Soul Night is just that: a night of soul music. But that’s not all. Anyone can play soul records and call it “Soul Night.” This is Soul Night with Mr. Fine Wine, One Mint Julep and Fancy Cat! Three great soul music DJs. It takes place on the first Saturday of the month at a joint in Crown Heights, Brooklyn called Friends and Lovers. The place has a large back room with a stage where the DJ booth is, and plenty of room for dancers—and there are always a LOT of them. On Saturday April 1, the room was packed with gyrating bodies from about 10:30pm to about 3:30am—everybody doing the watusi to the fabulous records played by the DJs—which, on this particular evening, included guest DJ Phast Phreddie the Boogaloo Omnibus and a couple of special guest DJs from Europe: Liam Large of London and Thorsten Wegner of Hamburg.

Unfortunately, on this evening One Mint Julep could not make the scene; her presence, her smiling face and her cool records were sorely missed. The three guest DJs did all they could to try and make up for it.

Both Liam Large and Thorsten Wegner come to the United States from time to time to search for records. Liam had been here for several weeks and both he and Thorsten attended the Allentown Singles Only (45s & 78s) record show earlier that day. If the records they played were any indication of the records that they had recently purchased during their time in the states, one can only conclude that their time here was very well spent. Both DJs played amazing records that had the place dancing and prancing.

Mr. Fine Wine has been written about often in the Boogaloo Bag. Do we need to discuss him further? Well, we might remind the reader that he has a Friday night show on radio station WFMU and that every Wednesday night he swings at the Botanica Bar in Manhattan and it is an excellent hang; and of course he has the best soul records in the world. Dig some Boogaloo Bag entries that feature him here, here and here.

The Boogaloo Bag writers met Fancy Cat for the first time on this evening. He, too, played some great records, with a strong lean toward women singers and girl group sounds. It was a gas diggin’ and dancin’ to his spins.

Phast Phreddie the Boogaloo Omnibus is no stranger to soul records—as can be attested by the many feet that go tappin’ at Subway Soul Club events—so he fit right into the mix. Man, he loves playing those records and he spun a bunch of old favorites as well as a few recent acquisitions, including a couple that he purchased earlier that day when he, too, attended the aforementioned Allentown record show. Even though he had been up since about 4 o’clock that morning, the night seemed to end much too soon.

If you, dear Boogaloo Bag reader, are paying attention, you will know that the first Saturday of the month is usually the night that the WHAM-O WATUSI takes place at the Bootleg Bar. On April 1, The WHAM switched nights with Border Beat, a night hosted by our friend Reyes Rodriguez; he and Avi Spivak held forth at the Bootleg Bar. The WHAM will return to the Boot on April 22nd with guest DJ Brian Hurd of Daddy Long Legs. The WHAM is scheduled to take place on the first Saturday of the month for at least the next two months.

Here’s a list of all the 45s played by Phast Phreddie the Boogaloo Omnibus at Soul Night on April 1. Nearly all of them have links to the youtubes so you can listen to them in the privacy of your own home. Check it out:

• Keith Mansfield & His Orchestra–Boogaloo (Epic)
• Davy “Bang Bang” Jones and the Voodoo Funk Machine–Sookie Sookie (Philips; France)
• Johnny Johnson & His Bandwagon–Soul Sahara (Stateside; Netherlands)
• Sly & the Family Stone—M’lady (Epic)
• Aretha Franklin–Satisfaction (Atlantic; France)
• Johnny Nash—I’m Movin’ On (Warner Bros.)
• Larry Hale–Shout and Do the Duck (Columbia)
• The Knight Brothers–Love (Can’t You Hear Me) (Checker)
• Bill Doggett–Twenty Five Miles (King)
• Louis (Blues Boy) Jones–Come on Home (OKeh)
• Weston Prim–Get That Feelin’ (Brent)
• Steve Alaimo–Mashed Potatoes (Checker)
• The Five Royales–I Like It Like That (Smash)
• The Shirelles–Boys (Scepter)
• The Debelaires with Al Allen & the Skyscrapers–The Wa-Wabble (Lectra)
• Ricky Shay and the Bullets–Everybody Do the Phillie (Chattahoochee)
• The Contours–Can You Jerk Like Me (Gordy)
• The John Schroeder Orchestra–Agent 00-Soul (Cameo)
• The Camotions–Motown (La-Ro-Ke)
• The Miracles—Mickey’s Monkey (Tamla)
• Marie Claire–Nitty Gritty (Citation; Canada)
• Chuck Berry–Club Nitty Gritty (Mercury)
• Los Rockin’ Devils–Soy Feliz (I Got You) (Orfeon; Mexico)
• Maggie Thrett–Soupy (DynoVoice)
• The Minx–Something We Got (Mercury)
• The Mohawks–Mony Mony (Sir J.J.; UK)
• Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames–Last Night (Imperial)
• Calif. Soul Explosion–Chain of Fools (Pashlo)
• Dave Collins–Ride Your Pony (Capitol)
• Roosevelt Matthews with Billy Ball & the Upsetters–Tighten Up (King)
• The Banana Splits—Doin’ the Banana Split [from EP Kellogg’s Presents The Banana Splits] (Kellogg’s)
• Alan Shelly–Can You Do It (En’nagham; Tunisia)
• Gloria Scott & the Tonetts–I Taught Him  – Part II (Warner Bros.)
• Peace and Love–We Got the Power (Discos RAFF; Mexico)
• Bob and Earl–Everybody Jerk (Warner Bros.; UK)
• Earl Grant–Hide Nor Hair (Decca)
• Kenny Smith–Keep on Walkin’ Baby (Chess)
• Gene Burks–Monkey Man (Arock)

None of these records are for sale.