成人快手

Bob Stanley explains the widespread influence of unsung hero Van McCoy

Van McCoy's name is more commonly associated with the seventies than the sixties, thanks to his supernaturally cheery disco hit 'The Hustle' in 1975. It may have been his first hit under his own name, but soul aficionados had known to look out for his name on a record label for more than a decade beforehand.

McCoy was behind two of the biggest sixties soul singles, cornerstones of the northern soul scene. Though recorded in Chicago, Jackie Wilson's 'I Get The Sweetest Feeling' featured Motown's crack rhythm section the Funk Brothers and their ever reliable Andantes on backing vocals. It only reached no.34 in the US when it was first released in 1968, but was a British club hit and became a Top 30 UK hit in 1972, 1975 and 1987, when it reached its highest chart position of no.3. Back in 1964, Greenwood, Mississippi-born Betty Everett had recorded McCoy's 'Getting Mighty Crowded', which picked up regular spins at Manchester's Twisted Wheel club and squeaked up to no.29 on the chart. Betty had already achieved immortality, recording 'It's In His Kiss' (The Shoop Shoop Song), a US hit in 1963, and the original of Clint Ballard's 'You're No Good', a no.3 hit in Britain for the 'Swinging Blue Jeans'.

Van McCoy's songs rarely troubled the UK charts, which seems very remiss of us. The Marvelettes' sole UK chart entry, 1967's 'When You're Young And In Love' was, unusually, not a Motown-penned song but a Van McCoy number which had originally been recorded by Ruby & the Romantics. Another Van northern soul barnstormer was Gladys Knight's 'Stop And Get A Hold Of Myself', which does indeed periodically stop, giving us a breather from the pounding drums and piercing brass and giving the Pips room to express themselves with a "whoo-hoo ah-ha!" line for the song's main hook.

His real metier, though, was the beat ballad, the kind of record that was biggest on the northern scene in the eighties thanks to DJs at London's 100 Club. Too many great Van McCoy songs to sum up in this column, but here are some that are absolutely worth investigating: the cat-like Esther Phillips' 'Some Things You Never Get Used To', which was covered in the UK by Cilla Black, a recording that only emerged in the nineties on her Abbey Road Years box set; jazz singer Teri Thornton's 'Why Don't You Love Me' (also recorded by Gladys Knight), a slow burner with the singer's voice couched by little more than piccolos and tympani; New Orleans legend Irma Thomas recorded McCoy's 'It's Starting To Get To Me Now' in New York with startling results; and Jerry 'The Ice Man' Butler, who cut a string of duets with Betty Everett, melted hearts with Van's 'I Can't Stand To See You Cry' in 1965. And if you flip that record over you hear the original version of the Randy Newman song 'Nobody Needs Your Love', a huge UK hit a year later for Gene Pitney - sometimes it feels like sixties records just keep on giving.