VA: The Girls Got Soul (1960-1969)

With the dawning of the ‘60s, the strongly R&B-oriented diskerie became a hot bed for a diverse range of female stars. As the decade continued, Atlantic Records and its various imprints (such as Atco and Cotillion) could justifiably lay claim to being the premier outlet for some of the most soulful women to ever hit the recording studios. And so it is that The Girls Got Soul attempts to provide a selection of some of the best female soul recorded for Atlantic during the ‘60s. Ranging from firm UK favourites such as Betty Lavette and Doris Troy, through stalwarts such as Ruth Brown and LaVern Baker, onto soul superstars such as Aretha Franklin, Mary Wells, The Sweet Inspirations, Patti LaBelle & the Bluebelles and Barbara Lynn, the 25 tracks in this compilation feature 15 different acts. So there is room as well for the relatively obscure and a touch of unreleased material too. In the former category there are both sides of the sought-after Rozetta Johnson Atlantic single as well as Ann Mason's answer record to Wilson Pickett's ‘In the Midnight Hour’. In the latter there's a Barbara Lynn track from the vaults ‘Unloved, Unwanted Me’ and the little-heard Doris Troy track ‘But I Love Him’. Atlantic Records used a rich selection of arrangers and producers during this period and we get to hear a number of their efforts. Bert Berns was responsible for Little Esther's ‘Hello Walls’ and LaVern Baker's ‘Here He Comes’. Carl Davis along with Sonny Sanders for Mary Wells' fantastic ‘Dear Lover’ and ‘Me and My Baby’, whilst Tom Dowd and Tommy Cogbill are behind the Sweet Inspirations tracks. I-T-T Production stands, of course, for Ike & Tina Turner and they were behind the Ikettes' ‘I'm Blue (The Gong-Gong Song)’; indeed that's Tina singing with them. Representing her successful four year stint on Atlantic, Barbara Lynn's sides include the soulful ‘(Until Then) I'll Suffer’, the up-tempo classic ‘Take Your Love and Run’, and there's a remake of her Jamie hit ‘You'll Lose a Good Thing’. As on Jamie, her material was produced by Huey Meaux. It's true that if you've been collecting soul records diligently for more than a decade, you might have a good deal of this. Even if that's the case, this is a tremendous listen, just below the top cut of Soul anthologies of any sort, and certainly one of the very best various-artist collections of obscure '60s Soul. http://www.acerecords.co.uk/, http://www.allmusic.com/

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Aretha Franklin (and some really good backing singers) in a live performance of one of the songs featured on this compilation, 'Ain't No Way':

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