Love and Desire

Here is one of my favourite female sung northern tracks. Patrice's sister Brenda is probably better known but this 1966, Capitol release is as good as anything Brenda recorded, well everything apart from Think It Over (Before You Break My Heart) of course and Every Little Bit Hurts.

Patrice Holloway - Love and Desire

The Flirtations

I'm hoping that now I'm back at work and the bloody paiting is completed I might find some time to actually post something on here.

It is becoming a bit of habit posting some soul on a Monday. I can't think of a better way to start off the week than with some quality soul.

Here is a track from a group that started back in 1960 as the Gypsies and changed their name to The Flirtations in 1966 and appear to be still going strong, though I suspect like Trigger's brush in Only Fools And Horses not with the original elements.

Nothing But A Heartache was released on Deram records in 1968. It may be familiar as it was used in an advert for chicken products in 2007.

The Flirtations - Nothing But A Heartache

Don't Let Him Hurt You

Today's track comes from possibly the most collectable label for Northern Soul Connoisseurs but not one of my favourite labels. I'm not sure that the reason that singles from the label are in such demand hasn't more to do with the rarity of the vinyl as opposed to the quality of the tracks. I'm not saying that the music is not good just not as top notch, to me anyway, as the price tag would suggest.

The label was formed in 1965 in DC by Eddie Singleton and Raynoma Gordy, the head of Motown's ex wife and was in existence for only two years and released tracks by the likes of Ray Pollard, The Epsilons  and Bobby Reed.

The track posted by Les Chansonettes was released in 1966 and to refute what I said above is sheer class.

Les Chansonettes - Don't Let Him Hurt You

I'm The One Who Loves You

I can't think of a better way of starting the week than hearing some sweet soul music. Darrell Banks is best known in northern circles for Open the Door To Your Heart, one of my favourite northern tracks ever.This track is  a bit different and became a bit of an anthem in 1983.

My copy of I'm The One Who Loves You is a repress from 2010 on the Outta Sight label and has an until then, criminally unreleased track by Banks on the flip which is as good as anything previously released, however the a-side is still the one for me.

Darrell Banks - I'm The One Who Loves You

No Deposit No Return

After yesterday's slip into the now, it's back to safer ground, or is it? I bet that there will be a few purists who will look at today's choice with disdain.

Debbie Taylor has featured here before with a more "conventional" northern track, Don't Nobody Mess With My Baby" released on the NYC label GWP.

No Deposit No Return is a different beast entirely, recorded in 1972 it was played at the Mecca in Blackpool as a new release and is another illustration of how it is almost impossible to pin down just what constitutes a northern soul track.

Debbie Taylor - No Deposit No Return

Plagiarism or Downright Theft?

I must have played this song dozens of times but it wasn't until Saturday Night and the aid of a couple of Tanquerays that I realised just what a debt Eddie Wilson owed to Burt Bacharach and Bob Hillard's Any Day Now. It's an absolute rip-off.

Still a brilliant song though.

Eddie Wilson - Toast To The Lady

Love Slipped Through My Fingers

There are two versions of this track out there, there is the version by Sam Williams which is very, very good and then there is the Ohio Players version which is amazing and what makes this the one for me is the vocal. When you hear Towanda Barnes sing she sounds as if she is at the point of breakdown. I love everything about it from the slightly wonky piano intro onwards, it's one of those songs that just lodges itself in your head.

It has long been on my wants list, in either form but like If That's What You Wanted it has continued to be rather elusive.

The Ohio Playes - Love Slipped Through My Fingers

Don't You Worry Baby

Here's a track which, when I was a teenager I would never have described as Northern Soul. Since then I like to think that I have grown up, (possibly) become less blinkered  and realised that all that nonsense about the tracks having to be 60s stompers was exactly that, nonsense and that there is room for the likes of  Don't Worry Baby The Best Is Yet To Come in that broad church that is described as Northern Soul, a scene that  can include the likes The Theme From Joe 90 or Nosmo King and other records vastly inferior to this recording by Bessie Banks.

