Listen: It Should Have Been Me / Yvonne Fair YvonneFairShould.mp3

Taking a page right out of the Millie Jackson handbook, Yvonne Fair ripped into Norman Whitfield’s written and produced ‘It Should Have Been Me’. Taken from the equally powerful THE BITCH IS BLACK album, how the fuck this wasn’t a hit in America is just bewildering.

Scaling to #5 in the UK, it went unheard back home and it wasn’t like she was an unknown here. Cutting her teeth as a member of The Chantels and then The James Brown Review, she joined Motown in the early 70′s. Now this song certainly deserved a serious video, still does.

Listen: It Should Have Been Me / Kim Weston KimWestonShouldHaveBeenMe.mp3

‘It Should Have Been Me’, not surprisingly, has been covered a bunch, including by Gladys Knight & The Pips and most successfully, Yvonne Fair (see that post elsewhere on this blog). Just to quickly recap, the latter is a proper church style reading, all the more convincing via her gruff delivery. A true classic.

Little did I realize, Kim Weston’s first Tamla single was indeed the original version. Really nice find in Cleveland’s Beachland Ballroom record annex, you can imagine my eyes lighting up at the sight of it. There was a part of me that couldn’t get home fast enough to give this beauty a spin. Unfortunately, home at that moment was 460 miles east but luckily the shop’s customer turntable/headphone setup did just fine. What a surprise to hear Kim Weston sounding so unrefined, raspy, beautifully under produced, even shouty.

Word is she has a Detroit radio show. Good thing I didn’t know that when I was there. I’m a Kim Weston stalker.