The Four Vandals - Big Strong Love In My Heart
- 6 years ago
As good as Northern Soul gets. Here's a promotional piece previously written about the record.....
This was the third song that Ian Levine recorded on The Four Vandals, and was originally going to be on a KFC advert, but it all fell through at the last minute. The original classic by The Four Vandals, "The Wrong Side Of Town" was the one that everyone knows, but this particular song, "Big Strong Love In My Heart" is even better, as far as most people are concerned. Steve Brookstein never sang better in his life. It stomps along with an authenticity that amazes even the most die hard aficionados, although they can't bring themselves to admit it. But Northern Soul being what it is, as soon as people realised the story behind The Four Vandals, this later recording got stonewalled, which was a damn shame. The Four Vandals first came into being in 1999 when they recorded "The Wrong Side Of Town" and pressed it up in America, and let a record dealer in Carolina send just three copies over to England. The record was made to look thirty years old, even down to being soaked in a bucket of water, and having talcum powder rubbed into the grooves. It sort of backfired, because some greedy individuals started charging up to a thousand pounds each for them, after Ian Levine had given them away free, and so much care went into making the record seem thirty years old, that no-one dare say a word, so the amusing little scam kept digging itself a deeper and deeper hole. But conversely, the record went on to become THE biggest record on the whole Northern Soul Scene for the last twenty years, even being pictured next to the Frank Wilson fifteen thousand pound rarity, on the front cover of Kev Roberts' book, "Northern Soul's Top 500". Once Steve Brookstein won the X-Factor, the whole secret came out in the press, and the Northern Soul Scene almost hounded out Levine, like the villagers forming a lynch mob in the Frankenstein films. But whatever they thought of Ian Levine for pretending the record was thirty years old when it was only two or three years old at the time of all the controversy, it hardly stopped him, considering that he bounced back with this joyous piece of stomping exuberance, and he has often been quoted as saying that this one is his favourite Steve Brookstein vocal ever.
This was the third song that Ian Levine recorded on The Four Vandals, and was originally going to be on a KFC advert, but it all fell through at the last minute. The original classic by The Four Vandals, "The Wrong Side Of Town" was the one that everyone knows, but this particular song, "Big Strong Love In My Heart" is even better, as far as most people are concerned. Steve Brookstein never sang better in his life. It stomps along with an authenticity that amazes even the most die hard aficionados, although they can't bring themselves to admit it. But Northern Soul being what it is, as soon as people realised the story behind The Four Vandals, this later recording got stonewalled, which was a damn shame. The Four Vandals first came into being in 1999 when they recorded "The Wrong Side Of Town" and pressed it up in America, and let a record dealer in Carolina send just three copies over to England. The record was made to look thirty years old, even down to being soaked in a bucket of water, and having talcum powder rubbed into the grooves. It sort of backfired, because some greedy individuals started charging up to a thousand pounds each for them, after Ian Levine had given them away free, and so much care went into making the record seem thirty years old, that no-one dare say a word, so the amusing little scam kept digging itself a deeper and deeper hole. But conversely, the record went on to become THE biggest record on the whole Northern Soul Scene for the last twenty years, even being pictured next to the Frank Wilson fifteen thousand pound rarity, on the front cover of Kev Roberts' book, "Northern Soul's Top 500". Once Steve Brookstein won the X-Factor, the whole secret came out in the press, and the Northern Soul Scene almost hounded out Levine, like the villagers forming a lynch mob in the Frankenstein films. But whatever they thought of Ian Levine for pretending the record was thirty years old when it was only two or three years old at the time of all the controversy, it hardly stopped him, considering that he bounced back with this joyous piece of stomping exuberance, and he has often been quoted as saying that this one is his favourite Steve Brookstein vocal ever.