Candi Staton: Candi Staton (2004) ... plus

For many years mega talent soul singer Candi Staton lacked a comprehensive collection of her prime Southern R&B material from her glory years, 1969-1973. While it's true that Staton's chart success continued in the disco era with 'Young Hearts Run Free,' from 1975, that music is in a different universe from her Muscle Shoals-period recording for Fame and other labels. This compilation contains 26 tracks from those hallowed years, when Staton's deep soul tomes rang up no less than 12 consecutive Billboard R&B hits, a pair of Grammy nominations, and a gold album. Like Aretha Franklin, Linda Jones, and Otis Redding, Staton's voice is the sound of emotion being ripped from the human heart and offered, bleeding and broken, pleading and yearning, to the listener. Collected here is every last fantastic song from her debut album I'm Just a Prisoner and her follow up Stand by Your Man. Also from her 1972 self titled album we get 'The Best You Ever Had', 'In the Ghetto', 'I'll Drop Everything and Come Running', and 'The Thanks I Get for Loving You'. There are a few non-Lp tracks, too: the 1973 single 'Love Chain' / 'I'm Gonna Hold On (To What I Got This Time)', 'Heart on a String', which was a B-side from a single released in 1970, and lastly 'Sure As Sin', the B-side for a single released in 1972. Some of the highlights here include the stunning 'I'm Just a Prisoner (Of Your Good Lovin')', her amazing read of Redding's 'That's How Strong My Love Is,' the killer 'I'm Another Man's Woman, Another Woman's Man,' the definitive version of Tammy Wynette's 'Stand By Your Man,' 'He Called Me Baby,' the stellar 'Get It When I Want It,' and one of the few versions of 'In the Ghetto' (other than Elvis') that matters. All of the tracks here warrant their appearance: there isn't a mediocre one in the bunch, as evidenced further by the inclusion of 'Sweet Feeling,' 'Someone You Use,' and 'Love Chain,' as well. To complete the collection I added as bonus tracks the five cuts from her third Fame album which were omitted. Highly recommended. http://www.allmusic.com/, http://rateyourmusic.com/

aa

aa
This is Candi Staton's live version of her 1969 deep soul classic 'That's How Strong My Love Is', that she performed at the Glastonbury Festival in England in summer 2008 before an audience of 50,000 fans:

aa

Debbie Taylor: Anthology (1968-1975)

Debbie Taylor's short recording career produced some of the most impassioned vocal performances ever committed to vinyl. Little is known about her background, date of birth etc, but she has achieved iconic status with fans of soul music due, in the main, to her partnership with producers David Jordan and Patrick Adams. It is believed that Debbie Taylor first came to the attention of Decca records through her church singing. Her first recording with the Decca label in 1968 produced the tracks 'I Get the Blues' / 'The Last Laugh's on the Blues' and 'Check Yourself' / 'Wait Until I'm Gone', none of which achieved much in the way of commercial success. She parted company with Decca and moved to the New York based GWP label. Her 1969 debut single with GWP 'Never Gonna Let Him Know' / 'Let's Prove Them Wrong' was also the launch single for the label. In that year she also recorded the uptempo 'Don't Let It End' / 'How Long Can This Last' and the flip side to a Hesitations' single titled 'Mamma Look Sharp'. Despite having released three records in 1969 between then and 1972 she released only one further recording - 'Don't Nobody Mess With My Baby' / 'Stop' on the GWP subsidiary label GWP Grapevine. In 1972 she left the GWP label and was brought to the Perception/Today label by its then Vice President Boo Frazier and songwriter/producer David Jordan. Taylor's tenure with Today was another short stint, but many regard this as her best period. It was then that she recorded the seminal soul funk album Comin' Down on You, a soul masterpiece wrapped in genuine Patrick Adams' arrangements. Her collaboration with Adams, the then producer and co-writer for label mates Black Ivory, resulted in her covering their track 'No If's, And's or But's'. In 1973 demo recordings on the Polydor label of the Mavis Staples track 'I Have Learned to Do Without You' released on Volt Records in 1970 began to surface. Commercial success still eluded her and by 1975 she'd moved to and was recording with Arista Records, where she recorded 'Just Don't Pay' backed by a phenomenal vocal performance of 'I Don't Wanna Leave You'. This is supposed to be the last recording session of this little-known deep soul sister. http://en.wikipedia.org/. I have compiled here a total of 20 tracks recorded by Taylor between 1968 and 1975 for Decca, GWP, Polydor and Arista, including the entirety of her 1972 album for Today. Enjoy!

