David Nathan

August 1968, London As noted in post #63, Aretha Franklin has performed in Britain for the first time in May to rapturous reviews and glorious audience reaction. Its been such a personal joy for me to see Aretha in person, knowing that less than two years earlier, I had written a letter to her c...

July 1968, London As referenced in post #62 of The Diary Of A British Soul Man, the Soul City team gets a visit from a short American man with a moustache asking for Dave Godin. The man in question, Dave Kapralik, is an executive at Epic Records who is aware of the licensing requests were making...

Summer 1968, London Soul City, the record shop I co-own with Dave Godin and Robert Blackmore, is continuing to make inroads as is our record label. Saturdays are our busiest day with customers from the North of England visiting London for football matches in the afternoon stopping into the shop...

May/June 1968, London Fresh from the soulful state visit from Nina Simone (and the hoped-for-but-not-realized possible royal visit from Aretha Franklin!) to Soul City, our little record shop on Monmouth Street in the West End is starting to thrive among the growing cadre of RB and soul music love...

May 1968, London Nina Simones May 1968 whirlwind of promotion centered around a number of television appearances ahead of a European tour in June that didnt include any live performances in England. Aside from attending the taping of The Sound Of Soul, I took advantage of Ninas visit to invite h...

Monday, May 27th, 1968, London No sooner has Lady Soul Aretha Franklin left the UK for the first time after amazing performances at The Hammersmith Odeon and Finsbury Park Astoria in London than I am thrilled to greet The High Priestess Of Soul, Nina Simone for whom I am still running her first ...

Saturday, May 11 Sunday, May 12, 1968, London Im still reeling with meeting Aretha Franklin in person on her arrival in London. This, I remind myself, is the same young woman (having celebrated her 26th birthday in March) whose music been a constant in my journey into adulthood since 1965 when ...

Thursday, May 10, 1968, Gatwick Airport, Sussex The day has arrived. My sister Sylvia and I are headed towards Gatwick Airport, much smaller than Londons main Heathrow Airport. Ive been given information about the flight arrival time for Aretha Franklin on her first ever visit to Britain by Ja...

May 1968, London The team at Soul City myself, Dave Godin and Robert Blackmore are now joined by sister Sylvia, four years younger than me, who has been running the Nina Simone Appreciation Society I started in 1965 with me. Almost inescapably, Sylvia has been subjected to the music of my favo...

April 5 1968, London After our first Soul City Records release (and sad to say, sales failure!), we bounce back with the UK reissue of a 1965 Top 10 RB hit for Duke Of Earl, Gene Chandler. Good news is that the Soul City team (Dave Godin, Robert Blackmore and myself) are now the decision makers ...

Recording session for 'Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood' (New York, early 1964) March 1968, London The plans to launch the Soul City Records label as an adjunct to the record shop of the same name that Dave Godin, Robert Blackmore and I own are now in full gear and, sporting the same colours as t...

February 15 1968, London Beyond being the sole source of my income (albeit still somewhat meagre, given that our Soul City shop continues to lurch from month-to-month, paying not-so-meagre rent in a Central London location with previously-noted plans to expand with our own Soul City label!), soul...

January 1968, London The plans to launch our own Soul City Records label are in full swing, despite my reservations about the finances of our shop (with its unique approach of selling only American RB and soul recordings). Dave Godin has enlisted the assistance and support of Trevor Churchill who...

January 1968, London Soul City, the record shop I co-own with Dave Godin and Robert Blackmore is doing a little better after the move to 17 Monmouth St in the heart of Londons theatre district. Dave has been talking to Robert and I about starting our own label as a natural evolution of the shop, ...