A health warning for the purists, cover your ears, as this is a house
version of the Darrell Banks classic, "Open The Door To
Your Heart", by Kenny Hamber and covered by many. (I feel another Version Excursion brewing!)
To be fair, there is an "Original Soul Funk Mix" which is fairly faithful
to the original, and the "DJ Fella Re-Edit" is good, but I'm afraid the "DJ Spen & Reelsoul Radio Edit" doesn't do it for me as it's too club oriented!
Quite a bit was written about Kenny Hamber on the post for his last single, another cover, of The O'Jays' Used Ta Be My Girl" in Aug '22. It should come as no big surprise with Kenny covering this 60s classic, as his career dates back to the mid 60s recording from Philly's Arctic Records and many of his recordings have had exposure on the UK Northern Soul scene over the years.
Originally Banks took the song writing credits and submitted the song to BMI whilst the song's writer Donnie Elbert was on tour. The song is registered at BMI under Elbert's working title "Baby Walk Right In" and not "Open The Door To Your Heart". Elbert discovered what Banks had done after the song became popular and claimed that he actually wrote the song, and all Banks did was speed it up, so took legal action and won and subsequently his name appears alongside Darrell Eubanks'. It's Banks' only writing credit.
In a week where we wrote about Frank Wilson on his birthday, and the 'world's rarest soul record', the Darrel Banks single was issued in the UK on yellow London promos in 1966. It never got a full release as London Records did not have the rights to it so the release was pulled. It was subsequently released by EMI on their Stateside imprint. The only, so far, known London stock copy surfaced in 2014 and was auctioned in Dec 2014 selling for an estimated £14.5k.
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