We proudly bring you, here on You-Tube, the premiere of a totally brand new song, from our brand new album, "Soul Steppers" - released in late February 2009. A delectable new album of "Modern-Room" style Northern Soul. Classic retro soul, owing more homage to Gamble and Huff and the sound of Philadelphia and the mid 1970s rhythms, than to the usual Sixties style. Midtempo and Uptempo soulful sizzlers to warm the embers of your heart, and take your feet totally out of control. Just as the legendary Blackpool Mecca building gets pulled down, the "Soul Steppers" album shows that they can pull down the building but they can never take away our music. And in this recession, in times of darkness and uncertainty, as the opening track gloriously proclaims - "I know there's better times ahead for us". Onward to a brighter day. Music can lift us and make us forget what the world has to throw at us, and this album is designed to do just that. The new album has songs by Rosetta Hightower, Noel McKoy, Odette Adams, Tahira Jumah, Jay Harvey, Pearly Gates, The Flirtations, Janine Johnson, Michael Lloyd Pinq, Kitty Corbin, Judy Duff, The Concentrations, Jimmy James, and a few major surprises. Here, Jimmy James sings "Ray Of Hope". I have known Jimmy James for thirty six years, since I DJ'd at The Torch in Stoke on Trent. In 1974 I actually booked him to appear at Blackpool Mecca. During the mid- to late '60s, Jimmy James & the Vagabonds towered among the most popular soul acts on the British club and college circuit. After cutting "Shoo-Be-Doo You're Mine," a 1965 one-off for Columbia, James & the Vagabonds signed to the Pye imprint's Piccadilly subsidiary, in early 1966 issuing their label debut, "I Feel Alright," an exuberant stomper in the mold of their electric live appearances. For the follow-up, the group covered the Dells' "Hi-Diddly Dee Dum Dum." Their third Piccadilly single, "This Heart of Mine," also featured on James & the Vagabonds' first full-length effort, The New Religion. After a fourth Piccadilly 7", "Ain't Love Good, Ain't Love Proud," Pye shuttered the label and the group moved to the parent company in time for 1967's "I Can't Get Back Home to My Baby." With the release of the 1968 LP Open Up Your Soul, James & the Vagabonds finally scored a U.K. chart hit with their cover of Neil Diamond's "Red Red Wine," at the time one of the singer/songwriter's more middling hits -- James' cover spent two months on the British charts, peaking at number 36. In 1972 James teamed with producer Biddu to notch the minor hit, "A Man Like Me," before signing to Trojan for a series of little-heard singles that culminated in the 1971 cult classic "Help Yourself." In 1976 James re-signed with Pye, immediately scoring a pair of disco-inspired pop hits with "Now Is the Time" and "I'll Go Where the Music Takes Me." 1984's "Love Fire", which I mixed, was hotly tipped as a comeback contender but went sadly overlooked in 1984. And then my song "Other Side Of The Street" for my 2007 album , "Northern Soul 2007", was Jimmy's first new recording for the last twenty three years. The legend returns. We since cut "Looks Like Love Is Here To Stay", "What More Can A Man Do", "Ray Of Hope", a duet with Earnestine Pearce called "Stars In The Sky", and we already recorded a new sizzler for the upcoming album, "Northern Soul 2009", called "On The Other Foot", yet to be unveiled. Jimmy and I co-wrote this wonderful uplifting soul song, "Ray Of Hope", which sounds like a classic Blackpool Mecca record from 1975. Jimmy is just fabulous, an iconic legend, the nicest person you could meet, so willing, so helpful, so co-operative, and such a warm hearted person, and it makes me proud to have artists of this calibre on Centre City Records. He's so proud to be recording again with me, that he wouldn't even accept petrol money expenses off me, what a true gentleman. Jimmy and I co-wrote this fabulous uplifting song with my long time producing partner Clive Scott. And the "Soul Steppers" album, for the first time, is being distributed by Wienerworld, who have put out all our Northern Soul DVDs, and this time we look certain to get it sold in all the remaining major record shops around the country. And remember the whole theme of this special album - "I know there's better times ahead for us".
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Jimmy James & The Vagabonds - Want you so much - PYEby marcelloj704,701 views
Love this track, never tired of hearing this XX Pauline
paupine 2 years ago
Thankyou, wonderful Pauline. By the way, did you buy the three disc set "Running In Another Direction" yet ???
IanLevine 2 years ago