This milestone anniversary box set commemorates of a pivotal year for Stax Records and for American history: 1968. This period immediately follows the untimely passing of Otis Redding; it’s the year that Stax parted ways with Atlantic Records, and it’s also when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. This five-disc CD box set compiles every single (A- and B-sides) released on Stax and its subsidiary labels in ’68–over 120 iconic songs from era-de ning artists, including Otis Redding, The Staple Singers, William Bell, Booker T. and the M.G.’s, Carla Thomas, Johnnie Taylor, Albert King, Isaac Hayes, Linda Lyndell, Rufus Thomas and many more.
Nina Simone was only 25 years old in 1958 when she entered Beltone Studios in midtown Manhattan for a one-day recording session for her debut album, Little Girl Blue,on Bethlehem Records. The 14 songs she recorded that day reveal just how well developed Simone’s sound — her powerhouse vocals, her classically-trained piano-playing, her inventive, genre-blind arrangements, and her dynamic personality — already was. Bethlehem, a small and financially faltering jazz label, picked 11 tracks for Little Girl Blue. This unheralded debut yielded Simone’s biggest hit, a cover of the Gershwins’ “Porgy (I Loves You, Porgy),” as well as her last one, “My Baby Just Cares for Me,” which charted in 1987 after being used in a TV commercial.
Omnivore Recordings, in conjunction with the Buck Owens Estate, is proud to present Buck Owens and The Buckaroos’ The Complete Capitol Singles: 1967–1970. This is the second in a series chronicling every one of Buck’s historic Capitol singles from the ’50s, ’60, and ’70s. Taken from the original mono and stereo masters, The Complete Capitol Singles: 1967–1970 collects the A- and B-side to all 18 singles from that period, including 14 Top Ten hits, in their original, chronological form.
Essential: a masterpiece of psychedelic-rock music
This aptly titled album is really exactly that: the crown of their creation. And the artwork is simply a good explanation of what this music can do to your mind.