NEWSPAPERS & MAGAZINES ARTICLES

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A look at some of the articles put in the papers and magazines over the years.

BLUES and SOUL (No 215 December 14th - 27th 1976, 30p

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FROM THE "FRANK ELSON" CHECKIN' IT OUT PAGE OF THE ABOVE ISSUE OF "BLUES & SOUL" SCOTLAND, AT LAST !

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After so much trying, I finally made it up to Scotland for the second All-Dayer organised jointly by Chris Burton and Garry "Captain America". After getting up at an unbelievably early time in order to meet Chris to drive up with him in his Land Rover (gentleman farmer now he is), we arrived in Edinburgh and got to Tiffs to find the people packing in.

After a short wander around the first thing that touched me was how ordinary it was. As I remarked to a few people I don't know if I expected two headed people - or fellers in kilts - but in fact it was an ordinary All-Dayer with ordinary Northern Soul fans dancing away to good sounds provided by George Wallace (an exile from Wilmslow near Manchester, living in Edinburgh for a few years now), Tommy Cockburn and John Hislop.

The only way in which the scene could have been said to be different was that the paying customers do seem to be that little bit more enthusiastic. However there is that little bit of bitchiness up here we know so well further south as evidenced by Tony Cochrane of the Scottish Soul Society who bought a coachload over from Dundee.

All very nice but when they were refused passouts (one of the awkward parts of the archaic Scottish licensing laws) they phoned the local "Sweeney" to say they were being kept in the against their wills. Not the nicest thing to do and certainly not in line with a feeling of Soulful brotherhood.

Guest jock at the All-Dayer was Neil Rushton who should have travelled up with Chris and myself until his car broke down. After a loosely veiled threat from Garry, who is a buyer for a large chain of record shops in the Edinburgh area and is consequently a big customer of Neil's record wholesaling businness. Neil borrowed his mother in law's car and made it up there in record time - a great feat in itself.

Herb and Brenda Rooney, looking healthier and happier than ever, appeared on stage after a phenomenal drive north and almost brought the house down with a superd set on the last night of their tour. Herb has some incredible ideas for recording in the near future including an epic tentatively titled "Balloons" which in my humble opinion could bring them back to the top of both British and US charts after they played me a very rough tape recorded in their living room at home.

A nice point of the visit was that I could at last talk to Brian Joyce face to face after numerous phone chats - although I was too late visit the East of ScotlandSoul Club happening down the road due to my ignorance of those licencing laws. How was I to know that it closed at 10pm ?.

Another voice I was able to put a face to was that of Fraser Dunn who jocks at the West Coast Soul Club in Glasgow. That scene needs more support for they get only a handful of people out of a million residents in the city - there must be more Soul fans than a handful in that lot, surely ?.

Altogether a great day which only serves to whet my appetite for more of the scene in our northernmost colony (that'll get 'em going), although with the event losing money I am forced to wonder if there is a big enough cadre of Northern Soul fans in the country to sustain any soul clubs.

It seems that funk does very well in the area so maybe there just aren't enough Northern fans. I can only repeat my disgust and dislikes for the enemies of Chris Burton when I look at the state of him when we parted after 26 hours without sleep for the both of us. As Chris said, "there must be an easier way to lose money" but it didn't stop him from talking about his plans for another All-Dayer.

Congratulations to Chris, Garry and everyone else involved with making it a day which brought pleasure to a whole lot of people. Maybe it didn't make money but by any other criterion it was a success.

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ARTICLE WRITTEN BY FRANK ELSON

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BLUES and SOUL (No 125 December 21st - January 14th 1974)

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Article from the Frank Elson column in Blues & Soul No 125, December 1974, taken from the Wigan Casino paragraph where he describes meeting my sister Lynn Wallace and her mate Sue Ogden, regulars at the Casino, sadly Lynn died from birth heart defects in 1989