“Nothing But A Heartache”
Most Northern Soul staples began life in the States, but not this one: “We were all excited to be coming to London…”
by The Flirtations
WITH its punchy intro, unrelenting energy and glorious vocal harmonies, “Nothing But A Heartache” sounds like it was born in the soul hothouses of Memphis or Muscle Shoals. That’s certainly what many fans of Northern Soul thought when they took this minor US hit by The Flirtations from 1968 into their hearts in the mid-’70s. But “Nothing But A Heartache” was written by a pair of Liver pudlians and recorded in London by some of Britain’s best sessions musicians, among them Herbie Flowers and arranger Johnny Harris.
Those voices, though, are unmistakably American. The Flirtations are sisters
Earnestine and Shirley Pearce and Vie Billups (aka Pearly Gates). In conversation, the trio are every bit as vivacious as they appear on record. There’s good-natured teasing, overlapping chat and a lot of laughing as they recall moving to London and recording their signature song and its attendant video, which saw the women strutting around the ruins of Tintern Abbey in orange trouser suits.
The Flirtations were originally from South Carolina but moved to London in 1968 hoping to give their career a boost in the land of their beloved Beatles. After initially being billed as The Marvelettes, The Flirtations were adopted by Wayne Bickerton and Tony Waddington, who had worked with Pete Best before joining
Decca as songwriters and producers. Recognising that The Flirtations offered something very different to the general British pop scene, Bickerton and Waddington recorded a series of songs and singles that were collected on 1969 LP Sounds Like The Flirtations.
“Nothing But A Heartache” opened doors, taking The Flirtations on the road with Stevie Wonder in 1969. When Northern Soul DJs discovered the song in the 1970s, it kept the group in business, with regular shows at Northern Soul venues like Wigan Casino. It’s a tune that continues to find new fans, among them American producer Ben Rice, who became obsessed with “Nothing But A Heartache” to the extent that he put together a team of songwriters and musicians, among them Stevie Wonder and the Dap-Kings, to bring the women back into the studio – Abbey Road, no less – to record Still Sounds Like The Flirtations in 2024. “When I discovered ‘Nothing But A Heartache’, my world basically stopped,” he says. “It is the essence of Northern Soul.”