aa

Gloria Scott: What Am I Going to Do? (1974) ... plus

2009 is the 35th anniversary of this classic soul album, which was the first and only full-length studio release by Gloria Scott. Produced by Barry White with the best of his '70s approach, and featuring songs written by lesser-known White protege, Tom Brock, nearly every single cut here is a classic, a mixture of deep and mellow soul, plus slight traces of funk. The San Francisco-based singer imbued the songs White selected for the album with a convincing blend of heart, soul and hope. '(A Case of) Too Much Love Makin’' is emblematic of Scott's predicament across the album's eight original tracks: She is in love, giving every bit of herself, but it’s unrequited. White dresses Scott's love jones in his classic Love Unlimited style with help from Tom Brock and Gene Page. Sadness never sounded this good! It is a small mystery why the album had limited commercial appeal upon its release in 1974 by Casablanca Records. With White's stone cold production and Gloria's instantly captivating vocals, the quality was on par with any album in the marketplace at the time. A combination of factors, including the growing pains of a new record company and White's focus on his own burgeoning career, ultimately limited the reach of What Am I Gonna Do. Though a follow-up single, 'Just As Long as We're Together', hit the R&B Top 20 and held the top spot on the Disco Singles chart in early-1975, the second album she recorded with arranger H. B. Barnum was not released. For all his solo success, Barry White was not delivering on his contract with Gloria Scott. He became one of the most seminal figures of the '70s while Scott faded into obscurity. Titles include 'Love Me, Love Me, Love Me, or Leave Me, Leave Me, Leave Me', 'I Think of You', 'I Just Couldn't Take a Goodbye' and 'That's What You Say'. I also included one bonus track: her 1974 single 'Just As Long As We're Together'. Don't pass on this one: the whole thing is a masterpiece! http://www.popmatters.com/, http://www.dustygroove.com/, http://www.amazon.com/

Diana Ross & the Supremes: Let the Music Play - Supreme Rarities (1960-1969)

Between late 1964 and mid-1967, the Supremes were the closest thing to perfection at Motown Records. All but three of their fourteen charting hits went to #1. Only one, 'Nothing but Heartaches,' barely missed the Top Ten. But for every diamond on vinyl, Diana Ross, Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard — like every other act at Berry Gordy's Detroit grooming factory — cut mountains of discarded tracks that did not live up to his singles-ready standards. This flawed, fascinating set of outtakes swept out from the deepest corners of the Motown vaults starts with the Supreme's earliest days together and goes up through the farewell sessions with Diana at the end of the decade. It's seeing light of day for the first time ever, with a bunch of alternate versions of some of the most famous tunes, and really loaded up with some wonderful surprises. It has got looser, wonderfully raw numbers that are not as bright as polished as the big hits, plus some sweet Supremes covers of some hits of the era that might have been huge if released at the time. Really compelling are the early street-corner-harmony-style numbers with original fourth member Barbara Martin and, in 'Hey Baby,' a great come-hither-now vocal by Ballard before Gordy pushed Ross up front for good. Near-miss takes of the # 1s 'Back in My Arms Again' and 'Love Child' and the unfinished '68 romp 'Believe in Me' would have passed muster at any other label. But Gordy's fixation on Ross as his ticket to the L.A.-mogul life means much of the second part of the compilation drowns in strings and standards, often by a solo Ross. An exception is 1969's 'You're Gonna Hear from Me,' her last studio recording with Wilson and Ballard's replacement, Cindy Birdsong. Ross belts the title line like a kiss-off to the group, but the proud, strong way the others sing "Move over" behind her is a final testament to the power of three. Other tracks include 'You Can Depend on Me', 'Because I Love Him', 'Too Hot', 'I Saw Him Standing There', 'It's Not Unusual', 'Don't Let True Love Die' (extended version), 'Wish I Knew', 'The Look of Love' and 'Someday We'll Be Together.' http://www.rollingstone.com/, http://www.dustygroove.com/

aa

aa

The Supremes perform their 8th #1 hit 'You Keep Me Hangin' On' and 'Somewhere', from West Side Story, at The Hollywood Palace on October the 22nd, 1966:

