Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton – I Smell A Rat
Like I said in my last post, I was going to stick up Young Jessie’s, 1954 recording of I Smell A Rat but it’s been re-issued / bootlegged so it’s a bit boring to post it here. Here’s Big Mama Thornton’s version instead from the same year. Hope y’all like it as much as I do.
Regular Get Involved contributor Dean Chalkley just got in touch with some fresh snaps and a review of one of North London’s more obscure record-digging spots: the awesomely titled Record Detective Agency on Green Lanes. Here are said snaps and, indeed, said review:
This shop is the stuff of legend writes Dean. I regularly go to Alan’s Record Shop in East Finchley (photo and write-up coming to the site soon) and Alan often asks me: “Have you been to the record shop in Palmers Green? . . You really should go.” But I don’t know . . . Palmers Green it sounded like it was miles away. You have to remember in London to travel 5 miles can often seem like a major excursion. So for about a year the notion of going to the shop drifted in and out of my consciousness, but needless to say I didn’t go. Then, the other Saturday I looked at the map and, to my amazement, it looked really close. Right! Off I went.
After navigating through the new Southgate Road works (my impetus started to wane a little whilst sitting in the traffic jam) I got to the shop. It is virtually on the corner of Green Lanes and Hedge Lane – next to a couple of bric-a-brac shops. I actually drove straight past it first of all because it is on the road junction… Anyway there is loads of parking in nearby streets so I ditched the car and eagerly walked round to the shop.
First impressions of this odd little shop was WOW! It’s not big and there are records everywhere. The shop is so small, in fact, when fellow customers want to get past you, you almost feel you have to go out the shop with them and re-enter in a different order – but what it lacks in square footage it makes up for in vinyl. Along the left of the shop (as you walk through the door) are wooden racks stuffed full of ‘new in’ 45s. Some are not sleeved, some are – they are obviously collections that Derek (the owner) has just purchased via the many ads he posts up in the local vicinity.
The shop is deceiving though, there is some order to the stock. There are wooden draws lower down around the other side of the shop that have well catalogued ‘by label’ selections there is a lot of British stuff here. Labels such as London and Decca are very well represented.
And of course there are Albums. They are separated up by genre, jazz occupying the entire wall on the right as you walk in.
Derek sits at the back of the shop in the corner and is surrounded by Rock‘n’Roll ephemera. There are a healthy number of Elvis Presley figures, suggesting he has a very Rock ‘n’ Roll past and also a wall of newspapers documenting lots of the world’s turning points ..i.e. the dropping of the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima etc. These collectibles are all for sale.
The atmosphere of the shop is good – like most shops it has a really solid regular clientelle, and from what Alan (Alan’s Records) told me, a lot of the dealers/collectors congregate there too, I think some buy their stock from him.
The conversation I walked into was between Derek and two others ,one a man who helps Derek out filing, (looks a bit like Justin Lee Collins and a very friendly chap to boot) and another older chap with a football scarf around his neck and half-hunter glasses on. Their conversation roamed between an argument between two record collectors in the shop the day previous to the peppermint medicine, ’your mum used to give you’… it was a lively debate and I think all the old doctors In the area were mentioned and all their old remedies too… ‘Yeah he used to be the Tottenham medic you know.’ Although these fellows were obviously very old friends they enjoyed my intervention into their conversation and liked showing me how to use the 1960’s portable record player (pictured) to listen to my selected tunes.
I bought 3 records whilst there 2 for £5 each and one for a tenner (Derek does look at the ‘book price’ but halved it and the one that cost me £10 was a demo too.. Ben e King ‘The Record’ on Atlantic ironically.
I really enjoyed popping up to the Record Detective Agency I think I’m going back very soon to enjoy looking at the ‘new stuff in’ and to enjoy the atmosphere of this great little Legend.
The Record Detective Agency
492 Green Lanes
London N13 5PA
020 8882 6278
Little Willie John - Leave My Kitten Alone
Killer Little Wille John track from 1959. Gotta love the “meow” backing vocals! Leave My Kitten Alone was famously covered by The Beatles who recorded a cover of it in August 1964 during their studio sessions for the Beatles For Sale album. It never made it on to the LP and wasn’t released until the Anthology collection came out in 1995.
Rueben Bell, less famously, covered the track in 1973 on Deluxe - but that’s not up on YouTube!
Jerry Wexler, who as a reporter for Billboard magazine in the late 1940s christened black popular music “rhythm and blues”, and who as a record producer helped lead the genre to mainstream popularity, propelling the careers of Ray Charles, Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin and other performers, died yesterday, Friday 15 August, at his home in Sarasota, Fla. He was 91.
The New York Times has written a comprehensive and fitting obituary, a tribute to one of Soul music’s founding fathers. Read it here.
Tonight’s session of Gerry’s Joint at The Boogaloo will be dedicated to the late, great Wexler.
Rest in peace.
Yup, we’ve got a blog and this is the very first post on it. The idea is that the I’ll post up a weekly slab of old gold here and also drop nuggets of news about interesting exhibitions and other stuff as-and-when the time is right.
Massive thanks goes to www.indexhibit.org code-king, Vaska, for all his help, time and patience getting the blog up and running in the site. Muchos gracias senor!