VA: Here Come the Girls Vol.5 - Sisters from the City (1963-1974)

Subtitled Sisters from the City, volume five in the consistently wonderful Here Come the Girls series that Sequel Records released in the '90s, isn't a girl group collection per se, at least not in the conventional Shangri-Las/Chiffons/Ronettes sense of the phrase. The subject is instead soul sides dating from between 1963 and 1974, relative light years in musical terms that encompass everything from the primal R&B of Betty Harris' deep-soul ballads 'Cry to Me' and 'His Kiss' to the insistent Philly proto-disco of Ecstasy, Passion & Pain's 'I Wouldn't Give You Up'; although the set consequently lacks the focus and clarity common to the remainder of the Here Come the Girls series, the quality of the assembled material is nevertheless high throughout. Five of the disc's 20 tracks (mostly drawn from the Roulette and Calla vaults) spotlight the unjustly neglected Jean Wells, whose incendiary gospel-inspired vocals combined with the slinky production of the great Clyde Otis to yield a series of strong singles like 'I Feel Good' and 'Have a Little Mercy,' all of which earned little notice during the Summer of Love. Other highlights: the Fuzz's beatific 'Like an Open Door,' Betty Lavette's Northern soul perennials 'Let Me Down Easy' and 'Only Your Love Can Save Me', Doris Troy's 'I'll Do Anything' and Oohna Truth's funky 'If It Feels Good, Do It.' http://www.allmusic.com/

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