The Six Teens featuring Trudy Williams: The Flip Recordings (2002) ... plus

Barely a teenager when the song was recorded, Trudy Williams' plaintive lead on the Six Teens' 'A Casual Look' is one of the haunting memories of the classic age of the doo wop sound. Written by group founder Ed Wells, 'A Casual Look' made it to #7 on the R&B lists and #25 in the pop chart and started a career for the group on Los Angeles' Flip label, for which they recorded no less than a dozen singles, all included on this 26-track collection. Label billing was something that changed quite a bit for the group. Starting with the vanilla Six Teens name, there were several records that carried the group name featuring 14 year old Trudy Williams or just plain Trudy Williams. Despite the changes of billing, the group members were fairly much the same throughout their recording career. As well as Trudy, her sister Louise and the group's founder Ed Wells, the Six Teens comprised Kenny Sinclair, Darryl Lewis and Beverly Pecot. Louise and Beverly also 'moonlighted' for the label behind lead Richard Owens as the Ivy Leaguers and can be heard on 'Deposit Your Love (In the Bank of My Heart)', another Ed Wells-penned ballad, which I added here as a bonus track. In 1957, Kenny Sinclair left the group and was replaced by Richard Owens who, in turn, was replaced by Jimmie Smith. One of the keys to the the success of the group lies with the nature of the songs that Ed Wells put together for them. Many of these were "story" songs whose lyrics progressed throughout the number as opposed to the more repetitive and more ephemeral lyrics which were quite common in the second half of the '50s. Good examples are 'Afar into the Night', 'Was It a Dream of Mine', 'Only Jim', and 'My Surprise'. As the group grew up together, their material grew more mature in tone. This is reflected in selections like 'Love's a Funny That Way', 'Heaven Knows I Love You', 'That Wonderful Secret of Love' and one of the few songs not written by Ed Wells, the Richard Berry-penned 'A Foolish Little Girl'. However the group called the changes, they unfortunately never repeated their initial success of 'A Casual Look' and with the end of the Flip label, they went their separate ways. http://www.acerecords.co.uk

aa

The Sweet Early Soul from Theola Kilgore (1960-1966)

Theola Kilgore (born 1925, Shreveport, Louisiana — died 15 May 2005, Los Angeles, California) was brought up in Oakland, California, and began singing in church. Her first recording, on which she was billed as Theola Kilgord, was as the featured vocalist on 'Look to the Hills' by the Mount Zion Spiritual Choir, released in 1955. While working as a gospel singer, she befriended J. W. Alexander, Sam Cooke's manager who introduced her to singer/producer/writer Ed Townsend; with Townsend, Kilgore cut her first secular recording, an answer to Cooke's 'Chain Gang,' entitled 'The Sound of My Man (Working on a Chain Gang),' on Candix Records, which attracted attention and some sells. She registered her biggest hit with her next record 'The Love of My Man,' an adaptation of 'The Love of God,' originally done by the Soul Stirrers with Johnny "Disco Lady" Taylor on lead vocals. The plaintive, direct ballad released on Serock Records, a subsidiary of Scepter Records, zoomed to #21 Pop and #3 R&B; its success place Kilgore on the chitling circuit and the R&B theater tours where she shared billings with the top names in R&B. Still with Townsend, Theola followed with my personal favorite, 'This Is My Prayer,' on Serock which was just as good, sold well, but failed to surpass or equal the success of its predecessor. Theola & Ed formed KT Records (Kilgore/Townsend) where she released her next singles, none made much noise; later releases on Mercury Records went unnoticed as well. She also recorded some tracks at Stax which remain unreleased. Of her post hit singles, only 'I'll Keep Trying,' and the Northern Soul favorite 'It's Gonna Be Alright,' garnered any significant plays. http://www.answers.com/, http://en.wikipedia.org/. I gathered here as many Theola Kilgore's sides as I was able to find. There are virtually all the aforementioned, though unfortunately I couldn't find 'I'll Keep Trying'. The good news is that, in turn, I got its B-side, 'He's Coming Back to Me'. I also included Theola's fantastic last single 'I Can't Stand It' / 'It's Gonna Be Alright', which was originally released on Mercury, in 1966, plus the flip side of 'This Is My Prayer', 'As Long As You Need Me (Want Me, Love Me)', from 1963. I am sure you are gonna love this as much as I do!!

