And yet another legendary Northern Soul smash, that we filmed for The Strange World Of Northern Soul. This is The United Four, singing "She's Putting You On". The United Four were Weldon Arthur McDougall's group, created for his record label, Harthon Records. Weldon was the leader of The Four Larks, who recorded "Grooving At The Go Go", and as label owner he created various other groups to record in Philadelphia in the 1960s. Weldon's own group, The Four Larks were basically the original classic Philly doo-wop group, The Larks, with a girl vocalist added to the original trio. The production company, Harthon was a cooperative effort between Weldon McDougal, Luther Randolph and Johnny Styles, Harthon (as a label and production house) created some of the most memorable soul singles out of Philly (or anywhere for that matter) in the 1960's. Efforts by Eddie Holman, The Volcanos, Lee Garrett, Larry Clinton, Bernard Williams and the Blue Notes, The Philly Four, and the Cooperettes made Harthon a force to be reckoned with (and a major force on Northern Soul playlists). One of the best remembered groups from the Harthon stable was The United Four, who released a series of 45's on the label, the best known is the classic 'She's Putting You On'. With the ace songwriting/arranging of Tom Bell these 45s are some of the finest Harthon-related sides. There's a very particular sound at work here, in which the customary building blocks of 60's soul are complemented by flavors of progressive pop and rock (which considering how much the Motown sound contributed to the sound of 60's pop sees things coming full circle). When we worked with Weldon on finding classic Philly artists for our documentary, and he truly was invaluable at this, he decided to find whoever he could from the old United Four group, and put them back together again for a one and only one-time performance especially for us, in 1999.

Video providers : , and this video is stored with all copyright by