From Failure to Success: The History of 'Nothing But A Heartache' by The Flirtations

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#theflirtations #soulmusic #nothingbutaheartache #tobytwirl #1960smusic #petebest This is the untold story of the 1960s soul classic 'Nothing But A Heartache' by The Flirtations. After initial failures, two rock n roll musicians from Northern England and an R'n'B group from South Carolina come together to create a huge hit record. But is their most famous song actually taken from an obscure 7" single released four months earlier?
Wayne Bickerton and Tony Waddington originally played in a band with former member of The Beatles, Pete Best but failed to hit big during the 1960s 'British Invasion' of rock bands in America. At the same time, soul music group The Gypsies were struggling to make their mark at home and moved to the UK to capitalise on the flourishing Northern Soul movement which embraced their records. After Bickerton snd Waddington returned to London, they began writing for bands on the Decca record label, including a single for Toby Twirl called Romeo & Juliet. Did this seed the idea for what would become The Flirtations biggest hit?
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Опубликовано:

3 июл 2024

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Комментарии : 62

@sonnimonni2482 Месяц назад

Wow, what an interesting story with a distant Beatles connection!

@JupiterThunder 6 месяцев назад

I always wondered how these three ladies from South Carolina ended up at Tintern Abbey in the Wye valley! The song is great, it's just sooo 60s.

@imbabythecat 2 месяца назад

Thank you for this story! It’s always great to know some more rock history!

@Classicrocker6119 6 месяцев назад

This track is an absolute classic! I first heard of it being used as an intro and extro on an overnight American radio show hosted by Art Bell.

@trevorpyle6613 6 месяцев назад

One of my all time favourite tracks. The Flitations and the writers/producers were a marriage in heaven. Thanks for telling the story. Great stuff!

@moogdome2562 6 месяцев назад

Fascinating. Love the song.

@rozchristopherson648 6 месяцев назад

Thanks for documenting the history of this great song.

@kurtl4761 5 месяцев назад

I DID notice the similarities between the Toby Twirl and Flirtations singles as soon as I heard "Romeo & Juliet,", and a record collector directed me here to your video. Thanks for the info.

@markg5968 5 месяцев назад

Hi My uncle was Wayne Bickerton ,loved to see all the clips you put together. as a kid growing up through the 60's & 70's thought this music was good realise now how good it was. Thanks for all your efforts 😀

@brockreynolds870 6 месяцев назад

Amazing song, and they have a great catalog worth lsitening to. "Someone Out There" is also a great song!

@FriendofDorothy 7 месяцев назад

It's a truly great single that should've been a huge hit here in the USA. It still sounds great! However, I was disappointed to find I didn't like most of the other tunes from their greatest hits compilation. "Nothing But a Heartache" stood out starkly amidst a bunch of other tunes that were blandly pop and sounded like the kinds of songs Petula Clark sang in the '60s (but were not as good as Petula's) If The Flirtations had had another couple of songs as strong and soulful as "Nothing But a Heartache" they would've been a girl group to contend with. Thank you for posting this video.

@nancyfoster4599 7 месяцев назад

Thanks for sharing such a cool story. Nothing But A Heartache was a big song in the 60''s Revival Dance scene in Boston starting around 2000 with DJ Vinny and O Pandora's Box. The scene grew iin.Soulelujah which as fast as I know it still popular today.

@eifionwynwilliams-iffy1288 5 месяцев назад

One thing you did miss and forgot to mention, was that 'Stronger than her love' by the Flirtations was a massive hit on the northern scene. It flashed past but you failed to mention easily one of the best northern tracks ever recorded imho. KTF!

@transport-radio 5 месяцев назад

Thanks! Great track, and would have fitted nicely into the Northern Soul reference in this video!

@themoviedealers 6 месяцев назад

As a collector of UK psych pop, I had heard the Toby Twirl song but not the Flirtations song. Believe it or not.

@PtolemyJones 6 месяцев назад

Never even heard of it, and I was kid when it came out. We listened to a lot of soul in our household too.

@user-sq4jz9up6g 6 месяцев назад

I was in Nam when it came out We loved it and the Girls were really cute ❤

@stephensutcliffe1555 6 месяцев назад

Thank you very much for the upload it is very much appreciated.I knew nothing about the toby twirl track.

@xwsftassell 6 месяцев назад

I had a beer with them at The 100 Club.

@user-sq4jz9up6g 6 месяцев назад

A big hit in Vietnam in 68 Radio Saigon played it all the time and the girls were cute too

@dikelly54 Месяц назад

Wonderful history -- Thank you so much for putting this together! Just one more similarity with the Twirls "Romeo & Juliet" - what do you think of "Pictures of Matchstick Men" by Status Quo? I think that is more similar to the Twirls song than "Nothing but a Heartache." What do you think?

@curtbonnell4308 3 месяца назад

Motown was, along with the British artists, the soundtrack of the 60's. So many excellent groups on the Motown roster.

@rgator41 7 месяцев назад

I agree, for music it was fantastic

@gnjp8340 6 месяцев назад

5th Beatle is usually the name given to Stuart Sutcliffe - guitarist who died from a brain hemorrhage in early days of the Beatles and later to producer George Martin and sometimes Billy Preston . Not many Beatles fans would rank Pete Best as the fifth Beatle .

