If you didn’t live in the Philadelphia area, you might not know this Northern Soul classic, but it was all over WIBG in the summer of ’67. It also charted in New York and LA, but failed to break out nationally. It probably didn’t help that Harner was such a big draw at the Jersey Shore that he didn’t have to tour outside the region (he was the last headliner at Atlantic City’s Steel Pier). BTW, nobody seems to know anything about the obviously pseudonymous songwriters credited on the single as Sunshine-Poltergeist.
Harner was a Philly boy who took up singing and released his first record in 1964. An energetic live act that earned Harner the nickname “The Human Perkulator” proved hard to capture on vinyl, and despite a string of strong singles for Kama Sutra, he released only one LP, “She’s Almost You,” in 1969. This is the title track.
By the early ’70s Harner threw in the towel and opened a barbershop in Camden, N.J., where he was still working as of a couple of years ago, but he kept active on the oldies circuit from the ’90s onward.