Corrie's got soul

It's not often that the worlds of Coronation Street and soul music meet, but they did in this evening's episode for a brief moment. Drummer Vernon - Liz's boyfriend - had his van nicked, and with it his record collection. These included Dobie Gray's Out on the floor, a Jackie Edwards 45 and - his favourite - a Stateside demo of Gene Chandler's Nothing can stop me. He even sang a couple of bars from the record - no doubt leaving 99.9 per cent viewers perplexed to say the least.
On the subject of obscure 45s, my boot sale haul this weekend included some pretty obscure 60s UK beat singles, including the first UK cover of Do you love me (by Farons Flamingos), and records by the Bo Street Runners, the Cryin' Shames, Cleo (an Andrew Oldham creation), Glenda Collins, Graham Bonney and the Big Three. All of these will shortly be on eBay, but one or two others won't, including Roland Alphonso's wonderful Phoenix City on the Doctor Bird label.