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David Nathan: The British Ambassador of Soul Podcast

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by David Nathan

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With six decades-plus as a renowned scribe and author as 'The British Ambassador Of Soul,' David Nathan offers reflections, reminiscences and ruminations on soul music and matters of the soul and spirit... <a href="https://davidnathan.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">davidnathan.substack.com</a>

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Recent Episodes

June 21, 2026

REVISITING: FISH & CHIPS...AND CHICAGO SOUL ON A SUNDAY AFTERNOON...

This post is part of my ‘Living Memoirs’ This post was originally published on March 4, 2024. I’ve revised it for many of the subscribers who have graciously signed up since then and added audio. It seems fitting given this is Father’s Day in the US (June 21st 2026) Today’s been a different kinda Sunday. I had what my Dad used to say was a ‘lie-in’. My father Mark Nathan worked on Saturdays from early morning when he would prepare the big pans from the massive vats of oil for frying fish and chips until it was time for the shop above which we lived on Kilburn High Road in NW London to open. He’d take a break in the mid-afternoon when the shop and restaurant that was part of the popular eaterie (frequented by pop stars of the day and future music legends who would record at Abbey Road and Decca studios in the area - think Beatles, Rolling Stones, etc.) was closed. Think of a siesta without the attendant sunshine! By 5pm, he’d be back behind the counter, making piping hot chips (and not the skinny ‘French’ fries that became popular in the years that followed but the original chunky kind) and frying fish to perfection…The record player on which I would wear out my favourite R&B and soul 45s and LP tracks - Dionne Warwick, Martha & The Vandellas, Lou Johnson, Baby Washington, Ketty Lester and others - was originally in my parents’ bedroom. Sunday mornings, out of respect for my hard-working Dad’s need for extra sleep and a ‘lie-in,’ I would refrain from blasting tunes although I have a very strong memory of asking him if I could play tracks from one of my then-most treasured possessions, the high-priced import LP, “Forbidden Fruit” by Nina Simone, just a few months before I started the UK appreciation society for her… “I really like the jazz on that record,” my Dad responded, listening to Nina’s soothing tones on tunes like “I’ll Look Around,” “No Good Man” and “I Love To Love.” I smiled and flipped the LP over for more Simone stylings, “Where Can I Go Without You,” “Just Say I Love Him,” “Memphis In June” as my father rested from the late Saturday night where more than a few less-than-sober guys from the Irish pub next door had kept the shop open till midnight…Fast forward to today’s Sunday ‘lie-in’ many decades later which ended around noon. Time to do some house chores and then the lurking question: do I give in to hankering for some fish-and-chips on this particular Sunday? I kept telling myself that I have enough food in the flat but the desire for the very British dish is too strong: ‘Temptation ‘bout to get me…’I walk part of the way to the shop in Victoria, earpods in, letting Spotify jump through my “‘60s Uptown Soul Favourites”. Love singing along a tune or two much to the likely bewilderment of those walking down Vauxhall Bridge Road since all they can hear is my melodic melismas with no idea of what I’m listening to!My yearning for fish and chips (not quite as amazing as my Dad’s from back in the day) is now satisfied after I reach one of London’s better fish-and-chip shops. The playlist has settled on a slew of amazing R&B anthems that just ‘happen’ to have originally been recorded in Chicago. Algorithms being what they are, a few other Windy City classics recorded at or for Chess Records are also providing a soul serenade for me on this Sunday leisurely stroll.“There ain’t room enough for two, in sharing your heart with someone new, whatever I do, it’s getting mighty crowded, I’m telling you!” opines Betty Everett with a song that provided her with a UK mid-sized pop hit in early 1965. Her erstwhile duet partner, ‘The Iceman’ Jerry Butler is pouring his cool-but-emotive feelings into “I Can’t Stand To See You Cry,” and I’m singing along with a tear-in-my-voice. Worth noting: both songs were penned by the super-brilliant Van McCoy who must have had more than a few heartbreak moments in his life given his lamenting lyricism…Mood change. Some of my absolute all-time and forever faves that were cut at Chess follow. I remember well that some of the songs I’m grooving to were included on a 1966 Chess/Checker LP, “Sing A Song Of Soul.” Billy Stewart’s been “Sitting In The Park,” Jackie Ross talkin’ “Selfish One,” Mitty Collier declares “I’m Satisfied” and then two choones that are ever and ever dear, The Radiants with “Voice Your Choice.” The Knight Brothers’ “Temptation ‘Bout To Get Me.” It still does…As I head towards the bus stop, Major Lance shares… “Walking through the park, it wasn’t quite dark, there was a man sitting on a bench…” And in sync with him, I too sing out, ‘Um, Um, Um, Um, Um’…I realize just how totally brilliant so much of this Chicago soul music of the ‘60s is and how it shaped my teen years and beyond. The wonderful arrangements, the amazing vocals and production. I end my Sunday mid-afternoon journey with Gene Chandler’s unbelievable vocal masterpiece “I Fooled You This Time” (to which I do not sing along!) and a ditty from Johnny Nash, “Love Ain’t Nothing (But A Monkey On Your Back)”…It might have been the lure of fish and chips and the ‘sense’ memory such a dish evokes of my father and his Sunday ‘lie-ins’ but give me a meal of Windy City soul classics anytime and it will surely provide satisfaction beyond, beyond…DAVID NATHAN: JUST MY SOUL RESPONDING... is a reader-supported publication. As you can tell, I love writing these posts! Your support makes a difference! Please consider becoming a subscriber.© 2026, David Nathan. All Rights Reserved Get full access to DAVID NATHAN: JUST MY SOUL RESPONDING... at <a href="https://davidnathan.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4">davidnathan.substack.com/subscribe</a>

