Listen: You Can Do Magic / Limmie & Family Cookin’ Limmie.mp3

Another UK hit from my summer ’73 spent in London. I’d wait for this one to come on the radio – couldn’t hear it enough. The English programmers loved US formula soul, still do. It wasn’t a huge hit back home. Not so in Britain, reaching #3 during July. Very much a daytime airplay staple, I’d always hear it doing my daily troll through the used/promo record stalls along Rupert and Berwick Streets, blaring out of all the vendor’s radios. Remember, there was only one pop station then, Radio 1, and no cassettes really – therefore everyone listened to the same thing.

Roger Armstrong and I sat at an outdoor cafe on Berwick Street and had tea a year or two back during the May bank holiday long weekend when I was over on some business. It was on the Monday. Soho was deserted, a true flash back to the days when the area wasn’t crowded and full of tourists, like in ’73. Do it sometime if you can.

‘You Can Do Magic’ is ripe to be revived. I bet it could do for someone what ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’ did for Kiki Dee & Elton John, making a perfect duet.