Double Gone

On Monday the death of Nolan Porter was announced. Nolan was from Los Angeles but made his name on the Northern Soul scene in the UK with the superb Keep On Keeping On (as NF Porter), a song which gave the scene a slogan as well as a floorfiller. This 1972 single is less well known but easily the equal of Keep On Keeping On. 

If I Could Only Be Sure

Many of the musicians in his band in the early 70s were also members of The Mothers Of Invention and Nolan was married to Frank Zappa's sister Candy. He died at home last Thursday aged seventy- one.

 RIP Nolan/ NF Porter. 

As if one passing wasn't enough this week yesterday brought news of the death of Mary Wilson, an original Supreme. The buffer between future solo superstar Diana Ross and gospel trained Florence Ballard, Mary was one third of the group but according to many the force that held them together. There's nothing quite like The Supremes in the mid 60s in full flow, a celebratory, upbeat and infectious sound that will be listened and danced to for as long as recorded music exists. This song, a single in 1966, was one of the few Holland- Dozier- Holland songs written for them that didn't go to the number one but it's a perfect piece of Motown pop. 

Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart

She died suddenly on Tuesday aged seventy- six. 

RIP Mary. 

Come See About Me

I've been reading Stuart Cosgrove's Detroit 67: The Year That Changed Soul,the best music related book I've read for some time (and have Jon Savage's recent Joy Division book lined up next which promises to equally good). In Detroit 67 Stuart Cosgrove takes the reader through 1967, month by month, starting with the city almost completely shut down due to snow. From there on we see the year largely through the prism of Motown and the disintegrating relationships within The Supremes which led to Flo Ballard being removed from the group (and she then takes some dreadful advice and makes some poor decisions which would contribute to her tragically early death at the age of just 32 in 1976). Throughout the year Berry Gordy faces further simmering discontent from his writing team Holland- Dozier- Holland, multiple lawsuits, the death of Tammi Terrell and Marvin Gaye's desire to move into recording socially conscious, politically aware songs (something Gordy tried to resist) and ructions within The Temptations (who would shift stylistically themselves as Norman Whtifiled began writng and recording their songs, making widescreen psychedelic soul). The year ends with the suicide of writer Rodger Penzabene, the lyricist of I Wish It Would Rain. John Sinclair and the MC5 are present, the hippy counter-culture battling police harassment, drug laws and right wing attitudes and violence. Central to the year and the book are the riots of July, five days of rebellion against a racist police force which culminate with the terrible events at the Algiers Motel and the subsequent court case and smouldering injustice. The Vietnam war, white flight from the centre of the city, a rising murder rate- it's a wonder the city survived at all. Detroit 67 is a meticulously researched, well written and fascinating study of a record label, individuals, a city, society and the USA as a whole.

There are times when the more you know about a musician/singer/writer/pop star, the less you like them. You can insert your own recent examples here I'm sure. Does it taint the music? Sometimes I think it does but then I put The Supremes on, and the thundering backing of The Funk Brothers comes into earshot and the combined talents of Holland- Dozier -Holland and Wells, Ross and Ballard for three minutes make the doubts fade away.

Come See About Me

Various Artists

There's a good chance that if you grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, at some point, having heard a Motown song via your parent's record collection, the telly, a youth club disco or through a film, you bought one of these Motown compilations. You've probably got some of them and their companions in your house. Our parents generation bought the singles. We bought these bumper albums, stacked with up to twenty songs, as many as the grooves could take and still be audible. The cd boom of the 1990s saw the Chartbusters series released on shiny digital disc, often knocked down to a quid or two in HMV. Pound for pound some of the best purchases you could make.

We all like to find the songs hidden away in the corners- the B-sides, the remixes, the album tracks, the ones that only we know about. With Motown it's all about the hits. And a bumper Motown Various Artist compilations post means a bumper song selection today; The Supremes, The Four Tops and The Temptations.

Automatically Sunshine

I Can't Help Myself 

Cloud Nine

Small Time Hustler

Sorry to be getting repetitive in recent posts, what with four Weatherall posts this week and several Stone Roses related posts, but sometimes that's the way it goes round here. This is another Stone Roses related post.

This youtube clip shows the intro track that the band used to take to the stage to back on the tour they did in 1989. Rolling bass and drums, looped screeching noises, very late 80s and very cool.



Turns out that this is looped version of a 1987 hip-hop track called Small Time Hustler from New York's Dismasters, and a classic piece of mid 80s hip hop it is too.



I don't own Small Time Hustler in any format as far as I know and haven't been able to find an mp3 to date either. Obviously there are ways to rip youtube audio but the quality's never brilliant so if anyone's got one I'd be very grateful. Small Time Hustler was itself based on a sample from the song Lightnin' Rod by Kool And The Gang, and since '87 both Gang Starr and Nas have used the same sample for their own ends.

At the Warrington gig three weeks ago and the pair of gigs in Barcelona last week The Roses entered to the incomparable Stoned Love by The Supremes, which I thought I had on my hard-drive. But I don't, so here's a video of a studio performance of Stoned Love.



Now that the internet/Twitter storm about Reni 'storming off stage' and Ian calling him in front of an Amsterdam audience expecting an encore has died down, the opening boom of drum and Diana Ross should be the signal at Heaton Park in just under two weeks time that it's showtime, followed by those opening bass notes of I Wanna Be Adored. It would be nice to hear the '89 intro track though.

I've Got This Burning, Burning, Yearning

Soft Cell's 1981 hit Tainted Love has so many hooks- that beat, Marc Almond's delivery, its marriage of the new (electro-pop) and the old (Northern Soul), those handclaps, and all the sleaze that went with their image. A massive hit and a groundbreaking record that sold in millions. Those people that bought it on 12" got an added treat- an eight minute plus version with a hissing drum machine segueway and a drop-dead cover of The Supremes hit Where Did Our Love Go? to go with the Gloria Jones cover of the 7". Utter brilliance.

Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go?