The plot of this book is quite simple: an addicted, grieving, retired American musician is flown over to the UK to perform at a festival, and is welcomed by a woman with her own issues - and through each other they find their way again.
In the hands of such a magnificent writer as Benjamin Myers this plotline becomes subordinate to the characters, though. Both Bucky and Dinah are believable and authentic. However, it's Dinah's interactions with her husband and son, and Bucky's friendship with the hotel cleaner that really make the novel.
I only wish the plot had been a little more unique maybe, or more character-driven, like his novel Cuddy which I absolutely loved. So, three stars all in all!

This book is about two decaying wrecks whose best days are long behind them. One is an American soul singer, the other is a Northern English seaside town. The story of how one gets on in the other is charming and sweet. Bucky Bronco and his English chaperone Dinah are well drawn and engaging characters, beaten down by the tribulations of life, but each with an escape - pain pills for one, soul music for the other. They’re very likeable, and you’ll be rooting for both of them throughout. The book is very much in Nick Hornby territory, which is perhaps a surprise from the author of The Gallows Pole and Cuddy, but hey versatility in a writer shouldn’t be sniffed at. It’s not a demanding read, but it’s not slight either. It’s well written, with a very strong sense of place, and all the characters, even the minor or less likeable ones, feel realistic and believable.

4* Rare Single by Benjamin Myers. The heart-warming story of Bucky, a recently widowed man who has become insular in his Chicago life and the unexpected cult following that he has in Scarborough for 2 records which he made 50 years previously.

As with all Benjamin Myers, this is a book with depth, heart and beautiful prose. Everyone and everything in this book appears to have fallen on hard times, having started out with varying levels of grandeur and/or opportunity. The descriptions will suck you in ... from seaside towns to seagulls! However, that doesn't mean that there isn't utter joy to be found when chances comes knocking and is seized.

I really enjoyed this book albeit I found the characters a little hard to connect with, save for Shabana who I thought was the standout. The genesis of the story reminded me of the documentary Searching for Sugarman (which is excellent) and it was great to see a similar idea translated into a smaller but more connected scale.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC.

Earlon ‘Bucky’ Bronco had a brush with fame a long time ago, but lives on in the Northern Soul scene. Dinah, married to a dopey husband and a stoner son is his minder for a weekender in Scarborough. And that is about as much plot as I am going to give you, because I’ll confidently predict that this will be one of the best novels you’ll read this year.

It’s an incredibly sweet, spiky, funny confection of a book. It’s confident enough to connect its fictional universe to the talc and washers of Northern Soul. Bucky exists in the world of Frank Wilson, Yvonne Baker and Don Thomas. However, he also exists in the same universe as rapper Lil’ Widowmaker, a major plot point.

It also has the bravery to have long steam of consciousness passages, retell Bucky’s life story and connect it to the grit and blunt of Yorkshire. Dinah is as much as fleshed out and likeable as Bucky. There’s a happy ending, not the one you expect. But one where the joy of music lives longer than the pain of life.

It’s out on August 1st and I thank Bloomsbury for a preview copy. #raresingles

Very amusing in capturing the likely first impressions an American would have arriving in the UK, which is basically like a scene from Fawlty Towers!

The setting is the Northern Soul Music Festival in Scarborough. The decay of the British seaside town seeps from the pages. As does the decay of its visitor, our aging Bucky Bronco, a hard up, long time forgotten (in the U.S.) Chicago soul singer. Bucky is not forgotten by the Scarborough Northern Soul music fans lead by Dinah,Bucky arrives in Scarborough falling into a spiral of opioid withdrawal.
With the help of his No 1 fan Dinah, Bucky must get it together in time for his performance.

I had read one of Benjamin Myres books before this, The Gallows Pole which is the brilliant tale of 17th century Yorkshire coin clippers. Rare Singles is a trip with Music lovers to present day Scarborough but both books Myres takes you there.

Stick on a ‘Wigan Casino’ playlist and bunker down into this cool trip, which like so many a music gig, starts off slow and rocky but ends on a high with the Hits!

The uplifting ending and the friendship between Bucky Bronco and Dinah makes you smile!

Thank you to Bloomsbury Circus publishers and NetGalley for the early access in exchange for an honest review!

