Tag: soul music
Title: The Marvelettes Forever: The Complete Motown Albums, Vol. 1
Artist: The Marvelettes
Label: Hip-O Select
Format: 3 CD set
Catalog No.: B0011516-02
Release Date: May 2009
Nearly fifty years after the formation of the Marvelettes, Hip-O Select has released a three disc compilation celebrating the talent of Motown’s first female pop/soul group. Most recognized for their very successful and chart topping “Please Mr. Postman” of 1961, the Marvelettes never really received the acclaim they deserved. Plagued by health issues, disappointing song choices, and competition from Motown’s other girl groups (most notably the Supremes), the Marvelettes had only a few sporadic hits despite releasing a number of noteworthy albums. This new compilation includes their first six albums along with bonus tracks, live tracks, and even mono singles and rare sides. Complete with a booklet of photographs, biography information, and track listings with credits, The Marvelettes Forever collection pays homage to the brief but strong presence of these gifted ladies. Vol. 2, scheduled for release in 2010, will complete the set.
Posted by Rachel Weidner
December 8, 2009
Title: Sweet Soul Music (series)
Artists: Various
Format: CD
Label: Bear Family Records
Release Date: October 2009
Sweet Soul Music, a new series by Bear Family Records (after Peter Guralnick’s book by the same title), provides an overview of soul music spanning 10 years (1961-1970) over 10 individually issued CDs. Each volume consists of 20-30 “scorching classics” packaged in a gatefold cardboard case. The accompanying booklets, averaging 100 pages in length, are authored by soul music expert Bill Dahl, who conveniently provides the listener with an in-depth analysis of each song’s cultural and musical context within the given year. The liner notes are supplemented with rare photos, artist biographies, discographical notes, and bibliographies. Featured artists include mainstream musicians (Marvin Gaye, The Dells, Howard Tate, Sam & Dave, Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding, etc.) as well as lesser known or forgotten entertainers of yesteryear that tend to be very difficult to find.
Bear Family beautifully depicts the compelling nature of American soul music. The series will be particularly useful in classroom situations, where Dahl’s year-by-year analyses of black popular music could be used to supplement lectures on history and culture in the ’60s. Finally, if you like this format, be sure to check out Bear Family’s “Blowing the Fuse” series, which covers R&B from 1945-1960, following the same year-by-year approach.
Posted by Rachel Weidner
December 8, 2009
Title: Great American Soulbook
Artist: Tower of Power
Label: TOP Records
Format: CD
Catalog No.: TWWZ 300205
Release date: April 7, 2009
Whenever a band is defined as having a powerfully distinctive sound there’s a lot more going on than just great individual playing. Often such a scenario involves a combination of exceptional musicians and singers; masterful arranging and studio engineering techniques; time allotted for musicians and singers to jell and become a unified voice; and someone who provides directive oversight to steer and fine tune these elements into a cohesive unit of sound and energy. For 40 years, Tower of Power (TOP) has managed to bring these elements together to create their own brand of soul music, unquestionably establishing the band at the top of their game.
In 1968, TOP founders Emilio Castillo (tenor saxophonist) and Stephen “Doc” Kupka (baritone saxophonist), the steering duo behind the band’s success, took their cues from Sly & the Family Stone, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Booker T. & the MG’s and other 1960s masters of soul, funk, and pop musicians to establish their own sound. They added their original songs, a powerful line up of musicians in the rhythm and horn sections, equally robust lead and supporting singers, and especially rock-solid horn arrangements that gave TOP its signature sound. Regardless of the inevitable changes over the decades in the band’s membership, Castillo says “We have a definite style to the way we approach section work, we clip our notes, we get very tight. We’ve got to have this “ESP” going between the guys as far as how to interpret certain horn licks.”
For 25 years Greg Adams has defined TOP’s tight horn arrangements, inflecting a mixture of percussive and soulful linear accents above the infectious grooves of the rhythm section. The arrangements have been esteemed by a significant number of leading pop, rock, blues and soul musicians–including Bonnie Raitt, Aerosmith, and Little Feat– who have hired the horn section and used the band’s arrangers to boost their own sound.
The group’s latest release, The Great American Soulbook, stays the course. The tracks are infused with TOP’s trademark powerhouse arrangements and rhythm section grooves, while also venturing into new territory with soul and funk covers originally performed by Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, and Marvin Gaye, among others.
Castillo produced nine songs on the CD, while four more were under the direction of L.A. funk master George Duke. The majority of the horn arrangements are under the control of Greg Adams’ protégé, Dave Eskridge. TOP’s current lead vocalist, Larry Braggs, delivers tremendously stirring solo performances on most of the songs. The group is also joined by four equally stellar vocal guest talents: Tom Jones sings Sam & Dave’s “I thank You;” Joss Stone joins Braggs for duos on “It takes Two” and “Your Precious Love;” Sam Moore delivers a laid back rendition of “Mr. Pitiful;” and Huey Lewis croons Wilson Pickett’s “634-5789.” Overall, The Great American Soulbook is a great album and the perfect start to summer.
