Much in the vein of soulmates such as Georgie Fame, Zoot Money, Geno Washington or Thunderbirds-era Chris Farlowe, The Stormsville Shakers were “storming” the venues throughout the mid’60s with the same brand of horn-section powered rhythm’n’soul, while bubbling under the lower ends of charts … or not.
After almost hitting the big time with the Chris Andrews’ penned Long Live Love, which we all know Sandie Shaw surpassed them with, it was only The Love Affair’s versions of his songs Gone Are The Songs Of Yesterday and Bringing On Back The Good Times that secured the songwriting status Phillip Goodhand-Tait is known for these days.
The first half of the CD captures them at their swinging ‘60s best, featuring 11 unreleased demos (some of them later re-recorded for some of their 6 single sides), as well as 3 live recordings. Mostly, it’s blue-eyed soul stompers that they’re delivering, with No Problem being a prime example of a hit single that never was, while There You Go and It’s A Lie both prove that they were also capable of getting as melodic as possible within the Mersey context.
As the title suggests, the second half happens “40 years on”, though there’s a few tracks (Burning Rain, R.C.T.(Random Chaos Theory), Walk Through The Storm) showing that it’s almost as if they’ve never even stopped.
[Released by Angel Air 2008]
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