Junior Walker & The All Stars ~ What Does It Take (To Win Your Love) 1968 Soul Purrfection Version
CLEO’S MOOD (Instrumental 1965) Do The Boomerang
These Eyes
SHOTGUN
Shake and Fingerpop
Shoot Your Shot
ROAD RUNNER
Tune Up
Come See About Me
Gotta Hold On To This Feeling
Money (That’s What I Want)
Pucker Up Buttercup
Brainwasher
Ain’t That The Truth
How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You
Hip City Pt2
Home Cooking
Nothing But Soul
What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)
Take Me Girl
I’m Ready
WALK IN THE NIGHT
I Ain’t Going Nowhere (1973)
Almost all these tracks by Junior Walker got played at Manchester‘s premier soul venues. A perennial Twisted Wheel and Blue Note favourite was the atmospheric Cleo’s Mood – just hearing it today can transport me back to those dark distant cellar places.
They performed live at The Whitworth Street Twisted Wheel All nighter in November 1967.
Between each number they played Behave Yourself the B side of Green Onions.
They were by far the best soul act that I ever saw at that time. Tune Up was another track that was often played at the Blue Note. it was only released in the UK on an LP. It was, however, one of Junior’s first recordings in the USA on the Harvey label (Harvey Fuqua‘s label later bought out by Motown).
He was an amazing tenor sax player and lead singer.
I love all his stuff WALK IN THE NIGHT – superb, Cleo’s Mood – brilliant and so on.
Photograph courtesy of thevideobeat.com
Incidentally it’s “TUNE UP” out of all the fantastic tracks listed above that gets an entry into Kev Roberts Top 500: surely that tells you something about the Northern Soul scene: records are chosen on that scene to have more cache/value if they are rare (Soul label) rather than their brilliance – Ho Hum such is the way of the world. And that’s not to take anything from that particular track. Was it rare? Well it was very popular at Manchester Blue Note club.
Born: 14th June 1931 – Blytheville, Arkansas –
Died: 23rd November 1995 – Battle Creek, Michigan
Real name Autry deWalt II