Track 14: Jackie Wilson - I Get The Sweetest Feeling
Where do you start if you’re going to write about Jackie Wilson? The Van Morrison song that immortalised him? The Dexys cover than indelibly linked him to darts player Jockey Wilson in the minds of a generation, thanks to an accidental / mischievously deliberate* (*delete as appropriate, depending on what you believe) miscredited image on TOTP? That awful / vaguely racist plasticine video that propelled Reet Petite back to the top of the UK charts in 1986 (a Christmas Number One to boot, so it must have sold a shedload), almost 30 years after it was originally recorded?
Wilson was two years gone by
then, having died at the age of just 49 in 1984, nine years after suffering a
massive heart attack that he never properly recovered from. He was on stage
when that struck, collapsing just after singing the line, "My heart is
crying" in the song Lonely Teardrops.
The audience thought it was part of the act. It was later suggested that the
heart attack had been brought on by the salt tablets the singer took to make him sweat while performing because, "The chicks love
it."
There’s a lot more to the Jackie Wilson story, but let’s cut
to the chase: I Get The Sweetest Feeling. A hit three times in the UK chart –
firstly when it reached #9 in the year of my birth, then three years later when it returned
to the Top 30 in 1975, and finally, following the success of the Reet Petite
re-issue, a top three hit in 1987. The video, directed by the same team that
did the now-controversial Reet Petite promo, was a lot more acceptable…
Track 15: Teenage Fanclub - Ain't That Enough
Possibly my favourite Teenage Fanclub song, from the
excellent Songs From Northern Britain. As I’ve just been obsessing over chart
placings on the previous track, it’s worth pointing out that this was their highest
placing album, and Ain’t That Enough was their biggest hit in the UK singles
chart… although a measly #17 in 1997, making it their only Top 20 hit.
This, like a lot of Britpop tunes from that year, always
reminds me of a particularly fine summer. I was 25 on the calendar, but I felt
more like an 18 year old… probably because I’d missed out on feeling like one
seven years earlier. I grew up slowly, I guess.
Ain’t That Enough was written by Gerard Love who left the band in 2018, allegedly because he doesn’t like flying anymore. I’m not sure if there’s more to it than that, because the remaining members no longer play any of his songs in concert – which explains my disappointment at not hearing this one when they performed at my local village hall last year.
Track 16: Spencer Davis Group - Somebody Help Me
Another song I feel I ought to preface by saying – hey, this
is CD108, clearly I’d already featured Keep On Running and Gimme Some Loving
LONG before this. Until researching this post, I had no idea that Somebody Help Me was just
as big a hit as the twin titans mentioned above (bigger than GSL, which only reached #2)… because it doesn’t feel
half as epic. The Spencer Davis Group burned brightly for a very
brief period in the mid-60s before going off and doing their own thing, most
notably becoming Steve Winwood, who always seemed to be in the charts or on the
radio during my teenage years, despite relatively few actual hits (and even the
two that did make it big, didn’t actually make it as big as I remember). I
don’t know why I’m talking so much about the charts today – the rest of this
blog is largely unbothered by such things… but I guess the purpose of these
CDs was always to familiarise Sam with the music that preceded him, and the
charts were the places to start.
Somebody Help Me and Keep On Running were both written by
Jamaican musician Jackie Edwards who worked for Chris Blackwell when he first
set up Island Records. Apparently the song was also used as the theme tune to
ITV drama series The Royal from 2003 – 2011, but as Edwards died in 1992, he
sadly never saw any of that money.
Personally, I think Somebody Help Me pales in comparison to Keep On Running, Gimme Some Lovin’ and I’m A Man, but it’s a good enough pop song and I have no qualms about its inclusion here.
