Dean Parrish obituary

Dean Parrish was the name temporarily adopted by Phil Anastasi in the 1960s when he became one of a host of good-looking Italian American boys keen to emulate the singing success of Bobby Darin (born Robert Cassotto), Johnny Maestro (John Mastrangelo), Frankie Valli (Francesco Castelluccio) and Bobby Rydell (Robert Ridarelli). Long after Anastasi, who has died aged 79, had set it aside, it was the name by which he ascended, quite unknowingly, to a hero’s status among the UK’s northern soul fans, who adopted his song I’m on My Way as one of their most cherished anthems.

Along with Jimmy Radcliffe’s Long After Tonight Is All Over and Tobi Legend’s Time Will Pass You By, Parrish’s song was part of a sequence of three records played before eight o’clock in the morning by the disc jockey Russ Winstanley to wrap up the famous all-nighter sessions at Wigan’s Casino ballroom, one of the temples of northern soul, which ran from 1973 to 1981. Known as the “3 before 8”, they sent dancers on their way home with the cocktail of emotions that characterised a scene notable for a fervent loyalty to the obscure singers who had provided them with the soundtrack to their lives.

The three songs evoked a bittersweet mixture of euphoria, urgency, nostalgia, optimism and regret, underscored by the knowledge that nothing lasts for ever except the defiant memory of how it was to share the fleeting pleasures of youth, and the importance of – in a favourite northern soul slogan – keeping the faith. In bringing this heightened emotional landscape to the lives of ordinary working-class kids, as much as in the idiosyncracy of its gymnastic high-tempo dance moves, the northern soul movement was – and remains, 50 years after it began – highly distinctive.

A key requirement for the 1960s soul records spun by the disc jockeys at the Casino, the Blackpool Mecca and Golden Torch in Stoke-on-Trent was that they should be obscure to the point of unobtainability. One of the most famous, Frank Wilson’s Do I Love You, existed in fewer than half a dozen copies, one of which was auctioned in 2009 for £25,742.

I’m on My Way was never quite as obscure as that, but Parrish, like Radcliffe and Legend, satisfied the requirement of being completely unknown to the general audience. All three remained, like dozens of others feted by the members of this remarkable subculture, completely unaware for some time of the sudden surge in their popularity on the other side of the Atlantic, in the towns of England’s industrial north and midlands.

Once tracked down, most of them were delighted by the news and some, including Parrish, took advantage of invitations to perform at fan gatherings, followed by a chance to record again and to restart careers that had long since moved off in other directions, often out of music altogether.

Philip Anastasi (sometimes rendered as Anastasia) was born and raised in the Bronx, New York City. He studied at the School of Industrial Design while singing in street-corner vocal groups. Soon he was frequenting the Peppermint Lounge, the home of the Twist, where he befriended the members of the Ronettes, a trio from Spanish Harlem employed as the club’s go-go girls, later to find fame under the guidance of the record producer Phil Spector.

It was apparently Veronica Bennett, lead singer of the Ronettes, who suggested that young Phil change his name in order to advance his singing career. In the mid-60s he released a clutch of singles, including the Drifters-styled Bricks, Broken Bottles and Sticks and I’m on My Way, composed by Eliot Greenberg and Doug Morris, who was later to become chairman of Sony Music. As Dean Parrish, he toured with Dick Clark’s Caravan of Stars and appeared alongside Sonny and Cher, the Four Tops and the Righteous Brothers in the Clay Cole Show, a long-running TV music series. Having failed to register a hit, in 1967 he reverted to his real name and began working as an actor and session guitarist.

After being rediscovered by Winstanley, I’m on My Way was reissued in 1975 by Jonathan King’s UK Records label and reached No 38 in the British pop chart, while an EP featuring the “3 before 8” was said to have sold more than 200,000 copies. In 2001 Parrish made his first trip to UK, appearing at a northern soul weekend in Prestatyn. New recordings followed, including a version of a Paul Weller song, Left, Right and Centre, with Lord Large, and a set of 60s-style tracks recorded in New York.

In 2006, credited as Philip Anastasia, he appeared in an episode from the sixth season of The Sopranos, playing a suave, silver-haired MC at a lavish wedding reception. While Johnny Sack, the father of the bride, is persuading his fellow mobster Tony Soprano to arrange the murder of a rival, played by Valli, Anastasia serenades the happy couple with a rendering of Daddy’s Little Girl.

His visits to the UK as Dean Parrish were frequent and in 2018 he could be witnessed at the Northern Soul Survivor Weekend in Skegness. Still handsome and carefully turned out in a tuxedo and bow tie, he sang I’m on My Way to an audience that crowded at the front of the stage, waving and singing along with every word, greeting the end of the song with a fervent chant: “Deano! Deano! Deano!”

• Dean Parrish (Philip Joseph Anastasi), singer, guitarist, actor, born 30 December 1942; died 8 June 2021