Betty Everett – Getting Mighty Crowded

 

It wasn't obvious when Princess Diana complained that,

There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded

that she was citing Van McCoy and Betty Everett from 1964. Neither did her doe-eyed complaint about her misadventure into the royal family have quite the same resonance. It was emotive, to be sure, but a different thing entirely to this self-possessed statement.

Betty Everett was one among many such singers that hopefully haven't been entirely forgotten about but it's mighty crowded in the Northern Soul Hall of Fame and they can't all be as famous as Aretha. There was Freda Payne, Doris Troy, Timi Yuro, Brenda Holloway and as many more as you could want.

Getting Mighty Crowded suddenly became the stand-out choice of what to open the Soul Show with. Defiant, positive and dance floor certainty, it sets the tone and makes it clear that is how we mean to carry on.