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The story of the Northern Soul classic 'What' by Bob Stanley.

Northern soul classic 'What' was initially recorded by Melinda Marx on the Vee Jay label in 1965. Melinda was a somewhat reluctant pop singer with a sweet but rather limited range - as she'd have been the first to admit – which was far better suited to the softer, mid-tempo flip side 'It Happens In The Same Old Way'. The high notes on 'What' found her straining a little, which may explain why soul fans prefer the b-side with its hints of Barbara Lewis and Dionne Warwick-like sophistication. Melinda cut one further single, 'East Side Of Town', before squirming out of recording duties which had been largely foisted upon her by her father, Groucho Marx.

It would be three years before Judy Street recorded the version of 'What' that became legendary at Wigan Casino. Judy Street had been born in Indiana in 1949; her father was a concert pianist and her mother a flautist. After she married a Mr Corner in the sixties she became Judy Street-Corner, but wisely used her maiden name as a singer. Her manager Conrad Bachman discovered her singing in a bar in Phoenix, Arizona, and asked her the classic question “do you want to be a star?” Unlike Melinda Marx, Judy Street very much did. What was recorded as the b-side to 'You Turn Me On' – the session was arranged by the song's writer HB Barnum, and Darlene Love and the Blossoms provided backing vocals.

Judy's version of 'What' appeared on the tiny Strider label and sold even fewer copies than the Melinda Marx version. Yet it was picked up by the Wigan Casino crowd, and found immortality when it featured in ITV's This England northern soul documentary, directed by Tony Palmer. A few years later the song was finally a hit when it was covered by northern soul nuts Soft Cell, who gave it an electro-pop brush-up, much as they had done with Gloria Jones' 'Tainted Love', and were rewarded with a no.3 hit in 1982.

Tony Palmer's documentary is well worth a watch, incidentally. Its footage of the dancers at Wigan Casino – notably a cheeky hospital laundry worker called Christine Rigby, dancing to the Judy Street 45 – is very precious; virtually no one else ever filmed inside the venue. A Hollywood producer took Palmer out for lunch shortly after it aired and pumped him for stories on Wigan; a little while later, the movie Flashdance appeared, with its main character seemingly based on Christine Rigby. None of the dancers in Flashdance are, I'd venture, as good as she was.