I think some of the great unsung heroes of the scene are the people who put together the Fanzines. Those A4 sheets of paper stapled together and fronted with some great label scans. 

For me that is the real plus side of that genre. To be able to sit and analyse the detail on these scans is so rewarding and must help many of the collectors in their search for quality records.

There have been many fanzines put together over the years by the grass roots of the scene.

For example Shades of Soul, by Derek Pearson, which has been running since the early eighties, is extremely popular. 

Blackbeat no longer exists, but I have a number of copies which make great reading and on researching this project I found some Popcorn Wylie articles which were way ahead of their time. Issue 14 above, also features the vastly underrated Edward Hamilton on the front cover. 

One fanzine seems to be beating the laws of gravity however and that is Soulful Kinda Music, which reached Issue 47 in October 2001. Quite an achievement! 

One thing's for sure, the editor, Dave Rimmer, will never run out of topics. Check out his web site which is a mine of information at Soulful Kinda Music.

Other fanzines which I have enjoyed over the years are:-

Soul Underground - Mark Bicknell

Detroit City Limits - Graham Anthony

Soul Up North - Howard Earnshaw (still in print)

A lot of effort goes in to putting these fanzines together. take a bow!

Notes thanks to David Meikle.