First Time I Heard The Words "Northern Soul"

Rockadelic

I'm 3 beers in.......pardon any typos.It was the mid-80's and I was hitting up all the local Thrift Stores for vinyl and every once in a while had some good scores. Over the course of one week I scored 20-30 brand new blues/funk/soul 45's at each of the 4 Goodwills in the area. It was obvious they had received a big collection or more likely old store stock as there were multiple copies of many of the titles.I decided to go to the main warehouse and see if there was any way I could get to the motherlode. I explained to the receptionist what I wanted and she said I needed to see a certain Mr. XXXX to get into the warehouse. The name was unusual and familar and it wound up being a guy who I had worked with a few years earlier. He said it was really against their policy to let me in the warehouse and I countered by saying I would pay them double of what they were asking in their stores(30 cents each instead of the standard 15 cents each). He agreed and said I could only do it one time and only the 45's I had descibed.The warehouse was incredibly large and there were pallets filled with records. There were two full pallets Bruce Springsteen LP's amongst 10-12 pallets of used LP's......and two pallets of 200 count box 45's and I was in way over my head.I picked out all the blues...Willie Mabons on USA....Fenton Robinson's......ZZ Hill......all Duke label titles.......and alot of the later R&B like Hank Ballard....later/60's King label....and I was even hipster enough to grab the 20-30 Jackson Five on Steeltown......I bought about 1,800 45's.A few months later two guys from the UK were in town and somehow got my name....I had them over the house, sold them some of the Goodwill 45's and told them the story of the warehouse. And they introduced me to the term Northern Soul.About a year later I ran into my buddy from the Goodwill and I ask him whatever happened to those 45's as they never re-surfaced in any of the stores. He said some English dudes told him I sent them over to buy them all and they took every last one of them!!!! I learned the term the hard way.