Soul music-40 years of Simply Red: litmus test for loft speakers

If you are young, you don’t hear elevator music. Rather, a song must be like a rocket start. He has to surrender you to heavenly realms, make you high. Or at least the emotional teenage hell – lovesickness, search for meaning, gossip with the parents – make them more bearable.

It is a matter of taste whether this acoustic psychotherapy is used for heavy metal or cuddly skirt. Yes, there is even a genre that already refers to the mental aspect of music in the name: Soul. Its roots lie in the blues, which was underlaid with rhythms for dancing. So it was also called Rhythm & Blues for the sake of simplicity.

Unfortunately, one has to mention that the conditions of the soul were usually not too inspired. The recording studios of Motown, Stax and Atlantic were factories that had to deliver hits. And as in every factory, the motto was: what sells well is produced in series. Each label developed its typical sound sound, which is why one spoke of Motown-Soul, Stax-Soul and Atlantic-Soul.

And yet it surprised that a white Englishman should be the most successful soul singer of the 80s and 90s: Mick Hucknall.

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All of this happened in the 1960s and early 70s, the heyday of the soul. Then came disco. She swept across the soul like a flaming inferno. He should no longer recover from it, from then on a shady niche existence beyond the disco ball. Michael Jackson, whose roots were in the rhythm & blues, attached great importance to not being the King of Soul, but the King of Pop.

He used this wording for the first time in 1985. A good year for traditionalists. Cocktail jazz experienced a second spring through Sade and Matt Bianco. Thanks to Suzanne Vega, the flower named Folk, who was believed to be dead, surprisingly bloomed. And the press dared to put the word “soul” into the mouth more often. A certain Freddie Jackson (neither related nor confused with the Jackson sipples) was celebrated as a soul discovery. With his debut album “Rock Me Tonight”, he made it to the 10th place on the American charts. Ulli Güldner even compared him to Marvin Gaye in the “Musikexpress” – a slight exaggeration from today’s perspective.

So they were not a bad prerequisites to succeed with retropy sounds. And yet it surprised that a white Englishman should become the most successful soul singer of the 80s and 90s. Mick Hucknall grew up in the workers’ city of Manchester. The mother left the family when he was three years old. His father, a hairdresser, then raised him alone.

At the beginning of puberty, the men’s community no longer worked. At a concert of the sex Pistols in 1976, the 16-year-old Mick met soul mandates with whom he founded the punk band Frantic Elevator (in German: wild elevators). The response remained manageable. The first single only came out in 1979 – too late to benefit from the punk boom. The fourth and last single appeared in 1982 and was entitled “Holding Back the Years”.

At that time, young Nordgländer preferred a different form of ecstasy. Anyone who wanted to experience something visited so-called “Northern Soul” parties that took place in workers’ clubs, dance halls and pavilions on their bridges. There were unknown soul singles from the 60s, which were produced in only small quantities by equally unknown labels. In order to be able to dance through such a “all-night”, stimulants were threw in. In the 1970s, the Northern Soul Feders already anticipated the techno party culture of the 90s.

Manchester was the Northern Soul stronghold of Great Britain and the DJ Roger Eagle her pioneer and godfather. No Englishman knew better about rhythm & blues. He owned the Rare Grooves – the coveted rare windows from America, which kept the people in motion from Saturday evening to Sunday morning at half past eight. Roger Eagle should become Mick Hucknall mentor. The two loved each other and always spent hours listening to music together. Through Eagle, Hucknall became a soul connoisseur.

This knowledge can be heard “Picture Book”, the Simply Red debut album from 1985. The first single release “Money’s Too Tight (to MENTION)” is reminiscent of a Northern soul piece. The slower songs are also based on older role models. This goes so far that the relaxed swinging “Sad Old Red” would go through the 50s as a bar jazz – if it weren’t for the crystal clear, scalpel -sharp sound that was typical for the 80s.

The producer Stewart Levine was responsible for him. The talent scout of a record company had invited him to the London debut appearance by Simply Red. Levine recognized the potential, but also the weaknesses: »The singer was pure magic, but the music sounded like American retro soul revue. I met Mick Hucknall and said to him that it would not be enough, the past revived. We would have to deliver something new, unused. “

So it happened that “Picture Book”, although the synthesizer was dispensed with, looked state -of -the -art. In terms of sound technology, the album even convinced the subscribers to HiFi magazines. As a reference CD for testing, it fulfilled its purpose.

Maybe that’s why some reviewers crashed the work as “Yuppie-Soul”. A misunderstanding. Here the artist was confused with the consumer. Not every investment banker made sure that Mick Hucknall sang. Namely over money, the split British society, loneliness and the feeling of growing up without a mother. There was a damn lot of blues in Simply Reds Soul. From the painted cover, a silted, wistful Mick Hucknall looks.

“Picture Book” sold millions of times. Mick Hucknall became a star overnight. There was no longer any reason for blues. The singer cost the unexpected success. Also in sexual terms. The follow -up album is entitled “Men and Women”. The cover shows a mischievous smiling Mick Hucknall.