The Feel It Advent-ure 2025: Door 23

 

Carol Anderson is yet another singer whose recording career started in the 60s and limped on into the Disco era. She had just eight singles released in that time. She is revered on the Northern Soul scene for two records roughly ten years apart in their release dates – Taking My Mind Off Love and Sad Girl - and it’s fair to say, I think, if those records hadn’t been “discovered” by the Northern Soulies Carol would barely make a footnote in soul music’s history. In saying that I don’t deny she made a few good records (especially her earlier ones), but it’s just that so many artists on the scene back then did too, and for every one who caught a break and got a deal with a major label there were plenty who didn’t and their 45s on local labels were destined to receive just a few plays on local radio stations before disappearing into the ether, and the dead stock warehouses. We should be grateful to the dedicated soul diggers who would eventually plunder those warehouses and shine a light on them.

Taking My Mind Off Love is a Northern Soul monster, and due to it’s rarity and its Northern appeal commands a four figure valuation. It was apparently released in 1968 on the obscure Detroit label Whip, although there is a comment on Discogs stating a 1964 recording date. It sounds more like 1968 to me though and the backing singers remind me of some of The Parliaments’ tracks recorded around that time, also a Detroit based group of course.

I’m banging on about this Whip single but of course I don’t own a copy, it being way out of my league value wise. But I have been attracted to one of Carol’s early 70s singles which I could afford. You Boy/Holding On was released in 1972 on Mid-Town which I believe was owned by Carol’s mum, Essie.

The winter of 1983/4 would prove to be a tragic time for the Anderson family, Essie passed away on Christmas Day 1983 (cancer is often quoted as the cause, but it was more likely diabetes?) and three months later Carol succumbed to cancer.

Carol Anderson – Holding On 1972 

The Feel It Advent-ure 2025: Door 22

 

Bo Kirkland only has one record to his name (this one). Of course he doesn’t, but he only has one 45 released under that name alone.

Expand your search to Bo (Kirkland) & Ruth (Davis) you will find a few more records, and one very well known hit if you are of a certain age – at least it was massive in the UK. I wrote some more about Bo & Ruth back in 2019.

Now expand your search to Michael Kirkland and you will find another 45, and to Mike James Kirkland and you find a few more 45s and albums.

We’re gradually going backwards in time now, and we’re not finished yet.

Plug in Mike & The Censations and you will find his 60s output – a string of eight cracking 45s released in second half of the 60s. I featured one of them in my 2014 Advent-ure, and I should really feature some more (next year).

Yes Bo Kirkland = Michael James Kirkland = Mike James Kirkland = Michael Kirkland.  Don’t get him confused with Robert (Bob) Kirkland though, that’s his brother, he was also a member of the Censations, as was his sister and her husband.

Sure Got A Thing For You is a lovely piece of slinky mid 70s midtempo soul. A "B" side again, and in my opinion much stronger than the funky A side Grandfather Clock.

Bo Kirkland– Sure Got A Thing For You 1975

The Feel It Advent-ure 2025: Door 21

 

Oscar Weathers has appeared here once before, just over ten years ago now. That song – You Wants To Play - was beautifully arranged and this one, which was Oscar’s next 45, is too. Quite why it has taken me so long to acquire it I’m not sure.

Soul for the connoisseur.

Oscar Weathers – When You Steal 1971

The Feel It Advent-ure 2025: Door 20

 

Moving along into the last few days of this year’s Advent-ure (already!) and it will be early 70s records all the way – and they all have red labels too! It’s just the way it’s turned out.

Put “Dale Dennard singer” into a Google search and the AI response is that Dale is male, and that is because the only search hit which says anything about this record, other than the bare facts on the label, says so.

As you will hear for yourself, Dale is female.

This is one obscure singer, and label. This is the only record released by Dale Dennard, and the New York based Coach label itself only has two, possibly three, known releases. I wonder if its is actually related to Gene Redd’s Redd / Red Coach label, it shares the same coach graphic as early Redd Coach releases, and in time sits neatly in between when the label name dropped the second 'd'. I can’t find anything that confirms this though.

The sound of this one is sinuous, sultry and sleazy.

Dale Dennard – If You Can Live With Yourself 1972

* This advert appeared in all the main music papers - Cash Box, Record World, and Billboard in April/May 1972.  

