Barbara Lynn: You'll Lose a Good Thing (1997) ... plus

Although Barbara Lynn was born and raised in Texas, she personified the lazy beats, greasy horns, and chiming piano that characterized early '60s New Orleans R&B. Back in the ‘90s Bear Family released two comps of Barbara Lynn’s Jamie sides. The first of them is this out of print 27-track set of her best early sides from 1962-65, including a half-dozen previously unreleased songs (there's also 4 extra cuts which I added at the end as bonus -see attached covers). The material is idiosyncratic stuff with a bluesier, swampier feel than most any other soul being made during the time, which captures the crack studio band (featuring a young, pre-Dr. John, Mac Rebennack) led by producer Huey P. Meaux. Only a few cuts, such as the classic ‘You'll Lose a Good Thing’ troubled the charts but, like many similar collections, the songs are uniformly well played and sung with plenty of obscure gems scattered throughout. Although she was barely out of her teens when cutting these sides, Lynn's husky voice, somewhat like that of her peer Irma Thomas, shows a confidence belying her young age. New Orleans-styled horns, bluesy organ, and some gutsy guitar licks usually decorate the arrangements, while Lynn puts the tunes across with an assured reserve. The prize obscurity here is the original version of ‘Oh Baby (We Got a Good Thing Goin')’ (which Lynn wrote), covered by the Rolling Stones in 1965. Overall, this is first rate Southern Soul, usually upbeat, sometimes with a downcast feel that verges on the morose, as on ‘Dedicate the Blues to Me’ and ‘Ring Telephone Ring.’ Another oddity is ‘You Can't Buy My Love,’ on which it sounds like Meaux was trying to replicate the organ-colored polka-rock he'd just crafted for the Sir Douglas Quintet. Barbara Lynn would have been a major star, but perhaps her formidable talents where ahead of her time. She played guitar, lefthanded no less, and she was also one of the few female singers of her time to write her own material, and some of this set's finest selections such as ‘Second Fiddle Girl’, ‘You'll Lose a Good Thing’, ‘Teenage Blues’, 'You Don't Sleep at Night' or ‘Lonely Heartache’ are Lynn originals. http://www.allmusic.com/

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Lynn's rendition of Ray Charles' 'What'd I Say', circa 1966. It's also a good chance to enjoy her guitar skills: