Gloria Jones & Marc Bolan

Do I Love You (Indeed I Do) 7”
Frank Wilson
Motown/Soul, 1965

This record was recorded back in 1965 on Motown. The story goes that after recording it Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown, ordered Frank to concentrate on writing rather than singing. The record never saw the light of day, because Gordy commanded to destroy all promo copies.

In 1977 Tom Dieperro, a Motown historian who worked for them in the mid 70’s, found a surviving copy and later Simon Soussan discovered it while perusing Tom’s record collection. Simon recognised this as being a perfect record for the Northern Soul scene where rarity was an integral part of the DJ’s attraction. Northern Soul DJ’s were constantly seeking new records that nobody else had. They even covered up the labels and changed the artist name to prevent other DJ’s tracking down the same title.

So, Frank’s one single, ended up getting credited to ‘Eddie Foster’, it became a huge hit in the scene, and it wasn’t until 1978 that the truth was discovered. The one known copy changed hands for increasingly high prices, whilst a second copy was discovered in 1990. In 1996 the record was bought by Kenny Burrel for 15,000 pounds - making it the most expensive record ever.

EDIT: one of the records fetched over £25,000 (aprox. $37,000) in May 2009 (wiki)

via discogs