The Feel It Advent-ure 2025: Door 19

 

In my head Atlantic Starr are filed as a 70s band as that is when I first heard them. But in truth most of their output came in the 80s and they hit it big commercially in the mid 80s.

Three of their songs have lodged themselves permanently in my memory to the extent that I can replay them in my head at will. Those songs are When Love Calls, Circles, and this one, Silver Shadow.

.. Pause .. Hmm, have I featured one of these songs before here? … opens a tab to check … yes I have.

Way back in 2011. I featured a Youtube clip of Silver Shadow because, as I said at the time, I couldn’t believe I had never had a copy of it. Well I finally picked up a copy a few weeks ago, and I did so because I was spurred on by recently playing Circles a few times (you can’t play these songs just once, they are infectious), which was the other track I featured back then. That 2011 post was published on the 29^th October which, weirdly, was the birthday of one of my old flames – and she had the album that When Love Calls was on and I remember borrowing it at the time (I gave it back eventually) - and, somewhat weirdly, Mrs. Darce’s birthday is the 30^th October. I must be attracted to Scorpios.

Silver Shadow is a gorgeous track. It was released in 1985, but I had it fixed in my mind it was from earlier in the 80s. I think it must have sounded a bit out of time in 1985 when soul was becoming increasingly bright and shiny, and poppy. It has an ethereal feel to it and, from memory, there was only one other track on the album it came from – As the Band Turns – that really approached it’s feel. 

Atlantic Starr – Silver Shadow 1985

RIP Wayne Lewis, a founding member of Atlantic Starr who passed away earlier this year (June 5th), he was only 68.   

The Feel It Advent-ure 2025: Door 18

 

Look at Gwen Owens’ catalog of originally issued 45s and they span soul’s golden decade almost precisely. Gwen’s singing extended beyond that though, singing in the group Hot later in the 70s and having one more single released in her name in 1979, whilst still a member of Hot. Her 60s recordings were mostly cut in Detroit, where she grew up; and her 70s output was mostly recorded in Muscle Shoals. In the 70s and into the 80s she continued in the music business as a session and backing singer, for some big names too. Into this century she was singing with a gospel group The Melodious Hearts.

Gwen is still very much alive. I can say that with confidence as I have found her, very much current, Instagram account. She occasionally puts up pictures of her old publicity shots, including one she described as her very first one. She was, and I have no doubt still is, a very attractive lady. On the internet it seems her birth date is most often quoted as June 19^th, 1953 but I’m not sure that can be true. That would have made her 11 when she recorded her first single. But elsewhere I have seen someone quoting an article from the Michigan Chronicle dated June 19^{th ,} 1965 (coincidentally her birthday) where it refers to her two 1964 released 45s and states that she was just graduating from Pershing HS in Detroit, which would have most likely made her 16 or 17 when she first recorded.

Her 1967 45 - Just Say You’re Wanted And Needed - is a very rare record that commands very high prices on the Northern scene. It is a belter. even allowing for the somewhat out of tune horns. Looking at Gripsweat it seems only five copies have gone through Ebay in the last 12 years or so, and if one in decent condition came up for sale now I’m betting it would sell for $5k+.

This Josie release of hers is not a rare or in demand record, but it is a good one. I had heard the B side - It Ain’t Hardly Over - years ago and had it mentally filed as one to get at the right price. Now I have finally secured a copy it is the A side that is really grabbing me.

Gwen Owens– Keep On Living 1969

The newspaper clip is from Record World July 12th, 1969

The Feel It Advent-ure 2025: Door 17

Here’s a bit of a curiosity. A funky record from 1977 celebrating Jimmy Carter making it to The White House.

The funk is tight, and the horns have some definite similarities with the horn arrangements that can be found on mid70s Parliament releases. No surprise at all as it happens – Walter Foster had links to the JBs, and Fred Wesley is credited as producer and arranger on this record. Walter had just a handful of 45s released over period of more than 20 years. This was his second release, some twelve years after his debut on Loma. That 45 was produced by James Brown, and I would think it is entirely possible Fred Wesley featured in the backing group.

Have a contemporary funk group ever made a record singing the praises of the orange one, I wonder? I don’t know of one and I suspect the odds are vanishingly small.

Walter Foster – The Peanut Man (We Got A Friend) 1977

The B side is a nice slower number too.

Walter Foster – It Makes You Wanna Cry 1977

Now, that’s a title that could grace a song about the orange one.