@delsongalasinao706 12 дней назад

I hope the gen z rivive the sixties classic hit by the flirtation nothing but a heartache .make it more current that will trend on socmed and become a tiktok trend

@genefrominksplatrecords5915 7 месяцев назад

Good idea for a YT channel. Lots of songs "borrow" from others, some get caught, some don't. Berry Gordy said in an interview once he listened to local radio all the time, not for his releases, but to listen to the competition, so he could put cease & desists on anything that borrowed too heavily from Motown.

@transport-radio 7 месяцев назад

Thanks - more to come!

@colindayo 4 месяца назад

Berry didn’t do a very good job then, did he? There are countless Detroit made records that have that Motown sound but are on different labels. We’ve been digging them the UK for decades

@genefrominksplatrecords5915 4 месяца назад

@@colindayo I think he did a good job, otherwise those northern records with borrowed Motown riffs wouldn’t be as rare as they are, ie Freddie Chavez…

@colindayo 3 месяца назад

@@genefrominksplatrecords5915 I didn’t realise how aggressive he was. I found this on the Soul Source forum about Baby Reconsider: It's an original, was recorded in LA with Monarch just around the corner. Here's some trivia, the recording session started at 11.00pm and finished at 03.00am, was being played on the radio stations and going down well, then in steps Berry Gordy who told Fat Fish to pull the record or face a law suit, Gordy said it was plagiarism, sounding like "Just a little misunderstanding". Having just won a case against Curtis Mayfield for "Can't satisfy" they couldn't risk the business and did pull the record.

@1761Charlie 6 месяцев назад

Since I never heard the B-side of that other record (until just now), I did not make the connection. Here in the Colonies, The Flirtations were just another one-hit wonder.

@axxellein 6 месяцев назад

TRES Cool/Heavy

@kingcormack8004 5 месяцев назад

Also sounds like Status Quo's "Pictures of Matchstick Men".

@Adi-Dassler 7 месяцев назад

I can hear a tiny bit of the main melody in Scorpio Rising by Death in Vegas.

@marclemonmusic 6 месяцев назад

Great record, same chord sequence as Pictures Of Matchstick Men

@genefrominksplatrecords5915 7 месяцев назад

Check out similarity between Mighty Sam "Good Humor Man" and the theme tune to True Blood, Jace Evertt's "Bad Things"...

@dave20thmay 6 месяцев назад

There was also Tina Turner who came to the UK to restart her career after leaving Ike. So maybe not so strange that The Flirtations could do the same. Best Dave

@noscrubbubblez6515 6 месяцев назад

Nothing but a song waiting to be used in the next Bond movie. The first Black Bond movie.

@fs.pureblood 6 месяцев назад

Bond is dead so no matter who plays 007 they will never be Bond.

@ericwangler2710 7 месяцев назад

Just found out Chuck Berry's song Sweet Little Sixteen was copied by the Beach Boys for Surfin' USA.

@transport-radio 7 месяцев назад

Yes entirely copied - originally without credit, then later on Berry got full royalties.

@williammccracken5654 6 месяцев назад

Loved it since I was 11 in Toronto.

@mkruup 6 месяцев назад

Never noticed, to me they are totally different.

@burrburr6816 7 месяцев назад

Never heard it

@michaelmitchell5098 7 месяцев назад

Very slight similarity. And the Flirtations weren’t all the big in the states. They got more shine as the Gypsies in New York.

@Oldpigsass 6 месяцев назад

Or the biggest rip off: 1993's "Macarena" and 1939's "T'ain't What You Do (It's the Way That You Do It" by Sy Oliver.

@frankanderson3503 6 месяцев назад

Unknown in the Uk.

@bobbytreetop1701 5 месяцев назад

Wrong .

@CoconutDreams123 6 месяцев назад

"You ask people to name their favorite 60's soul tune, this song will come up every time." Uh, not saying it's not an ok song, but no it won't ... 🙄

@colindayo 4 месяца назад

Yes, you’re right. Don’t know anyone who would mention it in the same breath as a Linda Jones etc

@dobs407 3 месяца назад

it does come up all the time?

@wmbeam211 7 месяцев назад

@lindaeasley5606 6 месяцев назад

I don't know if they were based in England but they were Americans from South Carolina. This was a good song but it did not become a big hit. It failed to peak higher than #31 in any of the 4 countries it charted in

@steveworthington930 4 месяца назад

No soul clubs in Liverpool pal.

@johnnyhmash 6 месяцев назад

Like a litany of dross.This is what happens if you get kicked out the Beatles. Someone you played with wrote a shocker for a cra* provinces band then cannibalised it as a tuneless soul b side.Ripe for Northern soul adoration and it all ended with the execrable Sugar Baby Love.There's a message for us all I reckon.

@garethde-witt6433 6 месяцев назад

Never heard of it before kind of happy about that it’s rather awful

@user-uw4cx9mk4j 6 месяцев назад

Not quite nice to made such a great thing out from nothing! Both songs didn't sound that equal. So more or less a fake to create this here contribution. So I would say a kind of disgracefull stuff which totaly dissapointed me.