Over the weekend Owen and I went to the Barbican Hall to see one of the tie-in concerts with the new BBC series on UK soul called SOUL BRITANNIA, this one billed as the Soul Britannia All-Stars and what an odd night it was. As the years being covered were the 70s suffice to say the audience was nearly all our age and as usual was predominantly white.
The evening started on a high with a segment celebrating The Queens of Lovers Rock namely Janet Kay and Carroll Thompson who were joined onstage by actor/singer Victor Romero Evans for back-up vocals. They sung about 3 songs each, Evans sang his "At The Club" and they exited on a Bob Marley cover to an audience on their feet and dancing. It actually made me want to investigate these artists further. And yep, Janet can still (just) hit those skyscraper notes on "Silly Games".

After a chance to catch up with the old married couple Angoose and Clive in the interval, the show recommenced with Pauline Black - and her cut-glass diction - introducing Carol Grimes. Imagine Hazel Blears' mother as a pub jazz/soul singer and you're nearly there. Actually she was very good, I'd vaguely heard of her before but had never actually heard her singing to the best of my knowledge. After her the mc for the evening - the frankly awful Root Jackson of unknown funk band FBI - called up a member of Gonzalez to do a number - sadly not "Haven't Stopped Dancing Yet" then it was time for four songs from Hamish Stuart of the Average White Band - all of them worthy but seemingly endless. Despite finishing with "Pick Up The Pieces" the evening seemed strangely becalmed.

The much-awaited appearance of Madeline Bell promised to kick-start the evening back to life but after a few ok songs from her "This Is One Girl" album, which I used to have on cd before passing it down the eBay chain, she was taking her bow and was gone. No Blue Mink? Even more puzzling was no mention of her long association with Dusty Springfield - surely a candidate for some kind of mention in an evening dedicated to UK soul.

No time for reflection though as Linda Lewis came on next. It was great to finally see one of my favourite performers from the mid-70s but again no sooner was she there than she was waving goodbye! She deserved more time but gave us "Rock A Doodle Doo", "Sideway Shuffle" and "Reach For The Truth" and O and I have deceided to definately see her the next time she headlines a show on her own. The final act of the evening was two members of the Brixton collective Cymande joining the onstage band for a couple of numbers which were ok but not all that.

So all in all it was a real curate's egg of an evening which sadly didn't succeed in pressing the claims that UK soul from this period has been unfairly neglected.