Oma Heard – Stuck-Up / When Someone’s Good To You DEMO 45 (Expansion) 7″ Vinyl

Northern Soul fans have always been deeply fascinated by the never ending treasure chest of unreleased jewels in the Motown catalogue. But this must surely be the best yet. Written by Motown songwriters Chester Pipkin and Gary Pipkin, who worked out of Motown’s west coast office, “Stuck-Up” was a serious attempt to replace Mary Wells after she left the company.

Oma Heard recorded a lot, including a duet album with Marvin Gaye, but was unceremoniously dropped because Berry Gordy claimed she didn’t look the part because of her physicality. Chester and Gary could not bear to waste such a wonderful song, so they gave it to Shirley Gunter on Tangerine records for a 1966 release on a major label, owned by Ray Charles. The Shirley Gunter version is one of the rarest and most sought after records on the Northern Soul scene, fetching a minimum of £500 a copy.

Finally, a few years ago, the original Oma Heard version surfaced on a CD of unreleased Motown. Although the Motown original has had little exposure, Ian Levine, a recognised authority on Motown, considered this to be the number one unreleased, best ever glorious classic Tamla-Motown single of all time. After being so unceremoniously dumped, Oma later returned to Motown as part of the group Dorothy, Oma, and Zelpha. Now released on a vinyl 45 for the first time in history, it is on the Motown subsidiary label V.I.P. which looks the same as the one and only actual 45 release from Oma Heard “Lifetime Man”. The B side is the original version of the Carolyn Crawford classic “When Someone’s Good To You”, which was first released in England on the Stateside label in 1964.