Little Ann: The northern soul star who took 30 years to be heard
In the fast-moving world of the music industry, some voices, recordings, and artists, no matter how talented, are bound to become lost in the chaos. Back in the 1960s, that was the fate that befell Chicago soul singer Little Ann.
Unlike those countless other voices whose dreams of musical stardom would never be realised, though, Ann simply had to wait a few decades before audiences became aware of her excellence.
Little Ann’s story begins, as all great soul stories do, during the golden age of the 1960s. With Motown Records dominating the singles charts week on week, and countless tiny independent labels propping up the funk, soul, and R&B scenes of virtually every city across the United States, you could hardly move for soul records in 1960s America.
Growing up in Michigan, Ann Bridgeforth had been singing soul since her childhood, but in 1968 her talents took her to Detroit’s cult label, Ric-Tic Records. Having established some of the greatest soul stars of all time, from Edwin Starr to JJ Barnes, Ric-Tic was developing rapidly during that period, so much so that Motown boss Berry Gordy sought to end their competition with Motown by purchasing Ric-Tic and its entire roster of artists.
While that sale led the likes of Edwin Starr down an entirely new, prosperous path, it left some of Ric-Tic’s less prominent artists by the wayside. Little Ann had recorded only one single for the label, ‘Going Down A One-Way Street (The Wrong Way)’, and it hadn’t been much of a success in any commercial sense. As such, she was not sought out by Motown, and her music career ended there and then…or so it was thought.
Prior to going back to her everyday life, Little Ann had recorded an entire album’s worth of material with the legendary soul producer, Dave Hamilton. For whatever reason – perhaps they became victims of Ric-Tic’s merger with Motown – those tapes sat unused, gathering dust in Hamilton’s attic for multiple decades, never destined to be heard.
Despite the shelving of those tapes, though, Little Ann’s story was only just beginning. When the northern soul scene emerged from the industrial towns and cities of northern England, rare and forgotten soul records, like Ann’s Ric-Tic-era single, were suddenly reappraised and coveted by this new generation of soulies.
An acetate of one of Little Ann’s unreleased songs, ‘When He’s Not Around’, made its way onto the northern soul circuit during the early 1980s, from rather mysterious origins, and that helped to establish Little Ann’s name within the rare soul scene. However, not even the most obsessive of soulies could have imagined the treasures lying unused in Dave Hamilton’s archives.
Then, in the 1990s, Richard Gilbert and Ace Records were given access to Hamilton’s tapes, including his Detroit era recordings and, crucially, a litany of previously unheard tracks by Little Ann; soul’s best kept secret was finally out there for all to hear.
Ace Records went on to issue these recordings on an album, Detroit’s Secret Soul, and the track ‘Who Are You Trying To Fool?’ was plucked out for a single release on their Kent Records imprint. Inevitably, the northern soul obsessives who had coveted those few available Little Ann records for decades immediately pounced on those fabled new recordings, and suddenly tracks like ‘Who Are You Trying To Fool?’ infiltrated the enduring northern soul scene.
Little Ann proved so popular within the scene, in fact, that she was found and flown over to the United Kingdom to perform for her niche and newly-established audience, shortly before her untimely death in 2003, at the age of just 57.
Although she had spent the majority of her life a virtual unknown, Little Ann got the chance to witness her resurgence and colossal impact within the northern soul scene in real time, and her influence continues to this very day, where various Kent reissues mean that you still hear ‘Who Are You Trying To Fool?’ at northern soul nights up and down the nation.
Not bad for a few old tapes that were once gathering dust.
