The opening track on the somewhat ambitiously titled debut World, Here Comes Jean Wells, ‘Have a Little Mercy’ is a broody, tortured deep soul ballad that proved as close to a breakthrough as Wells ever got.

From the sparse beginnings of a voice alone in the dark with little more than a mournfully reluctant organ for company, Wells pleads for mercy with growing conviction over an increasingly insistent bluesy and brassy arrangement.

So cleanly finished it’s more neo-Soul than Northern, but this is the genuine article; heartbreaking, late sixties soul, dusted off and re-released on Kent, then BBE.

With a career that never quite hit the heights despite the ability to channel the kind of outpouring here, you can quite understand Wells wishing she could just catch a break.