Rance Allen

Box set, celebrating its 20th anniversary this year of "Free Soul," a popular compilation series that focus on soul music songs mainly taken from the 1970's.

"Funky Notes from the West Coast" collects some of the finest soul-jazz, funk and soul released by Capitol/EMI. One of the Blue Note's best-selling reissues, "Funky Notes" includes tracks like "She's My Summer Breeze" by the Reflections, Maze's "While I'm Alone," A Taste of Honey's "I Love You" and Gene Harris' "Losalamitoslatinfunklovesong." Worthwhile for any fan of jazzy, funky soul.

Ronnie McNeir is an American singer and songwriter born Lewis Ronald McNeir on December 14, 1951 in Camden, Alabama. As a solo artist, he recorded for the De-to, RCA, Prodigal, Motown, Capitol, Expansion and Motor City labels, recording his first song when he was seventeen. His friendship with Kim Weston, for whom he was musical director, led to his recording for RCA, then for moonlighting Motown Vice-President Barney Ales, the owner of the Prodigal label. When Ales went back to Motown, McNair became a Motown artist, recording the 1976 album "Love's Comin' Down". He would later duet with Teena Marie on the song "We've Got To Stop Meeting Like This" from her 1984 Epic album, Starchild and serve as the musical director for The Four Tops for several years. He became an official member of the Tops in 1999 when lead singer Levi Stubbs was too ill to continue singing with the group. He has been with the group ever since. He also was nominated for a Grammy in the Gospel Music category in 1981 for his collaboration with Rance Allen and in 2007, he released “Ronnie Mac & Company,” which features collaborations with Kirk Whalum, Kathy Lamar and fellow Four Top Theo Peoples. Throughout his career, Ronnie has also worked with Bobby Womack, David Ruffin, Smokey Robinson, Angela Winbush, the Whispers, Carrie Lucas and Eddie Kendricks.