Every week or so I put the ’5 star’ playlist on my ipod on shuffle and write about the first shuffled track that comes on…

The Place by The Action is an unusual track because what sets it apart from almost every song in my collection is that on the CD ‘The Ultimate Action’ that the track is on, the writer is billed as unknown?
The Action were formed in 1963 and were heavily associated with the Mod sub-culture in the UK at the time and to be honest I’m a sucker for anything Mod.
By 1965 they were signed to Parlophone, and as well as being on the same label as The Beatles they were being produced by George Martin. They played a kind of ‘Acid Soul’ or ‘Pop Soul’ were great musicians and their frontman, Reg King, was blessed with one of the great unsung voices (sorry) of the 60s and 70s. He had a voice of real emotion and when you hear him sing he means it…but that’s for another blog.
Despite critical acclaim none of their singles achieved chart success in the UK, their highest position was 47 with a cover of The Marvelettes, I’ll Keep on Holding on. No singles chart success in those days meant you didn’t record an album.
The Place was recorded sometime in 1966 and when I did a bit of research for this blog I found it wasn’t written by by ‘unknown’ at all but by someone called Jack Hammer. Obviously, whoever did the sleevenotes for the ‘Ultimate Action’ was a bit lazy or had something against power tools.
Thematically it’s a bit like ‘Let the Music Play’ by Barry White. A guy has split up with his girl but he’s too embarrassed to tell his friends at the club, simply the song has the ability to make me jerk my head like a chicken, with it’s driving beat, tight harmonies and cool jangling riff and you can’t get better than that!
The Action split up in 1968, Reg King went on to record one classic eponymous album, which was recently re-released and the rest of the band found Islam and went on to record some great psychedelic rock as Mighty Baby…but both of these are for another blog…