This is probably the first of the real big sounds of Northern. It debuted at the Torch either late 1970 or early 1971. In the Summer of 1971, I was working at the DHSS Offices in Hanley. The offices were part of a huge block of buildings in which was also situated the Top Rank, where that year we'd also started to dance on a Saturday, in addition to the Torch on a Friday.
I remember one decent Summer's day, Tony Blackburn was presenting the Radio 1 Road Show outside the Rank. Keith Minshull turned up with a copy of this, and was offered some absurd amount of money for it by TB. I can't remember now if it was £50, or £500. Both seemed absurd at the time. By comparison, I was earning £9 a week for running up and down stairs at the DHSS offices, which I could just about make up to £12, if I worked until 9 p.m. several nights a week, and a Saturday morning!
Of course, we couldn't afford to pay what people like Tony Blackburn could pay, but we could afford to pay the £1 for a bootleg copy on Jeff King's "Soul Sounds" label, which is why a long running debate arose at the time in the pages of Northern house journal "Blues & Soul", about the rights and wrongs of bootlegging.
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