Working Man's Soul is a compilation album of cabaret acts who plied their trade back in the Seventies - when Wheel Tappers and Shunters was primetime viewing.
It's proof that working men's clubs weren't all run by incompetent committees who booked hilariously awful entertainers.
The 15 acts gathered here really did know their chops. Some, like uber-drummer Eric Delaney, became household names. Others, like Dave Anthony, never made it past dinner dances at Bolton Casino.
The tracks are culled from privately pressed LPs that sold in such tiny numbers - often literally out the back of a van - that this music flew well beneath the pop culture radar.
They deserve better.
Take Work Song: the Nat Adderly standard is covered by Alan Randall in a searing piece of vibraphone jazz
howard byrom on an album that reminds us of when working- class culture was king
fresh enough to rinse the smell of beer and fags from a tinsel backdrop. Elsewhere, Carol Lee Scott (AKA: Grotbags the Witch) gives a lounge-style recital of That Little Bit of Love.
The man behind the music is Chris Malins, co founder of the cult music online resource Vinyl Vulture. He dismisses any suggestion of irony: "The socio-political history of working men's clubs is important. I come from a mining town, and the Thatcherite destruction of working-class communities still sticks in my throat. It's important to remember the social cohesion there was then, and see how much of that we've lost."
The launch party promises to heal Malins' wounds. Featuring the Bob Bernard Trio and a comic, it's being held at the newly-hip Bethnal Green Working Men's Club on December 11.
And they said variety was dead... Working Man's Soul is out on Monday from Licorice Soul
