Record shops could only
provide a limited supply of rare records, however, and that
void would be filled by people like John Anderson from
Glasgow. Trading from a
flat on the south side of the city in the late sixties, he
was gradually building a reputation that would take him to
the top. I can recall
visiting his flat and being amazed at the huge amount of record
boxes lying outside on his veranda. Inside the flat there were records
everywhere, as he tried to cope with
demand from his many customers down south. Mint condition
copies of the Larry
Williams and Johnny Watson album 'Two for the price of one'
always stick in my mind. Initially
he was having records shipped in from the States, but that had
limitations and he would soon become one of the first to hit
the 'one stops' of Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit etc.
Buying tens of thousands of 45's from warehouses, he was able to
provide fans in the U.K. with a cheap way of building
record collections by selling them in job lots of 100
records. This was known as a Soul Pack and in those days
sold for £4.00 ($6). I can remember the buzz when the packages
used to arrive. Many of the discs were on labels which were being viewed for the first
time on these shores. By
this time John had moved to King's Lynn in Norfolk. There,
his business would take off under the banner of 'Soul Bowl'
and he
would soon develop into the world's premier supplier of music to
the disc jockeys and fans of the Northern Soul scene.
Notes thanks to David Meikle.
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