Posted by Karen Faye Taborn
June 24, 2009
Title: The Original Soul Men
Artists: Sam & Dave
Producer/Director: Joe Lauro, Historic Films
Publisher: Hip-O/Universal
Format: DVD, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, NTSC (120 min.)
Release Date: December 9, 2008
Sam Moore was supposed to have been Sam Cooke’s replacement in the Soul Stirrers, after Cooke made his historic decision to pursue secular pop music. But then Moore saw Jackie Wilson, and everything changed. The Original Soul Men: Sam & Dave is an invaluable visual document that shows the connection between Moore and partner Dave Prater. Featuring seventeen of the duo’s fiery live performances, the DVD is also interspersed with testimonials from Stax/Volt founder Al Bell, Moore himself, bassist Duck Dunn and others, that highlight the connection of soul music to its roots in the black church.
Before we see the duo perform “Soothe Me,” Moore admits that the title was adopted from the gospel song “Save Me, Jesus, Save Me.” Bell confesses one of his marketing maneuvers for “You Don’t Know Like I Know” (which we see performed on the German Beat Beat Beat program) was to pitch it as a “holiday” song to radio DJs the day before Christmas, which worked because of its clear musical connections with the church. The DVD’s bonus features include three live performances labeled “The Roots of Sam & Dave,” which also highlight the pair’s connection to sacred music. In particular, Jackie Verdell and Brother Joe May’s duet on “You’re Gonna Need Him After a While” is, by itself, worth the price of the entire DVD.
Along with Otis Redding, Sam & Dave were Stax/Volt’s standard-bearers for soul straight from the pulpit. Soul Men even features a performance of “I Take What I Want” by the duo-in matching fire truck-red suits, no less-on Redding’s own short-lived TV show called “The Beat.” Later in the film, Moore confesses to a bit of friendly competitive rivalry between the duo and Redding, based around which act could produce the most incendiary live performance. The performance of the classic “Hold On, I’m Coming” featured in the film proves beyond any doubt that the duo was able to match Redding’s own flair for the dramatic. Taking place in front of a ravenous crowd at London’s Hammersmith Odeon in 1967, the intense, constantly zooming and cutting cinema-verité style photography of the performance directly recalls the manner in which D. A. Pennebaker’s crew captured Redding that same year, performing “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” at the Monterey Pop Festival. Moore and Prater allow the Stax/Volt band to vamp for a few minutes at the end of the performance, as they dance exuberantly and allow crowd members to touch not only the hems of their garments, but also their hands.
The film pays brief homage to the duo’s backing musicians as well, an important inclusion for those who think that the MGs were the sole soul providers of the music behind the singing. Moore recalls wanting a band that could “dance and play at the same time,” which led to the formation of what he calls a “22 piece orchestra.” That group is as much a part of this film as Sam & Dave themselves, injecting as much refined energy on risers in the background as the two men testifying up front. The film includes a performance of the band alone performing “Roadrunner,” as well as a fun bonus track of the band playing a brief version of “Secret Agent Man.”
Much of the rest of the film is evidence of the popular music atmosphere during the late 1960s and early ‘70s, when the music was proliferating wildly, and live producers were inventing new ways to present it using available technology. From Danish television, the performances of “You Got It Made” and “I Don’t Need Nobody” feature Sam & Dave singing in the center of the screen, framed on either side by two women go-go dancing in front of polished metal backdrops, creating a dated, vaguely psychedelic tableau. The video for “You Got Me Hummin’” sees the duo in impossibly bright, nearly glowing yellow suits, backed by their band in variations of yellow and blue suits on risers behind them. Finally, the filmed promotional video for “Baby Don’t Stop Now” is evidence that, in 1970, most people still didn’t know what to do with the music video medium. The clip mostly shows Sam & Dave, dressed to the nines in fur and leather, walking around what appears to be London, peering in shop windows and trying their best not to look at the camera.
According to Bell, Sam & Dave playing on the Ed Sullivan Show “was like manna from heaven.” They certainly made the most of their appearance, and their medley of “Soul Sister Brown Sugar” and “Lucky Ol’ Sun” is the highlight of the film. Sam’s vocal on the Ray Charles-penned “Sun” is his best performance here, but that’s only the start. “Sun” expands dramatically, picking up its pace and threatening to collapse from its unreleased energy, and then segues seamlessly back into “Soul Sister,” which ends the set. The music echoes cavernously throughout Sullivan’s studio, but that only gives the performance an increased sense of bigness to match the of-the-era sense of liveness.
