Sheep Following Goats

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the problem of separating the sheep from the goats of Northern Soul, of those records that are actually Northern Soul as against simply pop records that may or may not be danceable, and of determining what was actually a good Northern Soul record that had been unearthed, as against records that were rare and recently unearthed, but which had been buried, a long time ago, for good reason, and should have been left where they were.

In the 1970's, there was a profusion of records played by DJ's, claiming to be Northern Soul, but which were nothing of the kind, some of which were specifically produced for the purpose. More recently, that trend has been renewed, and the ability to use modern technology to mix older records, has facilitated it. Many of these recently produced/mixed records, such as “Gaye With An E”, at least have the benefit of being danceable. My friend Keith, also recently told me that another such record, currently being increasingly played is a “deep fake” version of Nina Simone's “Ain't Got No”. How long before we have Fat Boy Slim's “Funk Soul Brother”, which is simply a mix of the Just Brothers “Sliced Tomatoes”, being passed off as Northern Soul?

In that post, I also mentioned the playing of the absolutely awful Ella Fitzgerald version of Nancy Sinatra's almost as awful version of “These Boots Are Made For Walking”. What's next “Strangers In The Night” played as one of the three before eight? I had noted that not only was it not Northern Soul, but it was even bad pop music, and not even Edwin Starr could change that, or, as my mate Keith put it, not even James Brown could save it. As an illustration of that, I found this version of it by Diana Ross, who does makes a valiant effort to prevent it going down for the third time, which is better than that of Sinatra or Fitzgerald, but which is still godawful, and no doubt the reason nobody has ever heard of it, as it sunk without trace. 

But, give it a few weeks, an no doubt, one of the newbie DJ's will be playing it, somewhere, someone will dance to it, meaning they will play it again, and other DJ's will be led to play it too, and will soon be telling us what a great record that is.