Alan Pollard, who died suddenly last week loved Detroit soul music. The first Northern soul venue he visited was the famed Pendulum Club run by Barry Tasker and Dave White in Manchester. Barry was the type of DJ that Alan aspired to, and over the years he ran soul nights in around the Stockport/Manchester area. He also contributed many record reviews to the Hitsville Soul Club site which are well worth checking out. A few days after the Groovesville USA site was launched Alan was in touch wanting to find out more about the book and sent us his favourite five Detroit tracks.
AL KENT The Way You Been Acting Lately (Ric-Tic)
Absolutely stunning record that I have featured in my sets for a very long time now, it has everything: wonderful vocal, great lyrics and the production just amazes me – how they put together such a great production on what I would imagine would be quite a tight budget. Streets ahead of anything.
WINGATE ‘LOVE IN’ STRINGS Lets Have A Love In (‘Cause Everybody Needs Love) (Ric-Tic)
I’m an absolute sucker for these wonderful instrumentals that came from Ed Wingate’s set-up, the arrangements were outstanding, I wanted to include one of these instrumentals and had narrowed it down to two to choose from, and ‘Love in’ just edges it from ‘Shades Down’ which according to the label was The Detroit Emeralds but was in fact, the house band the Wingate Strings.
PEOPLES CHOICE Savin’ My Lovin’ For You (Palmer)
Absolutely love this track, it came out twice on Palmer so they must of had a lot of faith in it. Has been popular for quite along time now without being hammered probably due to its rarity.
JACK MONTGOMERY Don’t Turn Your Back On Me (Barracuda)
Jack Montogomery at his very best, vocally one the best performances I have heard. I suppose you would categorise this as a beat ballad, but there’s only one catagory I would place it and that is brilliant. With this record you also get a brilliant ‘B’ side which is the instrumental of The Honey Bees’ Garrison outing ‘Never In A Million Years’.
SANDY HOLLIS & THE FALCONS I’m Tempted (Big Wheel)
Picked this up in a soul pack from Soul Bowl in the late 70s and fell in love with it straight away. Wonderful vocals and again a great production, I started to feature in my sets almost straight away but it was a good few years later before it got the recognition it deserved.
Well respected and loved by the soul music community, tributes to Alan can be found on the Soul Source site.