Later, two other high-profile performances show the group’s sense of humor and ability to stretch beyond rhythm-based soul music. Burt Bacharach jokes about shooting the pair with tranquilizer darts to calm them down, and then asks them to sing his “Make it Easy on Yourself” with, as Bacharach notes, “a whole lot of strings attached.” On the Mike Douglas Show, Douglas comments that “it wears me out just watching you guys,” and then they put him on the spot, giving him a vocal solo on “Lucky Ol’ Sun.” Needless to say, this bit is more of an enjoyable historical curio than a crucial performance.
The video’s main point of historical significance is mentioned in a brief title card after the video fades out, which tells us that, “After shooting this promotional video, Sam & Dave broke up the act.” The film picks back up in 1980, when the duo had been persuaded to appear on Saturday Night Live. Their performance of “Soul Man” showed that they were still more than capable, 13 years after the song’s original release, of investing it with their uniquely passionate approach, even when their backing band breaks down mid-song into something that sounds less like soul and more like Billy Preston-style piano-driven gospel funk. It’s fitting, of course, that performances of “Soul Man” bookend the film. Watching the two chapters back-to-back on the DVD, especially with the knowledge that Prater passed away in 1988 (in the film, his widow offers a few bits of insight about the duo), is a poignant reminder that, though they were only around for a brief time, Sam & Dave’s musical and performative legacy is one that will be remembered and re-visited for years to come.
Posted by Eric Harvey
February 3, 2009
Title: Take Me to the River: A Southern Soul Story, 1961-1977
Artists: Various
Label: Ace/Kent
Catalog No.: Kentbox 10
Date: 2008
Take Me to the River is the best soul music box set of 2008, with a selection of 75 songs on 3 CDs, packaged with a lavishly illustrated and annotated 72 p. hardcover booklet. The goal of the compilers, Tony Rounce and Dean Rutland, was to set out in chronological order a selection of some of the best Southern soul music, noted for its “rich blend of blues and gospel, with a dash of soulful country added to the mix.” Included are chart topping hits, such as “When a Man Loves a Woman” by Percy Sledge and Otis Redding’s “Try a Little Tenderness” (the previously unreleased first take), interspersed with “hideously obscure 45s that often didn’t get far beyond the limits of the cities in which they were recorded.”
In terms of defining Southern soul, the compilers set strict guidelines- “recordings made below the Mason-Dixon Line and, mostly, in the studios whose names are synonymous with the sound: Broadway Sound/Quinvy, Royal, Stax, Muscle Shoals Sound, Criteria, Fame, etc.” That is, studios located in Tennessee (Nashville, Memphis), Alabama (Muscle Shoals), Florida, Louisiana (Shreveport, but NOT New Orleans), Mississippi, and Georgia. Furthermore, they limited their selections to artists who either hailed from the South, or who recorded some of their most significant work there. Using the latter criteria, they were able to slip in Aretha Franklin’s “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man” and Etta James’s “I’d Rather Go Blind,” which were both recorded at Muscle Shoals in order to inject an “authentic” southern soul sound.
The three CDs each bear their own title. Disc One, “You Don’t Miss Your Water,” begins with William Bell’s 1961 version of that song and takes us through Oscar Toney Jr.’s “Without Love (There Is Nothing),” recorded in 1967. Other featured artists include Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Jarvis Jackson, Eddie Floyd, Charlie Rich, Toussaint McCall, June Edwards, Laura Lee, and Etta James. Disc Two, “The Rainbow Road” (as sung by Bill Brandon on track 3), begins in 1968 with Maurice & Mac’s “You Left the Water Running” and concludes with Gwen McCrae’s “You Lead Me On” (1970). Along the way are selections by Don Bryant, Shirley Walton, Ollie & the Nightingales, William Bell, Spencer Wiggins, Clarence Carter, Candi Staton, Joe Tex, Doris Duke, ZZ Hill, and Johnnie Taylor, among others. Disc Three, “The River,” sets off in 1971 with Marcell Strong’s “Mumble in My Ear” and concludes in 1976 with Geater Davis’s “I’ll Play the Blues for You.” This 1970s compilation also features Denise LaSalle, King Floyd, Al Green, Sam Dees, Ann Peebles, Bobby Womack, Millie Jackson, the Soul Children, Chet Davenport, Luther Ingram, and more.
If you already have a large soul music collection, this box set may not offer any new material. However, it is such a wonderful overview of southern soul music, thoughtfully programmed and expertly annotated, that both the novice and the soul music aficionado will reap the benefits. And, let’s face it- there just aren’t that many great compilations being produced anymore. This is a set that you’ll want to buy and hold on to for the long term.
Posted by Brenda Nelson-Strauss
December 12, 2008
