{"id":7598,"date":"2019-03-24T06:50:18","date_gmt":"2019-03-24T11:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=7598"},"modified":"2019-03-24T06:50:26","modified_gmt":"2019-03-24T11:50:26","slug":"florence-ballard-forever-faithful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=7598","title":{"rendered":"Florence Ballard – Forever Faithful"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Example\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

Florence Ballard <\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Example\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

Listen\/Download – Florence Ballard – Forever Faithful MP3<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Greetings all.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Every once in a while, if you\u2019re lucky, you\u2019ll encounter a record that sets you right back on your heels.<\/p>\n

\u2018Forever Faithful\u2019 by Florence Ballard<\/strong> is one of those.<\/p>\n

A few years back, Gene Meredith<\/strong> was kind enough to invite me to come up and spin at the Steel Stax Soul Club.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As is the case every single time I\u2019m lucky enough to spin with someone with good taste and a heavy collection, my ears were wide open and my want list ready to update.<\/p>\n

When Gene dropped the needle on \u2018Forever Faithful\u2019 I got chills up and down my spine.<\/p>\n

Here we have a record that is both a great dancer, but also possessed of a dramatic edge and filled from end to end with memorable hooks.<\/p>\n

\u2018Forever Faithful\u2019, written by Robert Bateman and James Wicker<\/strong>, and produced by Bateman (who has appeared in this space before as a frequent collaborator of Lou Courtney\u2019s), was Florence Ballard\u2019s final 45, about a year after leaving the Supremes<\/strong> and 8 years before she would pass away.<\/p>\n

The arrangement, opening with strings and angelic backing chorus, quickly adds pulsing bass and drums, and after a short verse, the absolutely beautiful chorus comes in, a perfectly constructed, economic work of art, perfectly engineered for Northern Soul dance floors.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately \u2018Forever Faithful\u2019 didn\u2019t catch on at the time of release. It\u2019s flipside, ‘Love Ain\u2019t Love\u2019 got airplay on a handful of Northeast pop stations, but doesn\u2019t appeared to have made any inroads on the R&B side of things.<\/p>\n

I hope you dig it as much as I do, and I\u2019ll see you all next week.<\/p>\n

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners<\/strong> on Instagram<\/strong><\/a>, Twitter<\/strong><\/a> and Facebook<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Keep the faith<\/strong><\/p>\n

Larry<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Example\"<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong> \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

________________________________________________<\/p>\n

If you dig what we do here or over at Funky16Corners, please consider clicking on the Patreon link and throwing something into the yearly operating budget!\u00a0Do it and we’ll send you some groovy Funky16Corners Radio Network (and related) stickers!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Example\"<\/a>
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Florence Ballard Listen\/Download – Florence Ballard – Forever Faithful MP3 Greetings all. Every once in a while, if you\u2019re lucky, you\u2019ll encounter a record that sets you right back on your heels. \u2018Forever Faithful\u2019 by Florence Ballard is one of those. A few years back, Gene Meredith was kind enough to invite me to come […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14,24,12,18],"tags":[254,164],"class_list":["post-7598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funky16corners","category-northern-soul","category-soul","category-soul-45","tag-45rpm","tag-soul"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMKgo-1Yy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7598"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7603,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7598\/revisions\/7603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}