Bessie Banks has featured here before with one of my all time twenty one favourite tracks, Go Now. Don't You Worry Baby is a completely different beast. Released in 1976, it is a baw hair away from disco and is probably more at home in the modern room than on Northern dance floors. It was however a mainstay in Colin Curtis' sets on a Saturday night in the Highland Room and if it was good enough for Mr Curtis then it is good enough for me. I just wish that Bessie Banks had been rather more prolific during her recording career as she has an absolutely amazing voice.

Bessie Banks - Don't You Worry Baby The Best Is Yet To Come

Carla Thomas

I just can't get away from the soul at the moment.

I've been looking at all of these "Ones To Watch for 2012" lists and absolutely nothing is floating my boat.

So

Here is number 405 of the Top 500 Northern Soul tracks. I'll Never Stop Loving You by Carla Thomas was a track that was never released when recorded but was discovered on tape by the crate diggers at Kent and released in 1991.

Carla Thomas - I'll Never Stop Loving You

A Good Thing Going

When I was first getting into Northern Soul all those years ago, it wasn't easy getting a hold of the tracks as nobody I knew had any collections to speak of. The only way to get a hold of these tunes was to buy home made compilation tapes from ads in the back of Scootering  or to buy the few compilation albums and repress singles on labels like Casino Classics and Inferno.

One of the best of these compilations was Out On The Floor Tonight on Neil Rushton's Inferno label. This album included classics such as as Tainted Love, Love Factory and of course Out On The Floor Tonight.

It also contained a couple of curios, A Good Thing Going being one of them. The track is an instrumental but that isn't all that unusual on the scene. But it was recorded by an Irish composer and his Orchestra who made traditional Irish and Folk music as far removed from the black soul music of the scene. When you first listen to the track it does seem a rather odd choice for the dancers at the Wigan Casino but when heard dropped in the middle of a set and you see the dancers moving to it, it fits perfectly albeit with shudders and derision from the purists.

This is another example along with the likes of The Human Beinz and Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels  which illustrate the diverse musical styles that seeped into the scene.

See what you think.

Phil Coulter and His Orchestra - A Good Thing Going

Hogmanay

Usually at the moment I am fretting over the menu for tonight's meal for ten but due to changes in circumstances of a few of our friends it was not really on the cards this year. Instead we will be going three doors and bringing in the new year there. It also mean that I can slip away after the Bells and get to my bed and not have to wait until the last guests get their taxi, usually around 4 am.

I've never really been a fan of Hogmanay. Not since I was eighteen and spent the night in the cells charged with assault on a person unknown and drunk and disorderly. Both charges dropped in the morning I hasten to add when the police were questioned by my parents on how I got to be drunk within ten minutes of leaving the house where I hadn't had a drink all night and the person whom I allegedly assaulted had made a statement at the time stating that I had done nothing . I was eventually charged and found guilty of breach of the peace for informing a policeman that I knew my rights and that he could not say "shut the fuck up sonny, or I'll put your head through that fucking window".Scottish justice, something to be proud of.

Anyway,  I'm not sure what tonight's soundtrack will be but I will most certainly play these three songs before I climb in to my scratcher.

All the best when it comes and let's hope 2012 is better than 2011.

Jimmy Radcliffe - Long After Tonight Is All Over

Tobi Legend - Time Will Pass You By

Dean Parrish - I'm On My Way

Stop

Here's a bit of blue eyed soul from 1967.

Bobby Diamond is better know as actor Robert Miano who started his film career in the original Death Wish film, the unfathomable popularity of which resulted in Michael Winner being the prick that he is these days, however I digress. But before that he recorded this stomper for Columbia which became a bit hit with the Casino crowd during the 70s.

Bobby Diamond - Stop

Picture Me Gone

Here is one of my all time favourite northern tracks and one of the first that I ever bought on 7".

Madeline Bell's version of the track was released in 1967 on the Philips label but it took until the mid 80s and it's popularity amongst Scooterists for this song to get the recognition it rightfully deserved.

Madeline Bell - Picture Me Gone

Say Something Nice To Me

 This popped through my door today. At last I have it on 7".

As with Saturday's post, file under Pure Class.

Bobby Kline - Say Something Nice To Me

My Sugar Baby

Right, let's get back on track after yesterday's little excursion into the universe of Dr Alex P and back to the soul and a track that I can't believe that I haven't posted before as it is one of my all time favourite northern tracks, guaranteed to get shoes a shuffling and hips a moving.

