Pearly Gates - No Two Ways About It

This classic, "No Two Ways About It", was recorded in 1979 for an album by Pearly Gates under the pseudonym of Cobie Jones, but not released until 1987 as a twelve inch single on Nightmare Gold Records. Pearly was one of the original Flirtations, Earnestine Pearce, Shirley Pearce, and Pearly Gates, who originally were the Gypsies. They have been together recording for forty four years and look just fabulous still, right up to this day. Pearly Gates, real name Vi Billups, has been a friend of mine for well over thirty years. The girls started out as the Gypsies on Old Town Records, a classic teenage girl group from New York, with the early sixties classics, "Jerk It", and the Northern Soul legendary classic "It's A Woman's World", before becoming The Flirtations, and emigrating to England. They had many hits in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including "Nothing But A Heartache", and another Northern Soul classic, "Need Your Love", on the Deram label. In the late seventies they disbanded, and I got to produce a whole album on Pearly, called "No Two Ways About It", during the classic disco era, an album for Music Business legend, Artie Mogul ,once he had left United Artists in 1979. But he reneged on the deal, and I never got paid, and the album never came out, till years later, when I started using the tracks on my Nightmare Gold series in 1986, and then eventually the tracks were all used on Hot Records 1995 CD release, "The Best Of Pearly Gates". In the meantime, the Flirtations, without Pearly, had reformed for Proto Records, for Barry Evangeli, with the high energy anthem, "Earthquake", which Ian Anthony Stephens produced. This lineup of The Flirtations then went to Passion Records, under Anne Plaxton, and I got to produce them on "Read All About It". And at the same time, Pearly herself did a solo track for a label called Funkin Marvellous, called "Action", which George Hargreaves produced, and this was a huge floorfilling classic, and one of the most popular High Energy records of the 1980s. Next, I myself produced her next single for that label, called "Third Time Lucky". Then Pearly rejoined the Flirtations, and all three original girls, Earnestine, Shirley, and Pearly, were back together once again. We then did this Flirtations single for Nightmare Records, called "Back On My Feet Again", and also a solo track with Pearly called "One Less Bell To Answer" . Finally we had so many tracks with Pearly that we completed the "Best Of Pearly Gates" album for Hot Productions. I have now known Pearly for thirty years, and yet she still looks thirty years old. Very few 1960s girl groups are still together, and ever fewer look like these fabulous three. My girls. And more recently we have cut our sixth consecutive song for Centre City Records - and the three ladies will have you dancing off the ceiling.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Northern-Soul
• Eighties
• Seventies
• Record-Shack
• Motorcity
• Centre-City
• Soul
• Diva
• Female-Singers
• Footstomper
• New-York
• Female
• Uptempo
• Retro
• Female-Soul-Singers
• Girl-Groups
• Classic
• 80s
• Disco
• Dance
• Blackpool-Mecca

[normvork]

Would love to hear the unreleased 1979 version!

[IanLevine]

@normvork - But this IS the original 1979 version.

[BarbraAlejandro]

Love This Track & Pearly!!!

[bobrofmad]

You're an Angel Pearly. Very nice.

[Soulanddisco]

This, and "Fading Into The Night" are both underrated classics.