aa

Pat Lundy: Only Love Spoken Here (1973)

Pat Lundy was a New York-based singer and actress who was apparently a girlfriend of New York producer Buddy Scott. She was originally in a group called the Symbols which she left in 1962. Lundy put out Lps and singles on Deluxe, Columbia, RCA, Toto, Leopard and Heidi labels over a 20 year period, all with slightly different sound and style, and some quite worth sorting out. Only Love Spoken Here is her second album, the only one she issued on RCA, after her Columbia release 'Soul Ain't Nothing But The Blues', from 1967 (which is by the way a very hard to find item I am desperately trying to find ... anyone there who might have a copy??). This one has got her working in a sophisticated soul style that is a lot like Marlena Shaw, with complicated arrangements that match Pat's range of feelings and moods, moving from quiet intimate vocals, to harder rawer funkier sounds. Bert Keyes handled the arrangements and titles include 'Only Love Spoken Here', 'He's the Father of My Children', 'What Is Love', 'Thank Heaven for You', 'Friend of Mine (I Wanna Thank You So Much)', 'Love Child', and 'I've Never Been a Woman Before'. After marrying Chuck Patterson - an actor and Equity advocate for minorities and women - Pat Lundy continued performing and became an SGI member dedicating her life towards peace in the world. She died in 1994 from brain cancer, just before her 52nd birthday. http://mickeynold.blogspot.com/, http://www.dustygroove.com/ Many thanks to JAZZYPIER for sharing this rare album with us ;-)

aa

Tami Lynn: Love Is Here And Now You're Gone (1972) ... plus

New Orleanian soul singer Tami Lynn had already been in the business for the better part of a decade when her full-length debut Love Is Here And Now You’re Gone appeared toward the end of 1971. In addition to backing up sessions for Dr. John, Sonny & Cher, the Rolling Stones, and Wilson Pickett, she’d made a pair of incredible 45s, one of which became a belated hit on the dance floors of England. A bona fide classic Northern Soul single, the ebullient 'I’m Gonna Run Away From You' had been recorded for ATCO in 1965 after A&R man Jerry Wexler had discovered the young singer at a talent showcase. After the song finally found an audience, it was included – probably unwisely – on an album of songs with which it had very little in common. Predictably, the Northern Soul crowd didn’t care much for the other tracks on the album and refrained from purchasing it, sadly relegating it to three long decades of obscurity. The album was produced by John Abbey, a consultant for Polydor’s Mojo soul subsidiary who, being a big fan of country music, brought Tami to Malaco Studios in Jackson, Mississippi, to record and chose Loretta Lynn’s 'Wings Upon Your Horn' as the opening cut. The first three tracks on Love Is Here and Now You're Gone have a lot in common with the country-influenced soul of Candi Staton and Bettye Swann. Lynn’s version of 'Can't Last Much Longer' by New Orleans legend Allen Toussaint is particularly wonderful. With the exception of the string-drenched 'Ain’t No Soul (Left in These Old Shoes),' the rest of the album is a whole lot funkier. The best of the later tracks is a rousing cover of the Patterson Sisters’ 'That’s Understanding', a song that has more than a passing resemblance to Jean Knight’s 'Mr. Big Stuff,' which had been recorded by a house band at the same studio. 'Never No More,' the only Tami Lynn original on the album, is also pretty great. I have augmented the LP by adding 7 bonus tracks: the B-side of 'Run Away', 'The Boy Next Door' (written by Lynn as Gloria Brown and Melvin Lastie of the Executives); a few earlier cuts, including 'Baby' (penned by jazz saxophonist 'Red' Tyler), 'World of Dreams', 'At the Party' (available for years only on a hideously rare French EP), the impromptu Cotillion single 'Mo Jo Hanna' (which Jerry Wexler produced after he ran into his former protégé at one of her sessions with Dr. John) and 'You My Love' (take this one as a mere sample, for the sound quality is more than poor), plus a super-cool version of 'Light My Fire'. http://www.dustedmagazine.com/
aa