If you find My Sugar Baby rather similar to the all time number one northern and most expensive single ever, Do I Love You (Indeed I Do), it may not surprise you that it was written and produced by the Legend that is Frank Wilson. There is a version recorded by Wilson himself, available on A Cellarful of Motown, however I prefer the version posted here by Connie Clark and released on the Joker Records label.

Connie went on to record for Motown under her real name Chris Clark and did a version of Do I Love which is also rather fine. She was one of the few white female vocalists signed to the Motown label and started off recording for the subsidiary label VIP for which she released three singles before recording for Motown proper where she recorded a single From Head To Toe and two albums which are good but none of which hit the peaks of My Sugar Baby or Do I Love You. Once her recording career finished Clark stayed with Motown and worked in a managerial capacity for the label.

The above is all bollocks, I was totally misinformed, Chris Clark and Connie Clark are two complete different individuals.

Connie Clark - My Sugar Baby

Baby Don't You Weep

I have been on a bit of a northern tip this weekend. Maybe I'm trying to cleanse my mind of all of those suggestions of Norman Greenbaum, T Rex, Haircut 100 and the rest over at Davy H's bit. Or maybe I am just in the mood for an all nighter or weekender as I have recently been reminiscing about the Togetherness Weekender's at the Cala Grand Holiday Park in Fleetwood. Those were the days.

Let's start off the week with an always in demand track, Baby Don't You Weep by Edward Hamilton and the Arabians which is an absolute belter, released in the states on the Mary Jane label out of Detroit and over here much later in 1980 on Grapevine. It was recently re released by Outa Sight on a label which is virtually identical to the original.

Listen and see if all remnants of Sugar Sugar are now expunged from your mind.

Edward Hamilton and The Arabians - Baby Don't You Weep

The Stunners

With the controversy still raging over at Mr H's, the only thing for certain is that Davy no longer qualifies for membership in the "This Blog Continues To Decline Foundation For Middle Aged Men" so it is with a heavy heart that I hereby revoke said membership.

Oh and while we are on the subject of classification, just file today's track under, class,  sheer class.

The Stunners - Nobody But Me

Look At Me Now

Terry Callier has had a sort of renaissance over the last few years what with supplying vocals for the likes of Massive Attack and working with Farley & Heller and Paul Weller amongst others.

His recording career stretches back to 1963 and covering the genres of Jazz, Soul and Folk. Not the kind of stuff that you would associate with northern soulbut tunes like Ordinary Joe and today's posting caught the attention of the more discerning on the scene.

Look At Me Know was originally released on the Cadet label in 1968 and pretty much sank without a trace until it was embraced by the northern fraternity. These days an original copy of the 7" will set you back at least a couple of hundred quid, well worth it if you have that kind of spare cash.

Terry Callier - Look At Me Now

Cashing In

Another track which Ian Levine must get the credit for breaking. Due to the music policy in the Blackpool Mecca being a lot less insular than that of the Casino new soul records such as Cashing In were played as well as the more exclusive 60s tracks.

The track was released on Just Sunshine Records in 1973 and was a Leroy Hutson/Curtis Mayfield production that went on to be an anthem in the Highland Room showing that the Blackpool crowd had impeccable taste.

Voices of East Harlem - Cashing In

White Label, Stolen Voices.

I'm not sure what this is apart from really good. Is it an edit, refit, cover,  mash-up? I'm buggered if I know.

Ok, so the concept is that 3 musicians got a pile of obscure tracks by people such as Billie Holiday, John Lennon and Dennis Wilson to name but 3 and took the vocal and a few snippets of the tracks and built their own tunes around them in the style that they felt suited the feel of the vocal. So the Billy MacKenzie vocal is given a Memphis era Elvis like production. On the whole it works but I'm not too sure about the cut-up of Small Hours by John Martyn but that maybe because I love the original so much that touching it is tantamount to sacrilege in my book.

The tracks are collected on a vinyl album which can be purchased for the very resonable price of just £10:49 including postage. The track posted is worth that on it's own.

Jean1 is a reworking of an old Supremes song, 5:30 Plane on which Jean Terrell took lead vocal duties and has been turned into the sort of track that northern soul djs have wet dreams about discovering.

White Label - Jean1