May 30, 2026

REVISITED: 'SOUL' HAS NO COLOUR

In the autumn of 1962, a 23-year-old Dusty Springfield was on a visit to America en route to Nashville to make a country music album with the folk/pop trio, The Springfields with brother Tom and Tim Feild. The group had achieved success with the single, “Silver Threads And Golden Needles” which was the first single by a British group to reach the top 20 of the US Hot 100.“The Exciters sort of got you by the throat...out of the blue comes blasting at you ‘I know something about love’…” Springfield reportedly declared, “That’s what I wanna do”During a stopover in New York, per Wikipedia, while taking a late-night walk by the Colony Record Store on Broadway, Dusty heard a record that have a major impact on her musical direction: “Tell Him” by the group The Exciters was playing and she’d recall, “The Exciters sort of got you by the throat...out of the blue comes blasting at you ‘I know something about love’…” Springfield reportedly declared, “That’s what I wanna do” and by the time she began her solo career a year or so later, Dusty Springfield focused on making music with a pop-and-soul flavour.I recall a conversation with my dear friend Carl Bean some years ago during which he shared how he met Dusty during one of her first few visits to New York at a time when he was singing with the famed gospel group, The Alex Bradford Singers who were performing in the off-Broadway musical, “Black Nativity,” the same show that brought Madeline Bell to Britain in 1962. Carl had a vivid memory of taking Dusty (who he likely met through Madeline) to Harlem and specifically to The Apollo Theater and how she was thrilled to witness R&B hitmakers in action.1963 was a pivotal year in my teenage ‘discovery’ of the popular music of the day. The Beatles were everywhere and I knew that to be ‘included’ with my classmates at Kilburn Grammar School in N.W. London, my slowly-growing LP collection - subsidised by my pocket money from working at a sweet shop with the too-friendly-with-his-hands son of the family who owned it - might have to shift from film soundtracks that my parents bought (“West Side Story,” “South Pacific” and my all-time favourite, the 1956 epic, “The King And I”) and a few classical albums (Holst’s “The Planets,” Saint-Saens’ “Danse Macabre” and likely on an EP at the time, Ravel’s poignant “Pavane Pour Une Infante Defunte”) to less-lofty lilts like “All My Loving” and “Love Me Do”!The first two LPs by The Beatles included a plethora of cover versions of American R&B hits: “Please Mr. Postman” (The Marvelettes), “Money” (Barrett Strong), “Chains” (The Cookies), “You Really Got A Hold On Me” (The Miracles), “Twist & Shout” (The Isley Brothers) and “Baby It’s You” (The Shirelles), all providing Brit youngsters like me with the opportunity to hear music that the Fab Four themselves loved at a time when UK record companies did little to promote (or even release) the original recordings they licensed from the US labels who owned them.In some ways, I could ‘credit’ John, Paul, George & Ringo with ‘introducing’ me to R&B through their covers of US R&B hits and in hindsight, it’s not accidental that my first experience of a live show was at the venue next door to where I lived in October 1964 when their special guest was one, Mary Wells! I shared about the experience on a <a target="_blank" href="https://davidnathan.substack.com/p/my-first-concert-the-beatles-and-8b0">previous Substack post.</a>In November 1963, “I Only Want To Be With You,” Dusty’s first single as a solo artist, was released and I recall how quickly it became one of my personal favourite records of the day.As a fifteen-year-old, I was experiencing ‘puppy love’ and infatuation over red head Marilyn Woolf, a pupil at the girls’ school across the street from Kilburn Grammar School: I would dote on her when I would see her walking down the street (future shades of a Hal David lyric that would be the catalyst for my embrace of soul music just months later….think Dionne, “Walk On By”)…By April 1964, “A Girl Called Dusty” was beginning its ascent up the UK album charts while afore-mentioned Dionne Warwick’s “Walk On By” was also starting its journey as a British pop hit - and as noted in <a target="_blank" href="https://davidnathan.substack.com/p/60-years-ago-i-bought-a-record">my