— David Hepworth
Though it had come and gone over the previous two decades, British soul was just beginning to pick up steam in the 1980. Northern soul, a particularly English sub-genre which had been about dancing in clubs in Wigan to obscure American records from the sixties, was on the wane but some of its biggest fans were recording music of their own. When Dexys Midnight Runners hit number one in the spring of that year with "Geno", they both immortalised a legend of the scene while marking shift in its sound from American to British. People in the UK were no longer just its fans, they were now becoming its stars.
David Hepworth devotes a lengthy passage in this fortnight's single review to a trio of British soul singles. The follow up to the smash "Geno", "There, There My Dear", is given consideration along with newbies from The Q-Tips and The Step. Dexys were enjoying their first flurry of success — which they would quickly squander within months — and "There, There My Dear" catches them do what they do best: the rhythm never lets up, the horns keep it all together and Kevin Rowland shows off why he is one of pop's all-time great frontmen. The Q-Tips failed to have a hit with "The Tracks of My Tears" (a Smokey Robinson standard that no self-respecting Brit-Soul group of the time didn't do a cover of) but they were a renowned live act and they would soon launch the solo career of Paul Young. The Step only released a handful of singles before fading away and it's possible that the world simply wasn't ready for sharp-dressed mods playing blue-eyed soul until Paul Weller decided they were.
Hepworth gives them all respectful reviews but he isn't convinced because of the presence of Graham Parker, the real soul man of the age. It probably helps that he got his start back in the sixties playing soul.
Pub rock is a genre that is difficult to define. On the rise between the end of glam and the start of punk, it was full of talented individuals, many of whom were excellent songwriters and/or great all-around musicians. They tended to be massively knowledgable about music as well. There was nothing especially new about the pub rock sound but it was exciting and good at getting crowds riled up into a frenzy. In short, it did very well played in pubs. Individuals didn't emerge out of pub rock, they found themselves in it all of a sudden.
Graham Parker took up music at a relatively late age. Finished with his schooling, he didn't have the option to start playing gigs since he was still a novice. He didn't begin playing the guitar until he moved to the island of Guernsey, hardly the sort of place with a thriving music scene he could latch on to. He went back to Britain only to relocate again to Gibraltar to do more odd jobs. Again, not exactly a hot spot even though he did join a band and would wind up being featured on local TV. Being away from where it was happening might leave most people lost but Parker learned to be self-sufficient and the relative isolation made him a more distinctive songwriter. Less concerned with what was going on, he could delve into acid rock and folk but he always came back to his true love soul.
"Love Without Greed" is by no means a soul number. I'm not even necessarily convinced that it's "real soul" either. (Surely if we're looking to songwriters drawing from their own lives then folk musicians like Richard Thompson and John Martyn ought to have been described as "soul") But it's a great record. Addictive right from the start, the playing is tight and anything but showy but the band plays beautifully in service of the song. There is no let up. Parker's vocals are exceptional too. Those pub rockers tended to be phlegmy but he isn't annoyingly so. For all his musical influences, it sounds like nothing except for a Graham Parker song making him a genre unto himself.
Something of a songwriter's songwriter and a favourite of critics, Parker never really achieved the fame he deserved. It's incredible listening to a record like "Love Without Greed" and wondering why it didn't get a chart position. Hepworth doesn't even foresee it happening and that has to be down to earlier Graham Parker and The Rumour records having a history of modest sales. Younger contemporaries connected to pub rock like Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson could rely on energy and punk cred to get themselves into the charts (though neither proved able to sustain their success), while Nick Lowe had charm and humour to aid his cause. Ian Dury was a character that people admired and Dave Edmunds had a familiarity with the public. Parker lacked all of these and only had his considerable skills to fall back on.
Soul music? Who's to say? But those soul revivalists should have been paying closer attention.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Carlene Carter: "Ring of Fire"
Pub rock also had a country bent to it. One might expect Nick Lowe to produce records by his then-wife Carlene Carter that sound overly reverential of good old fashioned cowboy music but that's the last thing he wants to do. Carter herself shows little interest in replicating her step-father's recording of her mother's composition. Sort of a missing link between The Byrds fusing space rock with country and the alt country movement of the nineties, there are synths and a new wave production to complement the mariachi-western classic. It kind of feels like a novelty song but it deserves to be taken seriously, at least until the next time you feel like shocking your friends with the blasphemy of a classic.
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