成人快手

Gene Chandler wasn't just about his hit single 'Get Down', he released a number of notable soul singles, as Bob Stanley explains...

Gene Chandler and , this week's northern soul heroes twinned by SOTS, both first crossed my radar in early 1979 when they were side by side on the UK chart, and on my treasured hits-of-the-day K-Tel compilation, High Energy. Starr's '79 hit was the the electro-fied disco of Contact, the first of a short run of hits which gave his UK chart career an Indian summer; Gene Chandler's was Get Down, a slinkier effort that reached no.11 and which was followed into the Top 30 by a terrific ballad, Does She Have A Friend, more in keeping with his Chicago sounds of the sixties.

Astonishingly, Get Down was Gene Chandler's biggest UK hit. The British public, in a shocking display of poor taste, had shown complete disinterest in his breakthrough hit Duke Of Earl back in 1962. Maybe the 成人快手 didn't play it as they may have been sensitive about the song's tentative grasp on the concept of the British landed gentry (“You'll be my Duchess of Earl, and we'll walk through my dukedom”). In the States it went all the way to number one, leading Chandler to wear a cape and monocle and wave a cane around - he even released three follow-ups (Walk On With The Duke, Daddy's 成人快手, I'll Follow You) credited to The Duke Of Earl. The man milked it for all he was worth and looked very much like he'd become a one hit wonder.

Instead, he signed to the Constellation label, smartly switched back to releasing singles as Gene Chandler, and began working with Chicago hit machine . Mayfield gave him the beautiful What Now and the gently powerful mid-tempo Nothing Can Stop Me, which was a no.4 R&B hit in 1964 and gave him his first UK hit four years later when it was reissued on the Soul City label.

Gene saw out the sixties on the Brunswick label, recording duets with Barbara Acklin (including the hands-down sweetest version of the standard Little Green Apples), and he scored his last American Top 20 hit in 1970 with Groovy Situation, which later earned a new generation of fans when it turned up on the Anchorman soundtrack. Given that his mellow sound provided a bridge between the sixties Chicago sound and the next decade's Philly soul boom, it seems sad that the seventies provided Gene with little succour until Get Down. Still, there are a bunch of wonderful Gene Chandler singles for SOTS soul fans to discover beyond Duke Of Earl and Nothing Can Stop Me. My favourite? I Fooled You This Time, on the Checker label, from 1966.