Arthur Miles - Helping Hand 1990

ffrr Records FX 148

Produced by Pippo Landro and coming out of New Music, Milan, Helping Hand was a breath of fresh air at a time of experimental music. This is a good, old fashioned, soul belter. A fat, walking bass line and a vocal that's 'ruffer than the arse end of a pineapple'. Tracks like this don't come along often enough.

The interesting thing about this release was the flip side, Trippin' On Your Love. Holy Moly, it's that track again. I'm unable to tell you which came first because I don't have the release dates. I do know that I heard this version first because John Leech played it on the Essex FM Soul Show and mentioned A Way Of Life at the time.

Born in Indianapolis, Arthur Miles started his musical career in Los Angeles where the influence of his uncle, Wes Montgomery, and the most important jazz, soul and blues musicians of the time appearing at his father’s club 'Arthur’s', inspired him let music become his art.

Edwin Starr, Josè Feliciano, Big Joe Turner and Johnny Otis are but a few of the artists he has worked with. After touring USA, Canada, Japan and Europe he settled in Italy where his special voice quickly becomes one of the most requested in both recording studios and live shows. He worked with Zucchero and he appears on tv often. His hit single Helping Hand is still a favorite on radio playlists and Arthur Miles himself can be considered one of Italy's great pioneers of Gospel music.

• Helping Hand (Incisive Remix)
• Trippin' On Your Love (Club Remix)

The Download Link is here: Download
Filename: Arthur Miles.rar Filesize: 20.08 MB

Trivia:

There is some confusion over the writing credits of this tune. It was originally presented to The Staple Singers back in 1974 by Philip Mitchell. Smith & Rice were said to be Carl Smith & Mack Rice. The track was shelved when the Staples left Stax in 1975 but got a release in 1980 after the company had folded.

The Staple Singers 1980 album This Time Around on which the track was issued, was made up of various cancelled singles and un-issued or unfinished masters that were recorded between 1972 and 1974, and issued by Fantasy, who had bought the 'yellow' Stax catalogue in 1976 after the company went bankrupt.

To further confound the mystery both this release and the previous by A Way Of Life, credit Smith & Rice, as does I believe, the Kenny Thomas recording, but in all these instances, the writers were said to be Mike Smith & Linda Rice.

It turns out that the track is in fact written by Philip Mitchell himself and it was an unreleased 70's Muscle Shoals Sound recording and can be found on his own album Just The Beginning. Mitchell, of course, has been responsible for writing some outstanding songs for some equally outstanding artists over the years. He claims he wrote it specifically with Mavis in mind although she apparently hates it?
Tony Rounce & Garry Cape, Soul Source