Alan Beattie plays soul on UK labels

alan beattie and soul on uk labels

If you ever check out a Northern Soul DJ's record box you'd think they never released soul records in the UK. The typical hot box contains seven inch singles with bright coloured labels and record companies with strange sounding and even more strangely spelled names. They have large holes and might be made from polystyrene. However in the sixties whilst you could buy singles on import from say Gloria's Record Bar or High Street Tops in Glasgow several UK companies issued them on black labels with UK spellings and push out or solid centre labels such as London or Stateside, or the red and yellow of Pye International. That was after they let Cilla, Dusty and Lulu pick the best of the USA girl group sounds. Smaller labels such as Sue (Island), Ember, Pama reached deals with US producers and labels to issue climbers on the R&B Charts before the major labels wakened. A profit could be turned on the sales of 500 singles and if you were lucky you might have a Harlem Shuffle or Feel Love Comin' On flying off the shelves at the one stop.

Anyway we managed to persuade a collector of these pressed on decent vinyl artefacts to come in and have them played. Alan Beattie is a soul fan not a DJ. He collects records because he likes them not because they're rare (and some of them are) and not because they fill a dance floor. There's two hours of great American soul released on UK labels in this show.

Posted at 01:09, 9th July 2011

alan beattie plays soul on uk labels

Alan Beattie brings in a selection of soul on UK Labels.

Posted at 19:18, 19th November 2008