Up All Night - Slight Return (30/4/13)

Take out what I was moaning about at the very beginning of this one and it's just about showing you where some great music lives:

Baby Huey & The Babysitters. "A Change is Going To Come"

He was in his early twenties when he died. Obviously drugs were involved. Giant of a man. Signed to the very great Curtis Mayfield's own label. One of the greatest voices tha you're ever going to hear. This is his version of Sam Cooke's classic. Except classic is too small a word for a song like this. It's a slice of gospel, a testament, a cry for peace and freedom. It's live. About a minute in there's this scream and the band absolutely ploughs into the song with one of the hardest horn sections in the history of music. This, my friends, THIS is soul. You can't get it anymore. Look for it on ebay. Pay whatever it takes. You'll thank me. (Oh yeah, the guitar is gorgeous and there's a flute. Anything with a flute is, by definition, great)

The Brothers Johnson "Strawberry Letter #23"

You want a groove? Okay, here's a groove. I'll give you either this or the original Shuggie Otis version. If I were actually being as elitist as you think I am I'd go for Shuggie because hardly anyone has ever heard of him and he wrote it but I honestly prefer the Brothers' version 'cos it's just so damn funky and soulful. If you ever need the sun to come out, play this. Again, there's gorgeous guitar. There's also the best use of a 'woh, woh, woh, woh' backing vocal that you could ever wish for.

Big Star "September Gurls"

Which brings us to a product of Southern soul. Of Blue Eyed soul. Recorded in Ardent where all the great Stax stuff was produced but not really soul as such. You know Alex Chilton. You don't think you do, but you do. He was the lead singer of the Box Tops who had a huge hit with 'The Letter' you know 'The Letter', trust me, you know it. You also know their other hit 'Neon Rainbow' because whichever phone company was sponsoring X Factor a couple of years ago used it for their ads. I'll guarantee Simon Cowell didn't know it. Anyway, Chilton was 17 when he had those hits and after The Box Tops split he formed Big Star with the equally brilliant Chris Bell and made classic pop of the kind that gets ignored at the time but everybody loves twenty years later. I'm happy to bet that you own plenty of albums by bands that own Big Star albums. September Gurls is the easy way in, chiming gorgeous pop, a perfect love song. From here you can move to their third album and such delights as 'Kangaroo' and 'Holocaust' but whatever you do, don't start there. You'll be terrified.

Which brings us nicely to;

Chris Bell. "I Am The Cosmos"

"Every night I tell myself I am the cosmos, I am the wind but that don't get you back again. Just when I was starting to feel okay you're on the phone. I never want to be alone."
Chris Bell had a rough life. He supposedly left Big Star because he felt overshadowed by the more famous Chilton. He was a devout Christian but also a clinically depressed Heroin addict and every bit of his anguish is in this song. It's the sound of a man trying to deal with life, trying to convince himself that he matters to somebody, that he won't be alone anymore. Chris Bell died in 1978 after losing control of his car. You know the 27 club? The famous musicians that died at that age? Chris Bell is the one that nobody talks about. They held his funeral on Chilton's birthday.

And since we've moved away from the original soul vibe and it's all got kind of dark, something cheerful to end on, some proper Northern Soul;

Al Wilson. "The Snake"

You want your soul to stomp? To make you move, to quicken your pulse, to get you up and dancing?  A woman finds a snake, takes the snake home, it bites her, "what do you expect? I'm a snake, you knew that." There's a possibility that it might be a parable about relationships. What it is is Northern Soul par excellence. A headlong rush with parping baritone sax, driving bass, pounding drums, a hell of a horn section and a vocal that screams attitude.

Right. We happy now? All sorted out? Got to terms with your playlist for the night?

You're welcome.