Please take this opening statement as the compliment it is meant to be....but you guys know everything! Many times I have posted a question on here [[case in point the one about the recent Shaggy song I had heard), and someone is ALWAYS able to answer my question.

But sadly tonight may be the one time you cannot help me, simply because I am going to be able to give you sooooooo very little to go on. But let's give it a whirl. Here is the story:

A friend and I [[another knowledgeable music fan) were having dinner tonight and we knew right away that we were in our kind of place when the first song we heard in the background was "Ain't Too Proud to Beg," followed by "This Ole Heart of Mine." So we listened to each succeeding song, trying to identify it over the other diners talking. Everything was soul-oriented and from the 60s and occasionally the 70s. We heard some Sam Cooke, Bill Withers, Delfonics, another Temps song. So definitely all soul programming but not all Motown.

As you have probably guessed, I am leading up to the fact that we heard a song that neither of us could identify. Here is all I can tell you about it:

Female black vocalist, seemed to be more on the huskier, more aggressive side.

Tempo was definitely on the fast side, making it a song that immediately grabbed you. Seemed to have some horns in the background.

My mind went in the direction of somebody like Candi Staton, Gwen McCrae, or maybe one of Aretha's sisters?

We could not hear well enough but we are both sure it was not a hit song, or at least not a big one from that era, or else one of us would have recognized it.

I realize that is not much to go on, but the only clue that might give us any hope is that I heard the phrase "In the Midnight Hour" as it was fading out about 15 seconds before the end of the song. However I know it was not the Mirettes' Midnight Hour. I know that classic quite well and would have recognized it immediately.

If you have any ideas and can provide any links, we could probably listen and tell if it was the right song. But stay away from the top hits of that era because between us we would know them all, so this was a "hidden gem" of some kind.

Any ideas?????