The Flirtations are one of those bands who left their native USA to find success in the UK… and then became even bigger back in America.

Their success began after they won a contest to find a group of Supremes soundalikes. Which may explain why this, their biggest hit, sounds a lot like Stop! In The Name Of Love.

The group had started life in New York 1962 as a quartet called The Gypsies, made up of three sisters from South Carolina – Betty Pearce, Shirley Pearce, and Earnestine Pearce – and Lestine Johnson.

They made their debut with a single called Hey There, Hey There in 1964 and had some success with their second, Jerk It, before Lestine Johnson left, to be replaced by Viola Billups.

In 1965 the four women renamed themselves The Flirtations and released Change My Darkness Into Light / Natural Born Lover. It flopped but, like many of their songs, would later become a Northern Soul favourite.

The same fate befell their next single, Stronger Than Her Love / Settle Down, and in 1967 Betty Pearce also left and, after winning the Supremes soundalike contest, the remaining trio headed to England for a fresh start.

They made their UK debut with How Can You Tell Me / Someone Out There in 1967 on the Parrot label. It was a hit in the Netherlands, earning them a support slot on a European tour by Tom Jones.

The following year they moved to Deram Records and had an instant hit with Nothing But A Heartache, produced by the label’s in-house producer Wayne Bickerton, who co-wrote it with Tony Waddington – the same team who would later bring us The Rubettes.

Nothing But a Heartache gave the Flirtations a second Top 40 hit in the Netherlands and earned them a UK tour with Stevie Wonder and The Foundations.

They signed to Polydor in 1972 and had another hit with their cover of Marvin Gaye’s Little Darling, though Viola Billups left the group for a solo career as Vie (and, later, as Pearly Gates) and was replaced – first by Misty Browning and then by Loretta Noble.

Reissued in the US in early 1969, Nothing But a Heartache spent more than three months in the charts there. 

During 1972, the group were the resident vocal band on the long running BBC television series It’s Cliff Richard, backing Cliff as well as performing their own songs and supporting other guests on the show.

Thet were rediscovered on the disco and Northern Soul circuits when Nothing But A Heartache  was used in an advertising campaign for KFC.