British Soul Volume 3, Part 1

About 15 years ago I purchased two CD's of British blue-eyed/ northern soul tracks on the now- defunct Goldmine label. I then began (the pre-internet) hunt for these 50 or so tracks to fill out my vinyl collection. In my humble pov these two CD's exhibit the joy and exuberance of the British recording scene in the '60's. Whilst there is a smattering of tracks by acts who were scoring hits (or would go on to) many of these tunes never stood a chance.

With the murky demise of Goldmine around ten years ago (I don't know much about this but I understand that some of their stuff may not have been entirely legit releases) there was never to be a volume 3.

With my penchant for always sniffing out something new to box my cab doors I began to think along the lines of compiling my own volume 3. At first it was going to be a balls- out 18 track single blog but given my recent lack of blogging I'm going to do it one nugget at a time.

I understand that Emma was actually really called 'Jackie Lee' (clearly not the Jackie Lee from Bob & Earl)...are you confused yet?? This hit the shops in January 1967 as the flip of 'Just like a man'. I may be barking up with wrong tree but it's probably safe to say tunes like this sold in the areas where the acts were from (possibly in significant numbers). The little blurb I can find on Emma/ Jackie is that she was 30 when she recorded this and hailed from Ireland. In Den's humble opinion this tune is as strong as any ballad from the big names of the time and would surely have sat nicely with her label mate Lulu. That said I can't imagine that Emma was ever as annoying as Lulu so maybe she won the battle to get her sweaty mitts on this b- side flop. That said, it warmed a corner of Den's world in 2013 and I'm sure you'll dig it as much as I did!

Emma Rede- I gotta be with you