Northern Soul, with added Snap!Crackle! and Pop!

No, not M People’s (shudder) Northern Soul, or even the Verve’s barefooted poncifications of the big music, but real northern soul. Finger clickin’, hip swayin’, cuttin’ a rug Northern Soul. Transferred from an ancient compilation tape that a friend from work made for me around 1992 these 2 tracks are magic, and I’m not ashamed to say I know next to nothing about them, as neither does Mr Google. What I can tell you is this…..

Diane Newby‘s ‘What Your Puttin’ (or Putting depending on where you look) Me Through came out on the Kapp label in 1965 and has long been a favourite on the northern soul scene. As soon as the piano and tambourine lead things off, you know you’re in for a rollicking 2 minutes of northern soul nirvana. To these ears, it sounds a bit like Marvin Gaye’s ‘Can I Get A Witness?’ if sung by Dusty Springfield. Sadly, it doesn’t appear to crop up on any CD compilations. The version you have here was transferred from 7″ to cassette (now 15 years old) and converted to mp3 via my trusty 4 track portastudio. If anyone has a nice clean copy that they can sort out for me, please let me know.

Likewise, Mr Google knows even less about The Playthings than I do. The Playthings do tend to crop up on compilations from time to time, most notably for the excellent ‘Stop What you’re Doing’. That track almost qualifies them as one-hit wonders, but since it wasn’t a hit…..

‘Surrounded By A Ray Of Sunshine’ was also recorded by Samantha Jones, a name familiar to most connoisseurs of the northern soul circuit, but for what it’s worth, The Playthings version beats it hands down. Sadly, this also rarely appears anywhere on digital format, so I’ve had to do it myself using the same method as above. Likewise, if anyone has a nice clean digital copy clogging up their harddrive, please let me know. In the meantime, here is my vinyl>cassette>mp3 conversion, just for you.

Now. When I think of snap, crackle and pop, I don’t only think about vinyl. I also need to rush to the kitchen and get myself a bowl of Rice Krispies. As an added bonus for today, I’ve posted an odd obscurity, an obscure oddity of a Rolling Stones track from 1964. As befits many of the bands of the era, they recorded an ad jingle. Here are the Stones doing the Rice Krispies jingle. It’s a belter!