What's In A Name?
Once upon a time before the Walkman and CDs and downloads and DAB there was the record player - more specifically there was Dansette - that box in the corner on which we played those 45s and LPs, on which pocket money was lovingly spent every week. Following the Saturday morning trip to your favourite local record store - no HMV or Virgin back then - for me and Barrysfinestkind it was Lorraine's Records at the top of Holton Road. A trip to Cardiff may have meant a visit to Spillers or City Radio but the purchases always ended up on the Dansette sat proudly in the front room just to the left of the fireplace. Mine was a Dansette Bermuda with a deep pink base and a beige top - I say mine because I would never let my sisters near it - just in case they inflicted damage to the precious stylus that gave us that beautiful, crackling sound. For me that Dansette epitomises all that was beautiful in my teenage world back then. In the beginning the music that found its way onto its turntable was an eclectic mix of songs fed us by 6.5 Special, Thank Your Lucky Stars and, of course, RSG - a typical diet of the time saw the Kinks, Small Faces and The Who all play support to the ubiquitous Beatles, who took centre stage in that front room in Southey Street, Barry.
And then it happened - the summer of '66 - 14 years old, approaching 15 and I found Motown - specifically The Four Tops' Loving you Is Sweeter Than Ever - looking back I suppose I must have heard Motown before but I guess it had never really registered - but something certainly clicked that day and I found myself obsessed with getting more and more of that sound. By the time Otis had made his legendary performance of I can't Turn You Loose on Ready, Steady, Go at the end of that summer nothing found its way onto the hallowed Dansette Bermuda unless it had the black label of Detroit's Tamla Motown, the crimson of Atlantic or the beautiful turquoise blue of Stax from Memphis.
Not surprising then that 20 years later when friend, musician and fellow soul lover Pete Donovan suggested we form a band it was always bound to be a band paying loyal tribute to the likes of Cropper and Floyd, Hayes and Porter and Willie Mitchell - a band playing the best of soul and RnB. And what better name for a band playing a dance set than Dansette - get it?
Once upon a time before the Walkman and CDs and downloads and DAB there was the record player - more specifically there was Dansette - that box in the corner on which we played those 45s and LPs, on which pocket money was lovingly spent every week. Following the Saturday morning trip to your favourite local record store - no HMV or Virgin back then - for me and Barrysfinestkind it was Lorraine's Records at the top of Holton Road. A trip to Cardiff may have meant a visit to Spillers or City Radio but the purchases always ended up on the Dansette sat proudly in the front room just to the left of the fireplace. Mine was a Dansette Bermuda with a deep pink base and a beige top - I say mine because I would never let my sisters near it - just in case they inflicted damage to the precious stylus that gave us that beautiful, crackling sound. For me that Dansette epitomises all that was beautiful in my teenage world back then. In the beginning the music that found its way onto its turntable was an eclectic mix of songs fed us by 6.5 Special, Thank Your Lucky Stars and, of course, RSG - a typical diet of the time saw the Kinks, Small Faces and The Who all play support to the ubiquitous Beatles, who took centre stage in that front room in Southey Street, Barry.
And then it happened - the summer of '66 - 14 years old, approaching 15 and I found Motown - specifically The Four Tops' Loving you Is Sweeter Than Ever - looking back I suppose I must have heard Motown before but I guess it had never really registered - but something certainly clicked that day and I found myself obsessed with getting more and more of that sound. By the time Otis had made his legendary performance of I can't Turn You Loose on Ready, Steady, Go at the end of that summer nothing found its way onto the hallowed Dansette Bermuda unless it had the black label of Detroit's Tamla Motown, the crimson of Atlantic or the beautiful turquoise blue of Stax from Memphis.
Not surprising then that 20 years later when friend, musician and fellow soul lover Pete Donovan suggested we form a band it was always bound to be a band paying loyal tribute to the likes of Cropper and Floyd, Hayes and Porter and Willie Mitchell - a band playing the best of soul and RnB. And what better name for a band playing a dance set than Dansette - get it?
Good post. A couple of my mates and I would do just the same up in Manchester, when I was a kid. Of course that was a few years after you, so the psychedelic album bands were in vogue by then. But my mate Chris was having none of that - his money was spent exclusively on the Trojan record label almost exclusively. Being a saxophonist I had discovered Chicago when they were a jazz/rock band, a few years before Peter Cetera led them down the road to Love Song mediocrity, however well executed and produced. My old machine was a generic copy of a Dansette made by Bush, but it looked the same and like the Dansette you had to put the lid down while the record played if you wanted to hear any bass. I was 16 when my parents bought it, but for the next three years it became exclusively mine, as I explored a whole new world of ever changing musical innovation. The great shame is that today's youngsters have nothing like the same experience today.
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