If this Northern Soul classic sounds reminiscent of Motown there’s a good reason for that. Sidney Barnes learned his trade with the label.

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Spencer Wiggins recorded the definitive version of Up Tight Good Woman and made it one of the definitive Memphis soul songs of the mid-Sixties. (more…)

Gwen McCrae is best known as the Queen of Rare Groove for her much-sampled repertoire of funk and soul. And her accidental role in launching disco.

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Nathan Bartell never found fame and fortune and had become a church minister when his funky soul tune was rediscovered half a century later.

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Ernie Hines achieved belated recognition when Our Generation was famously sampled by Pete Rock and CL Smooth on their 1992 hip-hop classic Straighten It Out.

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Tiwayo is a wealth of contradictions: a young Frenchman singing classic soul tunes in the world-weary voice of an old bluesman.

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Earth, Wind & Fire recorded Happy Feelin’ as an album track back in 1975, a quarter of a century before it formed the basis of a hit single.

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When it comes to musical pedigree, you can’t get deeper than sibling soul trio The Womack Sisters.

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I’m familiar with Odetta as the voice of the Civil Rights Movement back in the ’50s and ’60s and I know Martin Luther King called her the Queen of American folk music. But I’d never heard this ’til now.

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Here’s another Northern Soul classic, courtesy of The Younghearts from Los Angeles,  California. This was their debut single in 1967, with a falsetto vocal that calls to mind Smokey Robinson.

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