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Eddie Spencer


Eddie Spencer - You're So Good to Me Baby / If This Is Love (I'd Rather Be Lonely) - 7

You're So Good to Me Baby / If This Is Love (I'd Rather Be Lonely) - 7"
Arc - 1968


Michael Panontin
It may not be the first song that comes to mind when you think of northern soul. But once you get past the more obvious Wigan classics - from stone-cold floorshakers like Dobie Gray's 'Out on the Floor' and Bobby Hebb's 'Love, Love,Love' to those heart-shredding tearjerkers like Rita and the Tiaras' 'Gone With the Wind Is My Love', the Originals' 'Suspicion' or 'I Really Love You' by the Tomangoes - a strong case can be made for the Precisions' 'If This Is Love (I'd Rather Be Lonely)' as the greatest northern soul disc ever.

The Detroit group had already issued a couple of singles in the mid-sixties on the tiny D-Town label that for the most part went unnoticed. By 1966, however, they had made the switch over to the newly formed Sidra imprint, which operated out of a tiny one-story storefront at 18292 Wyoming Avenue up in the northwestern fringes of the 'D'. Sidra must certainly have seen the Precisions' potential; they created an entirely separate subsidiary label called Drew expressly for the release of the group's singles. And so after a couple of near misses, the Precisions made the record that would forever cement their names in the proverbial northern soul walk of fame.

'If This Is Love (I'd Rather Be Lonely)' came out in the dead of summer 1967, about a month or so after Detroit - and by extension much of the nation - had been torn apart by days of rioting throughout the city. Whether it was recorded before the violence or after is moot; the song is a cauldron of emotional intensity, from that iconic intro to those sweeping strings right through to Billy Prince's amazing vocal performance. Unfortunately, 'If This Is Love...' was not the nationwide smash that Sidra must have hoped it would be. The record limped to a modest #28 position on the Billboard R 'n' B chart, allegedly receiving a bit of airplay as far away as Cleveland and Chicago.

George McGregor, a much-in-demand session drummer at the time who made the jump over to musical director at Sidra in 1967, expressed his disappointment in a recent entry on the Soul Source site. "[Sidra] gave me a chance to recruit artists, write and produce, so I got right to it. We had the Precisions, Barbara Mercer, Timmy Willis and I used Mike Terry to arrange. The first thing we cut on the Precisions was 'Such Misery', which did okay locally, and then we had 'Why Girl'," he recalled.

"On the third release we kinda got hijacked 'cause Mike Valvano and Charlie Basaline came in and convinced the owners to cut one of their songs, 'If This Is Love (I'd Rather Be Lonely)', on the group. It should never have been released as the a-side - we should have gone with 'You'll Soon Be Gone'. We lost momentum. The Precisions were as good as the Temps and should have been a lot bigger than they were."

Interestingly, though, 'If This Is Love...' had better success up here in whitebread Canuckistan. A pressing on Stone managed to work its way into the top 30, scoring a #26 slot on the RPM chart for the week of November 18, 1967 (versus its anemic #60 showing on the Billboard Pop chart). In Toronto, the song sat for four weeks on the influential CHUM list, eventually settling at #35 on October 9, and this is most likely where a young singer named Eddie Spencer first heard it.

Spencer was part of that first wave of immigration from Jamaica to Toronto, a cohort that introduced ska, rock steady and reggae to the city and which included such heavy hitters as Leroy Sibbles, Alton Ellis, Johnnie Osbourne and Jackie Mittoo. Spencer made the trip in 1964 along with his bandmates in the Sheiks, who were looking to score a few gigs outside of Jamaica. Lead singer Jackie Opel didn't last long, hightailing it back home after his first taste of the Canadian winter. Spencer also left the group, and after a brief stint fronting the seven-piece Eddie Spencer and the Power, he decided to test the waters as a solo artist.

Spencer's first disc was a double-sided seven-inch for Arc featuring the uptempo dancer 'You're So Good to Me Baby' on one side and Spencer's recording of 'If This Is Love...' on the flip (which Arc labelled Side A and Side AX, respectively). RPM dutifully reported in the April 27, 1968 issue that "Eddie Spencer and the Mission are currently flying high with their latest Arc release 'You're So Good to Me Baby' and 'If This Is Love...'. They're now getting heavy exposure on Toronto's CKFH and picking up solid support in several of the important markets in the US." Other trade mags that month suggest that the record was getting played in Windsor, Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland, and even as far away as Pittsburgh. What's equally curious are the several references to a backing group called the Mission, when in fact it seems clear that 'If This Is Love...' features the same backing track as the Precisions recording (the occasional tweak of the bass bits notwithstanding).

While neither song raced up any chart in the aforementioned cities, 'If This Is Love...' did enjoy huge success in the seventies across the ocean in the Brit northern soul scene. Even today the punters are divided into two camps: those who prefer the Precisions' original version and those who go for Spencer's more pronounced vocal (and for what it's worth I sit very firmly in the former). As for Spencer, he would go on to record a couple of singles for the short-lived Goodgroove imprint (including the excellent 'Power of Love', which Spencer himself penned). 'If This Is Love...' and 'Power of Love' were reissued in Britain as a single on Power Exchange in the spring of 1976, just as the northern soul scene was at the peak of its popularity, thus ensuring that an obscure soul singer from the Great White North would live on for years to come.
         
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