December 31, 1966, London
I’m invited with my Soul City shop partners Dave Godin and Robert Blackmore to a New Year’s Eve dinner at the home of Irma Thomas UK fan club founder Bob Nessling and his Jamaican lover Jack – I was naively unaware that two men could live as a couple at that time. Jack has a ‘habit’ of putting his hands on my shoulder while serving us food, which I find – to say the least – odd…
I invite all four of them to go with me to a party which Dionne Warwick/Shirelles fan club secretary Gloria has invited me. Lots of dedicated R&B fans there and word is that a visiting American duo, The Soul Sisters may show up (they don’t). I’m having fun dancing to then-current tunes by The Spellbinders, Edwin Starr and others… I have my 1st ever slow dance with one of the partygoers Marion and one dance leads to another and my 1st real kiss! I’m in no hurry to leave. Dave, Robert, Bob and Jack are not having such a good time. They want to leave, I want to stay… after they’ve gone, Marion’s father shows up to take her home but not before we have each other’s phone numbers. Is this what romantic love is really like, I wonder? Boy meets girl at a party, they date, this is forever? Is this what all the R&B love songs I’ve been listening to are all about in real life? My 1967 begins with a slow dance and a kiss with a girl I’ve just met…am I about to be singing The Temptations’ “My Girl”…or…Dionne’s “Walk On By”?
