Oma Heard Stuck Up

Northern Soul fans have always been deeply fascinated by the never ending treasure chest of

unreleased jewels in the Motown catalogue. But this must surely be the best yet. Written by Motown

songwriters Chester Pipkin and Gary Pipkin, who worked out of Motown’s west coast o$ce, “Stuck-

Up” was a serious attempt to replace Mary Wells after she left the company.

Oma Heard recorded a lot, including a duet album with Marvin Gaye, but was unceremoniously

dropped because Berry Gordy claimed she didn’t look the part because of her physicality. Chester

and Gary could not bear to waste such a wonderful song, so they gave it to Shirley Gunter on

Tangerine records for a 1966 release on a major label, owned by Ray Charles. The Shirley Gunter

version is one of the rarest and most sought after records on the Northern Soul scene, fetching a

minimum of £500 a copy.

Finally, a few years ago, the original Oma Heard version surfaced on a CD of unreleased Motown.

Although the Motown original has had little exposure, Ian Levine, a recognised authority on Motown,

considered this to be the number one unreleased, best ever glorious classic Tamla-Motown single of

all time. After being so unceremoniously dumped, Oma later returned to Motown as part of the

group Dorothy, Oma, and Zelpha. Now released on a vinyl 45 for the ;rst time in history, it is on the

Motown subsidiary label V.I.P. which looks the same as the one and only actual 45 release from Oma

Heard “Lifetime Man”. The B side is the original version of the Carolyn Crawford classic “When

Someone’s Good To You”, which was ;rst released in England on the Stateside label in 1964