A compilation of rare soul tracks recorded in Boston, MA, "The Skippy White Story: Boston Soul 1961-1967" is due for release on 28 Aug 2022.
One track, "Treason" by The Precisions, a Boston group not the more well
known one from Detroit, has been pre-released last week.
Eli 'PaperBoy' Reed
(aka Eli Husock from Boston) had an Ace Recording Studio (Boston) acetate of
it, from which he pressed up 40 copies and sold them on Bandcamp in Jun
2020. They sold very quickly, within minutes of putting them up, at $35
each.
Skippy White is the alias for Fred LeBlanc who was originally a radio presenter on
WILD am1090 in the 60s. He opened a record shop in Boston in 1961 and also set up a label named WILD on which The Precisions
released "What Would You Do" / "The Love (I Found In You)"
in 1966 (both sides included in YouTube clip below), so I would guess that
this recording is from around that same time, although it sounds a bit earlier to my ears.
A few years ago I took a trip to Boston and Washington and used the
opportunity to do a bit of crate digging and one the the haunts to visit just
had to be the legendary Skippy Whites. It was a bit of a hike as I recall
as it was out in the suburbs and nowhere near a train station. It's miles away from it's original
location at 1820 Washington Street, then located at 1971 Columbus Ave. It is now completely closed as of 2020 after
opening its doors in 1961. They commenced a closing down sale in Jan 2020 which was then interrupted by that Coronavirus thing! Skippy would be around 86 now as he was born in
1936.
It was rather ramshackle and there were loads of records stacked up
out of their sleeves scratched to b*ggery and nothing was organised. It was
literally trying to find a needle in a haystack and pot luck if you found anything interesting! Whilst I was there three guys who were obviously DJs, gospel ones I think, which is becoming big stateside possibly due to London expat Greg Belson
and his Divine Chord Gospel Shows since 2011. I seem to recall they had come up from NY or
New Jersey and were in a bit of a hurry as they had a gig that night and
came in to see what they could grab. I don't think I managed to pick
up very much and nothing was priced so, thinking that they would be cheap
as hardly any were in sleeves, I presented them to Skippy at the counter.
He quoted what I thought were ridiculous prices for knackered records (between $20-$50 for many of them from
recollection with nothing being particular sought after), so I dumped most of them and left with
only a small handful. Nothing particularly rare or hard to find as I guess
the store has been well and truly plundered of anything decent long
ago, but we always live in hope!
| Rating: | 7.8 |
| Explicit: | N |
| Genre/Style: | Northern Soul |
| Format: | Single / Album Track |
| Media: | Digital |
| Label: | Stony Pointe Records |
| Cat No: | None |
| Date: | 26/07/2022 |
| Key/BPM: | 7A/125 |
| Price: | £1 |
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