‘Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)’: the most expensive northern soul single ever sold
Collecting vinyl records is a fun, if expensive, hobby. Once you have got yourself sorted with a turntable, amplifier, and some decent speakers, you can easily be more than a few hundred pounds into the hole. Coupled with the expense of equipment, the records themselves are increasing in price these days. If you were to walk into any record store and pick up a newly pressed LP, you would expect to be paying at least £20 for the privilege. If you’re in some sort of Brewster’s Millions situation, in which you have to spend as much money as possible, might I recommend getting into collecting northern soul records?
Northern soul is perhaps the most bizarre and enduring music scene to ever grace the shores of Britain. For reasons that have never been fully understood, swathes of young people in the north of England, particularly Lancashire, became infatuated with the sounds of obscure soul records from Detroit and Chicago. By their very nature, then, the records that would be played through the PA at Wigan Casino or Manchester’s Twisted Wheel venues were incredibly rare. In some cases, only a few copies had been pressed, and even fewer had survived. Soul DJs would often compete to collect and play the most esoteric and unknown records, regularly covering up the title and artist on the label so that nobody else could find it.
The soul scene was firmly rooted in the working class, but eventually, the kids who had populated the ballrooms of Blackpool grew up and started to earn a bit more money. As a result of that, plus the inherent rarity of many soul records, the prices for certain rare northern soul singles went through the roof. For context, a brand new seven-inch single is likely to cost anywhere between £5 and £10, but a northern soul single could be £50 and still be considered cheap.
There are certain soul singles that cost more than the car in your driveway, which is pretty impressive given that these vinyl records were originally discarded and forgotten about within the United States. With the advent of the internet, it is much easier to find certain soul records than it was back in the 1970s, as you can simply type the title into Discogs, rather than scouring boxes upon boxes of records in search of one specific single that you don’t even know the name of. However, the ease of finding these records has certainly not led to a decrease in price.
On the topic of Discogs, the record-selling platform has been the site of many notable soul sales. More recently, a copy of William Powell’s ‘Heartache Souvenirs’ sold for £6,196.49. Elsewhere, certain records are rare and expensive based only on the label they were pressed on. For instance, the London Records pressing of Darrell Banks’ ‘Open the Door to Your Heart’ was thought to have been destroyed after EMI acquired the song. So, when a London Records copy came up for auction online, it ended up reaching £14,543.
If spending nearly £15,000 on a small plastic disc seems unreasonable, it is nothing in comparison to the sale price of northern soul’s ultimate holy grail: Frank Wilson’s 1965 single ‘Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)’. Originally recorded for Motown, Berry Gordy was reportedly so unhappy with the track that he ordered every copy to be destroyed. After somehow finding its way onto the soul scene of northern England, the track received a widespread repress, but the original pressing remains soul’s most expensive single.
Only two copies of ‘Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)’ are known to exist for sure, having somehow escaped the cull of copies ordered by Gordy. One of these copies is thought to be owned by Gordy himself, while the other was sold back in 2009. The seven-inch disc fetched an unimaginable price of £25,742. So, next time you fancy buying a brand new car, maybe consider spending that same amount of money on a very specific vinyl record – just don’t scratch it.
