Various Artists
'Out of Sight -The In Crowd'
(the ultimate mod collection)
Universal Music Group
UK Release Date 11th September 2006

Wow! here's one fabulous double disc to finish off the summer in style. A compendium to the previous four CD set entitled 'The In Crowd' here we find a further fifty high quality mod tunes from the late fifties to the middle sixties. Right from the start these songs will have your fingers clickin' and toes tapping as we are treated to a mixture of blues, soul, mod and Motown tunes which helped shape a generation almost forty years ago. The mod scene whilst having many similarities to the northern soul scene did in fact have a slight difference in the records played in that many mod tunes were unashamedly pure pop and blues and unlike the northern scene which tended to concentrate mainly on songs issued in the main on Motown, Stax, Atlantic and Chess.

Well here you get the best of both worlds. For the Motown fanatics there's a heavy presence of hits and rarities as were are treated to the likes of Marvin Gaye with his 1966 recording 'One More Heartache' Smokey and The Miracles' 1963 hits 'I Gotta Dance to Keep From Crying' and 'You Really Got A Hold On Me' before moving onto a couple of hit tunes from the Velvelettes and not forgetting The Four Tops with 'THe Same Old Song' The Hit Pack's ultra rare pop dancer 'Never Say No To Your Baby' and the classic instrumental
'6 x 6' from Earl Van Dyke (Funk Brothers). The inclusion of 'I'll Keep Holding On' from the Marvelettes and Barbara Randolph's 1967 UK issued 'I Got A Feeling' will keep the purists more than happy.

Steering away from Motown the rest of the track listing gets extremely attractive with some really neat blues sides from the likes of Bobby 'Blue' Bland, Otis Rush, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Slim Harpo whose mid sixties UK Stateside release 'Baby Scratch My Back' remains one of my all-time favourite commercial blues tracks. Hats off to Universal Music for making sure that Gene Chandler and the Impressions were not left out of this important compilation. Chandler has his 1966 side 'I Fooled You This Time' which shows him at his very best during the peak of his career and for many he never set a foot wrong when it came to making classic Chicago soul. Staying with the Windy City Curtis Mayfield's Impression's were never far from any credible dancefloor and their 'You've Been Cheatin' became not only a northern soul classic but established itself as one of the most frequently played songs at Manchester's now defunct Twisted Wheel all-nighter.

There was no doubt that the sixties produced some great pop/beat songs many of which were picked up by the mods during that period. One such gem was 'Beggin' by Timebox from 1968 issued here on the Deram label. Although a cover version of the Four Seasons original this Southport group commanded a much better version and as such scored a reasonable chart placing at that time. Sadly they never followed through with a follow up hit single and remain best known for this song as well as their cover of the Detroit Spinners' 'I'll Always Love You' in 1966.

Nashville pop singer Bobby Hebb was idolised by our own Georgie Fame who recorded a version of 'Sunny' in 1996. Plain and simple the song was a smash and Hebb's original is included here for your attention along with his northern soul anthem released on the Phillips label entitled 'Love Love Love'. Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs' 1965 UK MGM 45' Wooly Bully' was without a doubt one powerhouse pop tune of the highest order and one that has seen numerous re-issues over the years. It took over twenty years for me to work out the exact words to this song as I could never understand what he was saying. Spencer Davis whose group were very
R & B influenced in the sixties recorded a number of fine sides during that period although sadly not all were hits. 'I Can't Stand It' was a tribute to the original song for Soul Sisters (Sue Records) and to be fair is a damn good interpretation of the song. 

A couple of other songs worthy of mention has to be James Brown's 'Outasight' and 'I'll Go Crazy' and Jimmy Smith's Hammond organ sizzler 'The Cat' and not forgetting Chris Farlowe's 'She's Alright' a self written song from 1965 that featured on an early Island Records EP. This clearly defined the route that Chris would take during the sixties and he was rewarded with success when he scored a hit with the Rolling Stones song 'Out Of Time'. Chris also became well known via the UK TV show 'Ready Steady Go' where he appeared alongside the late Otis Redding as well as Eric Burdon.

The infectious 'Treat Her Right' from Roy Head seems to crop up every now and again on specialist CD's and you'll find it here on disc 2 with its famous hook line 'Hey Hey 'Hey' - check out the neat guitar work too. Finally, one of the giant ladies of the blues and soul scene the one and only Etta James conjures up the best in gospel and blues as she belts out 'Something's Got A Hold Of Me' a Chess recording from the very early days which quickly earned her at the time the tag of Queen of Soul only to be replaced by Aretha Franklin in 1968.

This double CD is as good as it gets with each track being cherry picked for maximum effect . Buy it, play it loud and enjoy!!

PS There's a fantastic full colour 48 page mini book included too which is worth the price alone.

Rating 10/10