercial wave. But there is nothing wrong in moving with the times, and you have to make a buck to eat.

When you juxtapose the output of these groups from the different phases of their careers (and yes I know the nucleus of both these groups goes back even further than my starting point here) you realize just how much their sound changed and, indeed, that of soul and funk music in general. You also realize there was true musical genius at work here.


The Parliaments – Don’t Be Sore At Me 1967


Parliament – Star Child outro / Unfunky UFO 1976


The Ohio Players – Here Today And Gone Tomorrow (mp3) 1968 *


The Ohio Players – Fire 1974

* I've featured this one before, and have no hesitation in doing so again as it is such a great record.

Mine's a Southern Comfort and lemonade

While I slowly get my act together on a more verbose post I thought I would offer up this not so little track. This has been inspired by DavyH’s recent rediscovery of jazz-funk and his craving for full length versions of same, and is for him, at least.

For a few years now I have not been able to get enough of the immediacy of two minute something 60s and 70s southern soul and obscure sister funk tracks. Whereas back in the late 70s early 80s, in my relative youth (early twenties), I was cruising around in my silver Capri with my “If it aint Jazz, it aint worth a Funk” sunstrip listening to the likes of Lonnie Liston Smith, The Jeff Lorber Fusion, and Sadao Watanabe, (OK, yes, I’ll admit it, Shakatak too). The land of jazz-funk where every track was at least five minutes long.

Sometimes I think I must be living my life backwards.

Hiroshi Fukumura with Sadao Watanabe – Hunt Up Wind 1980*

*recorded in Tokyo in 1978 this was released on Inner City in 1980. Check out the credits on the back cover, all the ususal suspects were on the session.



(I can’t find this currently available on CD anywhere).

For Dad

How to start this post? I don’t know. I’ve made a few false starts that the delete key was happy to swallow up. So, not even knowing if it’s fair to even burden you with this, I’m just going to come straight out and say it. The truth is it’s been a bad week in my world. The worst. Dad passed away on Monday.

A neighbour of my parents summed it up well when he said it must have been a blessed release. He is right, in the end Dad’s health had deteriorated so much that he had no real life left, and no prospect of any real recovery. The last year had been tough for him and mum, and our family.

Only last Saturday my parents had celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary. I’m sure Dad was still with us enough to be aware of this and I think he was determined to reach this milestone. Then I think he said to himself - enough is enough. Dad reached 89, so life dealt him a fair hand.

I can’t really put in to words how I feel at the moment so I will just leave you with some music. Dad liked piano music of various forms (and, in his earlier years, used to play the piano accordian). There are a few Oscar Peterson albums in his collection and I remember this particular track was one he kept going back to.

Oscar Peterson – Robbins Nest (mp3) recorded in 1967

from this if you can find it available.

Deja Vu

And so it is September again (OK, I know it’s nearly over).

I wrote about September last year. Reading that post again I was struck by how closely its themes match my current scenario: i.e. too busy to blog, and the September weather coming up trumps again following a non existent summer.

Unfortunately the general life stuff that has been getting in the way of regular bloggery is by no means all good this time around. Dad is in hospital again and has been for the last four weeks. The daily requirements surrounding visiting, supporting Mum, and trying to work out what is going to happen next is leaving little time for anything else. As I may have mentioned earlier this year, Dad is nearly 90, and has had a good innings as we say. But the various effects of diabetes have now well and truly taken hold and at the moment it is difficult to see that he will be able to return home.

As a nation we British love to talk about the weather and I have found myself describing the days to Dad when visiting him in hospital. In the circumstances talking about the weather seems sort of banal, and I am not sure he is taking in what I say, but in the end it is something to say and I like to think it at least gives him some sort of link to the outside world and a structure to the days (and it sure beats talking about the global financial meltdown).

Again this year, September, for the most part, has been a good month to report weather wise, conducting itself with a customary quiet elegance. I am not one to blow my own trumpet, but, reading it back, I was actually quite pleased with my reflections on September last year; to the extent that I cannot really improve on what I had to say then. So, if you feel so inclined, you can read what I had to say here (skip past the italics).

So what to play to go with this post?….. sing that summer song, soon it will be gone.



