Now here's a real oddity (no pun intended). This 1983 songbook, recently obtained for work purposes, has several previously unp...

Please note the question mark in the title as a) the set below is issued by Proper Records, whose quality control is not always of the best...

Several related things. Have just seen that James Paul McCartney, Macca's 1973 TV special for Lew Grade's ATV, is on youtube. This...

I was about to post this entry, all excited, when I realised that I was taking the information from a copy of Record Collector dated ... Oc...

Mentioning Alan Warner in the previous post prompted me to look for an image of the doo wop compilation LP he masterminded which included Y...

The day of the anniversary of my friend's death - or possibly the day before or after, as that's the kind of person I am - I saw a ...

I wrote in an earlier entry, here , about seeing the superb acapella group 14 Karat Soul at the Edinburgh fringe in an early production of...

As so often when I've alighted on an idea for this blog, it's difficult to let go. I have been looking around the net for Sooty-rel...

The investigation is over and the mystery solved, thanks to the kindness of strangers on the BBC Radio 7 comedy messageboard, here , and so...

Received a delightful message from Phil Pope (see previous post ), claiming to be "honoured" (as who should not) by his mention i...

Had what can only be termed a Russell Davies moment a few minutes ago. Which made me realise I may have been unnecessarily harsh in my dis...

One of my all-time faves from the Dells' doo wop years. One of the sides on the double album of Vee-Jay material licensed by Dick James...

Linked posts here , here , here and here .

Remember Clifford T. Ward? Gaye: "You're the tray of bright rings I upset yesterday" - or some such. Look it up somewh...

If anyone reading this is interested in buying or enquiring about Cheapo Cheapo's vinyl stock, here* is an updated link. (If you're...

Some days or weeks after my visit to Cheapo's old premises on January 19th   I went back - and this time actually crossed the road and p...

There is an episode of the UK sitcom Hardware (sadly, the clip above has been removed) in which Peter Davison, playing himself, gazes upo...

Found this on flickr, dated February 2008, credited to Federella . Think you can glimpse some CDs bottom left, but it's mostly DVDs, whi...

I stayed on for an hour at work to add more to the previous blog entry. Getting home, I googled "Cheapo Cheapo closed" and found t...

Hmm ... not quite as I would have wished in every particular, but those who have read the earlier posts lamenting the loss of Soho's Che...

Just spotted an ad on the Gumtree site offering Cheapo's vinyl stock for sale: 13,000 records are available at the price of £1 each, ...

Question: Does the world need yet another review of Nowhere Boy? Answer: Almost certainly not, but I am impelled to record my comments...

Only caught the last twenty minutes of this so will refrain from detailed comment but am posting this to alert people to this play, The Jub...

A few years too late to appease my father (see entry  here ) but I can't resist including this story by Dave Itzkoff from the New York ...

Davieslisten, really: the continuation of my quest to work out how ace broadcaster Russell Davies manufactures, on a regular basis, that the...

Caught up in a madness I cannot fully explain, I have become a Friend of Donovan's - in the limited, online meaning of the term - and wa...

Granted, it doesn't look too good now, and may in fact have disappeared altogether since this photograph was taken, but Reader, please ...

Chimes by the Pelicans is one of my favourite doo wop recordings. Think I first heard it in the late nineties - certainly in time for me to ...

Mention of Hubert Gregg in the previous post reminds me that I have now read and thoroughly enjoyed his autobiography. It is available ex...

There are a few more broadcasters I'd like to salute before bringing this occasional series to a conclusion. Gearing up to do my own po...

Talking of music biopics, here's one which is resolutely non-doo wop but of particular interest to me, as it dramatises the last days o...

Talking about the Temptations biopic in the previous post leads naturally to this twofer CD. As more of a doo wop than a soul fan this doub...

There aren't that many films about real or fictitious doo wop groups, as far as I know, but here are my notes about three examples of th...

If you have read earlier entries on this blog about the Flamingos' 1953 doo wop classic Golden Teardrops then you may be interested in ...

This is to alert readers that Neil McKay's A City Called Glory, the play about Sam Cooke which I've discussed in earlier posts, has...

Just found the Ravens' 1955 recording of On Chapel Hill on youtube and had to include it here: like the Del-Vikings' Wilette, i...

Thinking about Lou Johnson and Burt Bacharach in the previous post leads inevitably to thoughts of Chuck Jackson , another great Africa...

Here's another much-needed CD compilation - and this time it's Ace Records, so no worries about sound quality. Lou Johnson'...

Having quoted from Robert Cushman's description of Hutch in the previous entry, now seems a good point to paste in a review prepared ear...

It's no reflection on the late Benny Green that it's harder for me to recall the specific songs he played on his Sunday lunchtime...

Aaccidentally came across this unique Flamingos compilation on the UK-based Jasmine label when shopping at HMV in central London yesterday....

I mentioned Joe Venuti's sublime recording of Tea for Two in the entry about Hubert Gregg. I have now found out a little more about it ...

Rather than disfiguring the previous post with audio clips, here they are instead. While it may be fitting that only a limited amount of the...

Why, during a period of transition and possibility in my life, I should have been so drawn to a radio show featuring fifty-year-old record...

Listening to Ian Whitcomb's show (see previous post) reminds me that, important as my local library may have been in encouragin...

I quoted from Ian Whitcomb's amusing and touching essay Bill Haley's 1957 Hellbound Train to Waterloo, about the rock'n'rol...

As a footnote to the posts about Stand By Me, two youtube clips with a bearing on my comments about seeing Ben E King with the Drifters in ...

As promised, both sides of the rock'n'roll-anticipating 78 found in my grandfather's attic in the early seventies and presumabl...

Daniel Wolff's liner notes for the Sam Cooke Complete Specialty Recordings set, mentioned earlier in connection with his biography of C...