Notable Reissues

Let the Music Play: Supreme Rarities 1960-1969 (Hip-O Select, April 2008)

The producers of this CD combed through the Motown archives in order to come up with a two CD set of 47 previously unreleased takes. As is typical with compilations of this type, the alternate takes reveal elements of the creative and production process through altered verses and extended versions. If you’re only interested in hearing the final versions, this CD set is not for you.

Gladys Knight & the Pips: Claudine/Pipe Dreams. (Shout! June 2008)

Shout Factory has assembled on one compact disc two rare 1970s movie soundtracks featuring Gladys Knight & The Pips.  Claudine, released in 1974, was a film starring Diahann Carroll and James Earl Jones, with music composed by Curtis Mayfield (this was two years after his much celebrated Superfly score).  The soundtrack includes the chart-topping single “On And On,” as well as the more poignant “Welfare Man.”  Pipe Dreams, released in 1976, actually featured Gladys Knight in the starring role. The film was not commercially successful and Knight’s acting career went no further. The soundtrack includes one hit single, “So Sad The Song,” though contemporary audiences may be more interested in “Alaska Pipeline.”

Bo Diddley.  Road Runner: The Chess Masters, 1959-1960. (Hip-O Select, June 2008)

This is the second installment of Hip-O Select’s tribute to Bo Diddley, who passed away earlier this year (the first installment, I’m A Man: The Chess Masters 1955-1958, was released in 2007).  The two CD set features 52 tracks in all, including 23 previously unreleased songs and alternate takes encompassing both his Chess studio recordings and various home recordings. Liner notes were provided by George R. White, Diddley’s biographer. This is great stuff and absolutely essential for anyone interested in the black roots of rock ‘n’ roll.

Yvonne Fair.  The Bitch is Black (Reel Music, June 2008)

The late Yvonne Fair performed with the James Brown Revue in the early 1960s and simultaneously released several singles which never took off, even though they were produced by Brown. She then took a stab at Motown, pairing up with Marvin Gaye, but success did not arrive until  Norman Whitfield produced several of her singles in 1974, which led up to her one and only album. The Bitch is Black, released in 1975, features some great “in your face” funky R&B from a little known performer. The accompanying booklet features photos and a biographical essay by A. Scott Galloway.

Joe Tex.  Get Way Back: The 1950s Recordings (Ace, August 2008)

Joe Tex (1933-1982) was Texas-born soul singer who rose to fame in the mid-1960s, but this compilation traces the beginnings of his career. The 27 tracks that he recorded for the King and the American Ace label, some released on CD for the first time, include elements of rock ‘n’ roll as well as New Orleans R&B. The accompanying booklet offers biographical information and previously unpublished photographs.

More Dirty Laundry


Title: More Dirty Laundry: The Soul of Black Country
Artists: Various
Label: Trikont (Germany)
Catalog No.: US-0333
Release date: 2008

More Dirty Laundry: The Soul of Black Country is the second in a pair of discs dedicated to an expansive and inclusive look at black contributions to country music, and the breadth of music that falls into the realm of County Soul is enough, I hope, to fill more compilations in the future.

The artists included on the disc are not exactly names one might consider when thinking of black country musicians. Of course, if it were limited to the standard black country artists, there would hardly be enough material for two compilations. Charlie Pride, DeFord Bailey (the Grand Old Opry’s first black star), and Ray Charles, with his genre shattering Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, are nowhere to be found on either disc. This is by design, since those artists are well documented elsewhere. Dirty Laundry (released in 2004) and its sequel, More Dirty Laundry (2008), provide “a collection of black approaches to country music” which is both a more inclusive and a more accurate representation of African American contributions. Because the institutionalization of country music essentially cut black musicians out of the picture, black artists have had to find different ways to approach the genre.

Listening to these compilations becomes a game of rethinking what country music is. Can you hear the country in Ruth Brown’s rhythm and blues version of the country standard “Tennessee Waltz”? Can you hear a Merle Haggard type twang in the voice of Stoney Edwards on “Honky Tonk Heaven”? Or conversely, can you hear the “soul,” (which is to say “blackness”) in the honky-tonk piano and pedal steel of Vicki Vann’s “You Must Think My Heart Has Swinging Doors”?

More Dirty Laundry gets to the heart of what one associates with country music. And who’s doing the associating. If country is limited to pedal steels, honky-tonk piano, and southern twang, Country Soul keeps all those elements, but also adds horns, gospel stylings, back-up singers, and soulful singing by artists like Solomon Burke and Bobby Womack that would make Hank Williams blush.

But country music isn’t just limited to the instrumentation and sonic textures, but is as much wrapped up in the history, the heartbreaks, and stories of the songs. Arthur Alexander’s “Everyday I Have To Cry,” and O.B. McClinton’s “If Loving You Is Wrong” ring the same sad tones often associated with the lily white country music from George Jones to Garth Brooks. O.C. Smith’s “The Son of Hickory Holler Tramp” is as compelling a story of country roots as Loretta Lynn’s “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” again, with a different approach. Take a story of pride in humble Southern beginnings and a deep devotion to family, swap the twangy telecaster and banjo of Loretta Lynn’s version for Smith’s driving bass guitar and blaring horn section, and you have two musical approaches to the same material.

Both Dirty Laundry and More Dirty Laundry make fantastic listening experiences. They cull from a wide and deep tradition that has been hidden in the cracks of other genres. Many of the artists represented here are famous in their own right (Ike and Tina Turner, Solomon Burke, James Brown), just not as country music stars. Fantastic liner notes by Jonathan Fischer provide an outline of the history of black participation and influence on the trajectory of country music as well as detailing each performer’s individual connection to country music, often through writing and producing credits for white stars.

These records may not be what you expect, and because of that, they make us realize how narrow our expectations have become.

Posted by Thomas Grant Richardson