Joey Irving & Just Us - There's a Man on SOUL7

Joey Irving & Just Us was a Canadian act that released a couple of 45s on various small labels but never really attained any notoriety. ‘There’s a Man’ is a cover of the original version by Leroy lane & the Upstairs Maids, an uptempo dancer that hints to the funky side of Northern Soul. The original issue of this 7” rarity was pressed in Belgium on the Baltic label, supposedly because Baltic was a label that pressed "everything nobody else wanted to press" (those are the label owner's very words!) such as Flemish chanson and elevator music.

One of Baltic's contacts was a businessman from Canada who'd fly over every 6 months with a suitcase of master tapes looking for deals. One day he brought along a reel by Joey Irving & Just Us, who was unable to get a contract in the US or Canada. Baltic took a chance, pressed them up, and issued it in Belgium with a picture sleeve on their Baltic label and also their subsidiary Golden Music. As you can imagine, funky soul stompers didn’t really go down very well with the chanson and elevator crowd, and the record bombed. Very few copies are known to this day, with original copies reaching several hundred £££.