Rare Singles might be described as "minor" Ben Myers, because its scale and ambition are much smaller than Cuddy, for example, but it's nonetheless impressive, moving and entertaining. It's a story of grief (for a partner), decline (Northern England, a marriage) and the value of transcendent escapism (through Northern Soul), entering on the relationship between an almost never-was Soul singer, Buddy Bronco, and Dinah, who come together for a Northern Soul weekender in Scarborough. It's about addiction, escape and grief, but it's also very uplifting and life-affirming. Another impressive achievement from a remarkably prolific novelist.

This is a short novel at just over 200 pages but it definitely packs a light-hearted but emotional punch on every page.

It tells the story of Bucky Bronco, a long forgotten soul singer mourning the loss of his wife. When the chance comes for him to travel to England for a long awaited 'comeback' he doesn't pass up the opportunity to leave the USA and the painful memories for one last gig.

Such a sweet novel that I really enjoyed

Without any doubt, Rare Singles is one of the best reads of 2024.

Earlon " Bucky" Bronco is a soul singer; in 1968 he recorded two /three songs that never saw the light of day of success in America but went onto become Northern Soul classics and hots in Europe.

Jump ahead half a century and Bucky is invited to perform at Soul Weekender in Scarborough.His life has been a struggle for survival -physically and mentally; widowed and addicted to painkillers he finds himself in the North of England- a common language - not really- a different culture -certainly- but the underlying struggles of 'getting through ' everyday are apparent in both societies.

Bucky's host is Dinah - a supermarket cashier married to an alcoholic and with a son addicted to porn and weed. Soul music is her escape and she is to be Bucky's guide and support over his three day visit.

Benjamin Myers has created two of the most beautifully heart-warming and moving characters in contemporary fiction.
Bucky struggles to get through each day and when he finds he has left his painkillers on his flight how will he get through his time in Scarborough let alone sing- he's never performed in public. Dinah is trapped in her life and 'the fear of the unfamiliar' to make a new start but meeting Bucky makes her understand that there is a wider world and other perspectives.

This is a story about aging and life passing- the fears of a missed life and lost opportunities but it is also a story about the timelessness of music, the power of nostalgia and how for just a few weekends a year people can be glad to be alive as a communal bond is ignited through the love of music.. This is also a book about personal survival - being trapped within our communities, families and existence. Even the USA and England come under Benjamin Myers scrutiny- two nations now adrift and in decline.The book does not veer away from the darker side of addiction

Bucky's life is retold- his marriage to Maybellene , the tragedies and personal loss that detoured his chance at musical success and life peppered with exploitation and violence.. But this a story of hope and new starts recognising what makes us happy and grabbing those moments of joy . With the addition of Shabana( a cleaner at the hotel where Bucky stays and a hip hop fan) , Hattie (a German music journalist sent to interview Bucky) and Dinah- the trio help Bucky realise that life still can go on.

The analogy of Bucky and his life in decline and an English coastal town which has seen better days could not be clearer - each fighting to hold onto past glories with the hope that maybe something might improve

This is a winner - from the very start you want Bucky and Dinah to find happiness and calm; this is not sentimental but a truly beautiful novel that should be /will be a huge success. ( I can envisage the tv series or film )

Memorable Quotes:
Grief is the price of love
They say poor is sate of mind and broke is a state of wallet
It seems to me that the internet is taking the brain in directions that evolution hasn't accounted for
England- a dusty old island that needed a lick of paint.

An absolute joy to read, really lovely! Bucky and Dinah are two characters who deserve happiness and Benjamin Myers brought them to life for me.

As it's a book centred around music Myers' lyrical way of writing fit perfectly with the storyline.

Spoilers

So very lovely.
Dinah and Bucky were the people I most deserving of a happy ending that I've met in a while.
But, goodness did I worry that wasn't going to happen.
Wheres the rehearsal guys? I was stressed!
Realistic on the way life turns out, but heartwarming too.... I'm left with a smile on my face.
As I said, lovely.

Rare Singles is a slim novel focusing on Earlon ‘Bucky’ Bronco, a seventy-something Black man living in Illinois, who cut a few soul records as a teenager but has spent much of the recent of his life working dead-end jobs and devoting his life to his wife Maybellene, who has recently died. Out of the blue, he receives a request to travel to Scarborough, a fading seaside resort in Northern England, to play a comeback show at a Northern Soul Weekender. Unbeknownst to Bucky, who was paid a derisory flat fee for his initial recordings so has no way of tracking their afterlives, his two ‘rare singles’ have become loved and treasured in the Northern Soul scene, which gave another life to many obscure releases from US soul singers on the Northern-English dancefloors (and to some extent, the UK charts) of the 70s and beyond.

Having never left the US and never performed live, Bucky is apprehensive about his appearance, an issue that is magnified when he loses his supply of opioids which he has come to rely on. He finds help from Dinah, a Scarborough local who engineered his visit. She’s a Northern Soul superfan, with its ongoing weekenders for devotees her only escape from an otherwise miserable existence with a violent alcoholic husband, layabout porn-addict son and dull retail job. Through their friendship, along with the help of more unlikely new friends (a young German journalist; a muslim hotel cleaner with a love for modern rap music), Bucky is able to conquer his demons and start to envisage a new start in life.


Rare Singles immediately strikes you as a very different proposition to Myers’ most recent book, Cuddy. Its colourful cover, comparisons to David Nicholls and Nick Hornby on the blurb, promises of a story about the healing power music and friendships. This is about as far away, conceptually, as it’s possible to get from Cuddy. Where that book won the Goldsmith’s Prize, this one feels like it’s aimed somewhere closer to the new Nero Prize (which seems to be going for the slot vacated by the Costa). I haven’t read enough by Myers to know whether this is a typical shift in tone between his books, but I’m very much here for it in any case!

Taking it entirely on its own merits, it’s a wonderful book. I have to admit to always approaching books by literary authors that take on the world of music with a degree of caution. Too often, as - for me - with David Mitchell’s Utopia Avenue, they can stray into cringey cliche territory. Others have no doubt got it right - Hornby a couple of times, the aforementioned Osman also did a great job with his debut The Ruins. What unites those who do it well seems to be a genuine and active immersion in the world of music, whether as musician, superfan or journalist. Myers clearly has form in almost all of those spaces.


Being from the North of England myself (just about) the world of Northern Soul is something I’m decently familiar with - it was a universal for my parents’ generation, and I’ve definitely come across folks who are still Keeping The Faith well into the 21st Century, like Dinah and her friends. The risk with tackling a subject like this is that it becomes an exercise in rose-tinted nostalgia (a little like the entertaining but pretty vapid Northern Soul movie from a few years back). Myers addresses this head-on, highlighting the value of nostalgia (especially through music, but also in Bucky’s case through reconnecting with the memory of his lost wife) in taking us out of the troubles of the everyday, and taking us to somewhere more positive than the narcotic-driven obliteration of the present in which several of the book’s key characters take refuge.

So although on the surface this could seem a little trite, the way Myers pulls everything together makes it anything but. Sure, it’s not the rich tapestry of history and references that Cuddy was, but it’s by no means superficial. The depth here is lightly conveyed - through an innate understanding of the world and music being described - but richly expressed through the beautifully drawn characters. That the tragedy of Bucky’s past is only gradually revealed gives his eventual triumph even more power.

A book I’d recommend to absolutely anyone, from a card-carrying music nerd and/or literary snob to someone who just wants a straightforward and uplifting story with some superbly memorable characters. Great stuff!

(9/10)

Not my usual read but I loved the intertwining of American and Northern UK culture, overall I really enjoyed reading this book.

Spanning three days, Rare Singles is about an American singer in his seventies who’s accepted an invitation to headline a Northern Soul weekender in Scarborough having never set foot outside the US before.
Bucky’s promising career as a soul artist was scuppered by a beating after a James Brown concert and an eighteen-month prison stint. He’d recorded just four songs as a solo artist, one of which is a Northern Soul favourite, unbeknownst to him. Dinah thinks she's scored something of a coup, booking Bucky as the finishing act to the weekender, unaware of the dire state of his finances, or that he’s escaping the first anniversary of his beloved wife’s death. Over the next three days, Bucky finds himself bemused by Yorkshire, desperate to ease his excruciating hip pain and saved by three capable women who offer the prospect of a very different future.
There’s a good deal of quiet humour running through Benjamin Myers’ novel but as Bucky roams the corridors of the Majestic, suffering from jetlag and cold turkey, he revisits memories he’d rather avoid unfolding a life marked by tragedy and hardship. Dinah bears the twin burdens of her husband and son with admirable stoicism, escaping into music, dance, and cold-water swimming. Myers’ use of language is as striking as I remembered from The Offing but it’s his characters, written with affection and empathy, that stood out for me. I wasn’t at all sure what to expect when I started it but I grew to love this feelgood novel lightly woven through with a state-of-the-nation theme. The blurb compares it to Jonathan Coe and David Nicholls, both of which seem appropriate to me.