Natural Soul Brothers – Cement, Plaster & Gold / Four Thoughts – Kisses & Roses 45 (Soul Direction) 7″ Vinyl

A stunning Sweet soul group Harmony Soul track B/W a sublime Northern soul group winner.

Both from the “City of Brotherly Love” Philadelphia.
The Natural Soul Brothers Ltd.

Staying in my favourite state of Philly, we continue with 2 sublime tracks from the Wally-O-Production stables. The home of Herb Johnson & The Impacts, The Topics and the soul duo of Jeri Payne and Joe Freeman aka. Jeri & Joe. The two tracks featured in this latest Soul Direction Release are both prime examples of the forgotten and obscure talents from this Wally Osborne production line. The Natural Soul Brothers Ltd consisted of Tom McNeil on lead vocals and Guitarist Clayton Johnson. Any additional members info is sketchy, but we know for sure that Clayton Johnson later went on to help form Thomas Buck Nasty who released an LP on RCA in 1980. This one song from 1970 never saw a release and thanks to Dave Louis made a debut on the “Best of Wally-o” CD in 2000. The haunting sound and lingering vocals make this a prefect sound for today’s more mellow collecting crowd and crosses more than one sub-genre on this complex soul scene of ours.

The Four Thoughts

The Four Thoughts – Kisses and Roses did gain a release in 1967 on the “Womar” label which was part of the Wally-O set up. A label subsidiary suggested to Wally by Herb Johnson. The name came from the initials of Wally Osborne, his wife, Mabel, and his father-in-law, Ambrose Robinson, who provided the initial funding to start the label. Still an obscure outing to more people than you would think this track although released, just seemed a perfect companion to the A side and hopefully now will gain some more traction across soul nights everywhere. The Four Thoughts were four guys from the Germantown section of Philadelphia and consisted of lead vocalist James “Fish” Norfleet, Gene Derson, Clarence and Norman, who’s last names have been forgotten.
The group made a second 45 as The Thoughts for S.O. Records, “Plain as The Nose On Your Face” which was written and produced by Morris Bailey Jr.

Wallace Osborne was born in Philadelphia on January 6th, 1934. After his early years growing up in Germantown, he joined the armed forces by changing his birth certificate to 1933 in order to enlist but later was given a dishonourable discharge a year later after his grandmother told the army what he had done. He then decided to go back to school and study guitar, bass and piano and later re-joined the army in 1953. He ended up in Japan after Korea and started singing with Bobby Holland also from Philly and they later went on to form The Starfires. Wally went on to write for the Cordells and other artists on the Bargain & Don-El labels. After leaving the Starfires, Wally played bass in the Impacts with Herb Johnson. Herb had already recorded songs on V-Tone and Len Records but wanted Wally to write songs for him and he duly obliged penning “I’m So Glad” and “Where are You” which gained a mainstream release on Brunswick. Other songs were penned for his Toxsan & Womar labels and even though a few never saw a release they have had some exposure on the Northern Soul scene with The Topics “Nicer Girl” Virtue Acetate and the extremely rare The Passionetts – “I’m Not In Love With You Anymore” Soul Burst. All in all, a talented songwriter and label owner who was incidentally responsible for painting the street signs north of Market Street in Philly in his other role as Traffic Sign Engineer Supervisor.- Soul Direction