Inspirations of London

If you've seen the seventh issue of Your Heart Out you will be aware the theme was trying to find out more about an old soul single by a guy called Joe Curtis, and the strange roads this archaeological expedition takes us down. I stumbled across this today, which suggests a certain soul single is still abandoned. It is a different edition to the one I have, and the sides seem to have been flipped which makes sense to me. But what is interesting is that it does confirm, as suspected, that the Ambros Seelos Orchestra was involved.

It is possible you may have come across the Ambros Seelos Orchestra via one of the In-Kraut collections Marina has put out in recent years, or there was another comp called Achtung! of swingin' German big band grooves which included Ambros' fantastically funky workout on Mabusso. My own favourite of Ambros' works which I've heard has to be the title track of his 1968 Fire LP. You'll know the song of course, but not this scorching ska/soul version. From the same LP comes Swingle Beat, written by Sylvester Levay (or Lysy) who was really the hero of The Archaeology of An Abandoned Soul Single. And if you like the Ambros Seelos sound then check out this CD, Inspirations of London which features some decidedly swingin' tracks.

And for a bit of big band action with a German connection you can't do much better than this ...