Lee Dorsey’s fortunes altered dramatically when he ran into Allen Toussaint at a New Orleans party. The failed ex-boxer and lifelong car fanatic supplemented his body-and-fender auto-repair business by singing in nightclubs, cutting the odd single along the way. Yet it seemed he’d joined the one-hit-wonder club when attempts to follow 1961’s novelty hit ‘Ya Ya’ all floundered. Toussaint had other ideas though, the producer/arranger reviving the humble singer’s fortunes with the high rolling groove and upfront funk of 1965’s ‘Ride Your Pony’. For all the good humour Dorsey brought to Naomi Neville’s A-side ‘Work, Work, Work’, its unemployment blues failed to connect with his more party-oriented demographic, obscuring one of Dorsey’s greatest studio showings on its B-side. Riding a simple three note electric guitar lick, backing vocal “Heys” and deep, deep horns, ‘Can You Hear Me’ caught Dorsey at his relaxed best – thinking about a good time, not the daily grime, sentiments that would see this flipside adopted by the London mod brigade. Within 12 months the unassuming Dorsey secured his position as a soul great with the early morning strife of ‘Working In A Cole Mine’, living up to Toussaint’s billing: “If a smile had a sound, it would be Lee Dorsey’s voice.”