Sterling Harrison

Lady Love

Lady Love as you can see was written by Mary Love (Comer) and her husband Bradford Comer. It was released in the UK on Rod Dearlove's own label Voices. If you haven't seen his excellent magazine I fully recommend it.

It looked at, in great detail, southern soul and independent US labels and when I was buying soul in the mid-late 80's it was second-to-none. I think at the time It was financed by Steve 'Interesting' Davis the snooker player.

I met Mary Love for a brief moment at a Cleethorpes Weekender in the early 90's for a photograph, she is such a light in the soul starry sky. Check-out my video clip on www.dailymotion/mickeynold in the 60's soul playlist. You can still find copies of the Stering Harrison 12" for a reasonable price, If not mine is for sale.

Sterling Harrison was born July 19th, 1941 and raised in Richmond, Virginia, and all he wanted to do from age 8 was be a singer. The Richmond of the ’50s and ’60s was a key chitlin-circuit stop, and Sterling was blessed to see everybody that was hot. Everybody came through Richmond Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, James Brown, Johnny Taylor, Wilson Pickett, Millie Jackson.

He saw ’em all, and performed with ’em all early on, Sterling Harrison entered talent contests, becoming a local Richmond fixture by the mid-’50s. Two promoters, Allen Knight and Tom Mitchell, took him under their wing, and put him on all the big shows. Sterling never smoked a cigarette, never got high, didn’t drink nothin’ stronger than cranberry juice.

He felt that you don’t get a second chance to make that first impression. He always wanted to be ready. Sterling would say " you gotta be patient in this business, but it’s just as important to be ready. Other than the obscure Real World label 1980 self-titled LP you'll only find two albums out there on the man, the first album was produced by Holland Dozier & Holland and you can find a nice version of their Back Tracking song.

KonKord's Two Way Love Affair and 2002's Sounds Of Soul release I'm Just Getting Started. Both are decent LPs but neither live up to his acclaimed live show. If you're a fan of live music then he left a fine collection of tracks on South Of The Snooty Fox, that shows Harrison was a cut above the average Soul/Blues journeyman. He died on August 21st, 2005. (http://www.kirbycarmichael.com/ & http://www.bluescritic.com/ )