aa

Tami Lynn singing live her Northern Soul classic 'I'm Gonna Run Away from You', (1971):

The Sweet Inspirations: Songs of Faith & Inspiration / What the World Needs Now Is Love (1968)

As an Atlantic recording act, The Sweet Inspirations cut some fine sides that rank among the clearest illustrations of the close links between soul music and gospel harmony. Usually sticking to material by famed soul and pop songwriters, they had about a half-dozen moderate R&B hits in the late '60s; the biggest, ‘Sweet Inspiration,’ was a Top 20 pop single in 1968. Within a month of that chart climb, the group began to work on their second album - a gospel record entitled Songs of Faith & Inspiration, which was released under the name Cissy Drinkard & The Sweet Inspirations and included, amongst others, ‘What a Friend’, ‘Swing Low’, ‘Down by the Riverside’ and ‘Without a Doubt’. Shortly after cutting that gospel set, the group was back in Atlantic’s studios to record their third album, What the World Needs Now Is Love. The record was the group's first secular album for Atlantic and it was a gem of female soul, with the same classic sound you'd hear on Aretha's Atlantic late ‘60s LPs, but with a different twist because of the girls' amazing talent for harmony vocals. Tom Dowd produced the album with a sweet southern-ish sound, and Arif Mardin provided some lofty string arrangements that take the girls' voices to the heavens! The late April session yielded a version of The Bee Gees’ 'To Love Somebody', which became the group’s fourth R&B chart hit, and a soulful version of The Righteous Brothers' 'Unchained Melody,' which surprisingly gave the group a charted, though minor hit. It also included some fine numbers written by Cissy Drinkhard Houston, like 'I Could Leave You Alone', 'You Really Didn't Mean It', and 'Where Did It Go', plus pop numbers like 'Alfie' and 'What the World Needs Now Is Love', all completely transformed by the group's style! Both albums are included here in one single set. This really is heavenly soul, don't miss it! http://www.dustygroove.com/, http://www.answers.com/. Once more, I must thank Martin for providing me with such a great record. Cheers, mate!! ;-)

aa

Eleanore Mills: This Is Eleanore Mills (1974) ...plus

Anyone remember an LP from 1975 entitled This Is All Platinum containing various artists such as Retta Young, The Moments, Larry Saunders, The Rimshots, and one Eleanore Mills, featuring a killer mid-tempo soul delight entitles 'Stop Accusing Me'? This is the same lady with a straight issue of her 1975 mega rare LP on US Astroscope. The sleeve notes on the original vinyl album finds Moments singer Harry Ray making reference to Eleanore being an original member of the '60s group the DixieCups, which appears to be a mistake as they originated from New Orleans, and apparently always maintained their original line up (?) The plot thickens even deeper when other Moments group member Al Goodman claims that he can’t even remember recording her back in the '70s. Her debut single from 1974 starts with 'Fascinating Devastating Man,' a gentle yet appealing piece of New Jersey soul which really does grown on you with each play. The album finds a collection of sweet soul and beat ballads of the highest order despite the albums poor sales in its day, all backed by the Rimshots who were the All Platinum house band of the day and can be found on all of the labels recordings. 'I’m Gonna Get You' finds Eleanore in fine voice on a song that could have come from the Honey Cone. In 1977 Norman Connors used Eleanore on his Romantic Journey LP, where she can be heard on 'You Are Everything', a song that I have included here as bonus track. I very much hope that soul fans don’t miss the opportunity this time round to add this gem to their collections. Enjoy! http://sixtiesmotown.co.uk/

aa

aa