||||Bold Soul Brother

The Emotions

Merry Xmas/Happy Holidays… and a big thanks to Mr Double Down for his great guest mix (which if you missed, you can still find here).

In between tackling the turkey and pigs in blanket leftovers I wanted to bring you a couple of festive tunes from the fantastic female vocals of The Emotions.

At the time of these recordings, on Volt, the members were Sheila Hutchinson, Wanda Hutchinson and Teresa Davis (a former member of Our Ladies Of Soul), but the band’s composition changed many times over the years:

Originally founded as the The Heavenly Sunbeams the original members were Sheila Hutchinson (born January 1953, Chicago, Illinois), Wanda Hutchinson (born December 1951, Chicago, Illinois) and Jeanette Hutchinson (born February 1951, Chicago, Illinois) the band had the following incarnati0ns: Three Ribbons & A Beau (Sheila Hutchinson, Wanda Hutchinson, Jeanette Hutchinson and their father Joe Hutchinson (born February 1931, Tennessee; died September 1985, Chicago, Illinois), The Hutch Stereos (Sheila Hutchinson, Wanda Hutchinson and Jeanette Hutchinson), The Sunbeams (Sheila Hutchinson, Wanda Hutchinson and Jeanette Hutchinson) and The Hutchinson Sunbeams (Sheila Hutchinson, Wanda Hutchinson and Jeanette Hutchinson) before finally settling on the name The Emotions during which time the members always included Sheila and Wanda Hutchinson with the third member changing between Teresa Davis, Jeanette Hutchinson, Pamela Hutchinson and Adrianne Harris.

The two tracks I drop today are two of my favourite Xmas picks (Santa Claus may be coming to town for the Jackson 5, but my needle will NEVER drop on that track!); both recorded during The Emotions time with Volt, and both are the vocal versions of the tracks (each was released with an instrumental version on the flip).

“Black Christmas” was recorded in 1970 and released as Volt 4053 and the melancholic  “What Do The Lonely Do At Christmas” was recorded in 1973 and released as Volt 4104.