last Substack post</a> (“60 Years Ago I Bought A Records”), my ‘official’ journey into the world of American R&B and soul music began.You can check out Dusty's first solo album <a target="_blank" href="https://open.spotify.com/album/1ulDMEpgJC1L4W05dMyqHl?si=04ytGToISlaS6FK657xGmg">here</a>It’s amazing looking at the list of twelve tracks on the British version of that first Dusty Springfield LP: it’s entirely made up of Dusty’s versions of a range of US hits such as “Mama Said” and “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” both originally recorded by The Shirelles; “When The Lovelight Starts Shining Thru His Eyes” (from The Supremes); “You Don’t Own Me” (Lesley Gore); “Mockingbird” (by Inez & Charlie Foxx); and no less than three compositions from Burt Bacharach & Hal David, “Wishin’ & Hopin’” and “Anyone Who Had A Heart,” both originally cut by Dionne (less, we might add, than a few months after the famous UK ‘chart battle’ between Dionne and Cilla Black!); and “Twenty-Four Hours From Tulsa” which had been a UK Top 10 hit for Gene Pitney in January 1964.The only track on “A Girl Named Dusty” that doesn’t seem to have been recorded by any other artist was “Nothing” which we can surmise - from comments on various interviews about Dusty’s early visits to New York - was a song she got from songwriters at the famous Brill Building, ‘home’ for tunesmiths like Carole King & Gerry Goffin and afore-mentioned Burt & Hal.Dusty’s ability to bring her innate soulfulness to her music was often downplayed in the UK, in particular by ‘purists’ who always contended that ‘the original is always the best.’While I was often on the side of the contingent who felt like UK artists were not bringing the same authentic feeling to their cover versions of American R&B tracks (think The Moody Blues’ “Go Now” versus original by Bessie Banks, The Rolling Stones’ “It’s All Over Now” versus The Valentinos and, of course, The Animals’ “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” written for and first recorded by Nina Simone), I clearly felt Ms. Springfield was different, even in 1964!Indeed, I was referencing Dusty in the same ‘breath’ as Dionne and using the term ‘soul’ which may indeed have been my own first published penning of the word!This extended unplanned Substack piece on Dusty was prompted by a BBC radio interview I did on Sunday (May 19th, 2024) celebrating the 60th anniversary of the release of her first LP - alas with a somewhat unprepared broadcaster who referenced her having been the first British artist signed to Motown, a fact I had to correct live on the air by informing him that she was signed to Atlantic Records, home to one of her musical idols, Aretha Franklin. (Research reveals that she met Aretha in early 1969 when Dusty was doing new vocals for her Atlantic debut, “Dusty In Memphis” which contained “Son Of A Preacher Man,” a song originally intended for Aretha who initially rejected it and subsequently did a version after Dusty’s became a US Top 10 hit - go figure!).I shared during my brief BBC interview about the only time I met Dusty Springfield in person. It was circa the late ‘80s when she was living in West Hollywood and I was living in the mid-Wilshire area of L.A.: I remember having my hair cut at a unisex salon by a friend of mine in a small street off of Melrose Avenue and in conversation, she mentioned that there was another British person having their hair done at the same time.“I think she’s a singer….her name is Dusty something” were the words my hair stylist was uttering!I immediately asked her to stop cutting my curly locks!I was on the left side of the salon and Dusty Springfield was on the right. I was nervous about saying hello to her - which may seem strange when I reflect that I had spent hours upon hours over the preceding years in the homes of Aretha, Dionne, Luther, Maurice White and others and by 1987 or thereabouts, I had established myself as bonafide scribe in the world of R&B and soul music.I gingerly walked to where Dusty was sitting: “Excuse me, Miss Springfield,” I proffered timidly, “I’m also from Britain and I just want to let you know that I grew up listening to your music!”While she might have been a little taken aback by being acosted in a hair salon