Buy “Live At The Bijou”

Tapping My Feet #7

DRC = my initials (say it quick and what do you get?)

0.17 = intro (to beat) in seconds
0.25 = intro (to vocal) in seconds

F = end fades
(not that I would have played it to the end, who did with 12" singles?)

117 = bpm
(not measured scientifically, just using a second hand if I remember!)

RM = ? (I'm b*ggered if I can remember what this means!)

General Johnson - Can't Nobody Love Me Like You Do 1979

This is why we do it

I’m sure if you ask my wife she will say that my desire to hunt for vinyl has now reached addictive proportions. She is probably right. Increasingly, for instance, I find myself sharing with my friends and work colleagues the details of my recent finds and the finer points (if there are such things) of charity shop trawling. If I took myself out of my body for an instant and eavesdropped on my conversation I wonder what I would think of myself? An anorak certainly, and then perhaps there is a fine line between that and a bore? Well, there is nothing I can do about it, the craving for vinyl has got me hooked.

One of the finer points of charity shop trawling I quickly noted was that independent shops (for example your local Cat’s Protection League shop as opposed to a CLIC or Oxfam shop) will typically ask less for records, and will also know less about what they have. So more chance of a ‘find’.

I also then learnt that second hand book shops will also sometimes have a few records tucked away. My belief is that as they are book specialists they, also, are not likely to know the vinyl gems they maybe offering for sale for less than the price of a choccie bar.

By way of proof to my second hand book shop theory I present to you Exhibit A – a single by Denise LaSalle released on the UK(!) Westbound label.


I found this in a Falmouth bookshop a few weeks ago and was happy to part with the princely sum of 50p for it. (Stupidly I only had £20 notes on me so knowing that my wife and friend were not far away, undoubtedly looking for earrings – now there’s another addiction if ever there was one!, – I phoned her on the mobile and summoned her to the shop with all speed with some small change!).

I didn’t know the Westbound imprint had ever appeared in UK form. I wouldn’t mind betting this record sold no more than a few handfuls on UK release so that makes it a relatively rare record. That is always nice to know but in the end it’s what’s in the grooves that counts and I knew that Denise LaSalle + 1973 + a title like “Your Man And Your Best Friend” meant there was a very good chance this was a slab of vintage Southern Soul. The record had no sleeve and looked a bit worse for wear but was worth a punt I thought. And wow! I was right. This must rate as one of I my best ever finds. It scrubbed up nicely after a good clean with the magic fluid and I think you will agree it is indeed vintage Southern Soul – and it’s a B side to boot! (The A side is “Do Me Right”).

Denise LaSalle, now into her 70th year, has been ever present on the soul and blues scene over the last 40 years or so. In the past soul artists recorded output was often mainly in the 45 format, with albums being thin on the ground. Not so with Denise, since her first recording back in 1967 – “A Love Reputation” – as well as numerous 45s Denise has also released no less than 32 albums (see Wikipedia). That’s pretty good going.

I have almost none of her records. It’s something I feel almost embarrassed about, and something I need to put right soon. (Scholar over at Souled On has turned me on to some more of her early 70s output in recent months).

What I do have I present to you now. As well as the aforementioned “diamond in the rough” here is her big hit from ’71 “Trapped By A Thing Called Love” on the US Westbound label – sporting a design that yet again proves that UK labels can’t hold a candle to US ones.


As I am bowled over by Denise LaSalle at the moment you also get two tracks from her 1980 album “I’m So Hot”. Both were also singles. I loved the title track back in the day and used to play it a lot in my DJing days. Playing the album again I was also struck by “Try My Love” a glorious disco burner with a whirl of strings and horns driven along by an irresistible beat with strong Moroderesque undertones. The sound would have been out of fashion by 1980 but now it sounds great again. Southern Soul they’re not, and they prove that soul music had changed beyond all recognition (disappeared really) by 1980, but they’re excellent tracks in their own way.


Denise LaSalle – Your Man And Your Best Friend 1973
Denise LaSalle – Trapped By A Thing Called Love 1971
Denise LaSalle – I’m So Hot 1980)
Denise LaSalle – Try My Love 1980