Warm Heart, Cold Steel (1975)

Okay, I love charity shops. There's something about the way that amongst all that junk and the dodgy old people you sometimes find a classic, obscure funk or soul record. Case in point . . .

We all love the sound of the steel band. In the summer, the streets of Notting Hill. That carnival spirit, that reggae thing. The thought of a steel band covering a song like Isaac Hayes Shaft or the Temptations Papa was a Rolling Stone, however, is not what you'd expect. To be honest it rather intrigued me. Believe it or not the results are rather successful, translating the original arrangements of songs like Standing in the Shadows of Love and Love's Theme onto steel pans but keeping the soulful sound of the originals.

But that's not all, for the second side opens with the falsetto 'Children play and women produce and men go work and some go stealin. Everyone's got to make a livin'. Then the chorus, with its choir like chant. Heaven and Hell is on Earth, one of the few original songs on the album, is something of a masterpiece, both as equally haunting and funky as Papa was a Rolling Stone. Except played by a steel band. The result is a rather innovative clash between West Indian and American R&B music the like of which has rarely been repeated. It could also be found with Cymande, particularly in their best known song The Message. Such experimentation was never a success at the time, and now seems a largely forgotten moment in British Black music. When British Soul finally found a voice in the late seventies with the vibrant and enthusiastic 'Brit Funk', it was as a version of the American originated Jazz Funk. Although its heritage came through, particularly with songs like Linx's Intuition, it was rarely felt until Loose Ends mixed slickly produced American Soul with a truly British/West Indian flavour, both musically and lyrically.

Yet such a song could not remain lost forever. In the late eighties it was rediscovered by both the UK Rare Groove club scene and in America the Hip Hop/Rap community - where it became such a popular sample that its even referenced in Lauryn Hill's song about growing up, Every Ghetto, Every City, on her latest album. It was also quoted word for word by Jazzie B on Dance, from the first Soul II Soul album Club Classics, vol. one.