September 1966, Bexleyheath
I’m now staying at Dave Godin’s home and we’re trying to figure out how to make inroads with the Rhythm & Soul magazine… Dave gets review copies of 45s from UK record companies. One memorable morning, I’m in my room and Dave puts on one of the 45s he’s just received. He plays it. I rush into his room… ‘WHO IS THAT?!!’ I ask. Lorraine Ellison’s immortal “Stay With Me” has both of us shaking our heads! It is an astoundingly emotional performance, the definition in many ways of what Dave would later call ‘deep soul’. I’ve heard Lorraine before on a couple of 45s I’ve bought by mail from Randy’s record shop in Gallatin, Tennessee but nothing like this! As my soul music journey unfolds, years later I will interview Lorraine for Blues & Soul
when she recounts the story of how the one-take recording of “Stay With Me” was with a 46-piece orchestra on a session that was originally planned for Frank Sinatra whose last minute cancellation led to this phenomenal record.   Only a few months after my move to America in 1975, I will stay at Lorraine’s  home in Philadelphia…