by a ‘fan,’ she smiled. “Really?” I quickly added that I’d known Vicki Wickham (her longtime friend and oftimes manager) for many years - in fact from 1965 when I first went to the studios of “Ready Steady Go!” with Nina Simone - and Dusty beamed. “You know Vicki? “I might have gushed a little in letting Dusty know that my all time favourite recordings of hers included “Some Of Your Lovin’” and she remarked that it was also one of her own favourites - although my reason had much to do with the slow dance I did with my then-new boyfriend William on our second date in the summer of 1967!I mentioned her cover version of the Randy Newman song, “I’ve Been Wrong Before” (from her second UK LP, “Ev’rything’s Coming Up Dusty”) which had also been recorded by Cilla Black in 1965. She nodded, maybe a sign of recognition that we both might have found some validity in the title and lyrics of the song.Conscious of our surroundings and both of us were in mid-hair-cut, I told her my name and asked her if she would let Vicki know we’d met before I bade her a fond farewell.When I look back, I think of the countless conversations we might have had about our mutual love for R&B and soul music; about how she had played a significant role in my personal journey with mid-‘60s recordings like “I Wish I’d Never Loved You” (still an all time fave), “In The Middle Of Nowhere” and “All Cried Out”; about my own career as a dedicated music journalist and meeting so many of the artists we both admired such as Aretha (whose “Won’t Be Long” Dusty had covered in 1965); about my longstanding friendship with Doris Troy, who sang backgrounds with Madeline Bell and others during recording sessions in London also in the ‘60s; how much I enjoyed her work with Jerry Wexler, Tom Dowd & Arif Mardin and later, with Thom Bell, Gamble & Huff; and how my favourite‘70s recordings included the stunning soul tune, “Who Gets Your Love” from her underrated “Cameo” LP.Literally, I could have spent hours with Dusty Springfield given our mutual longtime love affair with music. Those few minutes in the hair salon remain precious; the BBC interview-gone-bad on Sunday May 15th 2024 served unwittingly to remind me of just how important Dusty Springfield’s soulful contribution has been in my life.She exemplifies through her timeless recordings that soul (as in soul music or indeed the Soul itself) has no colour.© 2026, David Nathan, All Rights ReservedDAVID NATHAN: JUST MY SOUL RESPONDING... is a reader-supported publication. Your subscription encourages me to keep providing posts such as this…and more! With soulful appreciation and gratitude! Get full access to DAVID NATHAN: JUST MY SOUL RESPONDING... at <a href="https://davidnathan.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4">davidnathan.substack.com/subscribe</a>

May 26, 2026

SOUL TALKIN' WITH JOHN LEGEND: "WAKE UP!" IS AS TIMELY AS EVER...

In September 2010, David Nathan ('The British Ambassador Of Soul') reconnected with John Legend to talk about his "Wake Up!" album with The Roots. Six years had passed since their first meeting in 2004, when David interviewed John for his record company bio for his "Get Lifted" debut album. Much had happened in between for John, by 2010 a global hitmaker with multi-platinum albums, hit singles and Grammy Awards galore...Check the "Wake Up!" album<a target="_blank" href="https://open.spotify.com/album/06UOP7uyZN8AIYH6U20VkP?si=BjPbR7_eRA2G8bkWhVuUPQ"> here</a> Get full access to DAVID NATHAN: JUST MY SOUL RESPONDING... at <a href="https://davidnathan.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4">davidnathan.substack.com/subscribe</a>

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What is David Nathan: The British Ambassador of Soul Podcast?: With six decades-plus as a renowned scribe and author as 'The British Ambassador Of Soul,' David Nathan offers reflections, reminiscences and ruminations on soul music and matters of the soul and spirit... <a href="https://davidnathan.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">davidnathan.substack.com</a>
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Where can I listen to this podcast?: This podcast is available on 4 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.
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