Dancing ‘Til Dawn – Various Artists CD (Kent)

Compiled by Ady Croasdell (Harboro Horace), Dancing Til Dawn is a 25 track selection mixing old Northern Soul favourites from the Scepter-Wand catalogue with current hits and one unreleased gem. Slowies like Eartha Kitt’s There Comes A Time rub shoulders with Mel Wynn’s ’60s fuzzbox guitar work on the growling Stop Sign and there is Tommy Hunt’s 1962 version of the Adderley classic Work Song as well as the incredibly rare instrumental by The Camps of Ashford & Simpsons’s Marching (a massive disc at Wigan when instrumentals were all the thing).

The album is not afraid to have an opinion about the Northern scene and ranges across the changing tastes over the years There are tracks from the days of dancing in a circle (the Esquires’ Get On Up) and even some records that fell out of favour (through not being rare enough), among them Nella Dodds Come Back Baby and The Charts 1966 remake of their earlier doowop classic Desiree. As an added bonus, the Jack Montgomery track is taken from a master tape rather than a disc dub (something of a first).- Ace Records