You could be holding in your hands an album, which was never heard at the time it was recorded. For over 30 years it was stored in the archive of record producer and musician Dave Hamilton, one of the unsung heroes of the Detroit soul scene. The box of reels was marked simply The Possible Little Ann Album.
The story of discovering the tracks featured on this album, some of which touch vinyl for the first time, is an interesting meeting of American and British soul music culture. In 1988, two British soul enthusiasts were sitting in Hamiltons house listening through a stack of old reels. One track in particular caught their ear. In fact they were floored with the discovery of hearing Little Anns What Should I Do blasting from the speakers. Even though it played slower, the song was familiar to them as the mysterious Rose Valentine fictitious cover up spin from Wigan Casino’s northern soul all nighters in the UK. The singers real identity had never been revealed, and the pair were amazed when Hamilton informed them that the voice belonged to Little Ann, an obscure artist who they knew had only one US release which was on the Ric Tic label.
Before Ann had entered the Ric Tic studios, she had been working on her material in a studio run by Darrell Goolsby and Dave Hamilton. Goolsby was a young singer and writer, who together with the more experienced Hamilton founded the Da Da Music Productions in the mid 60’s. In the Da Da studios Ann recorded all these album tracks, among them the original version of Going Down A One Way Street included on this album as I Got To Have You. But as her one actual release didnt go anywhere, the tapes remained unreleased in Hamiltons home until Ace Records came along and dug up these treasured