Rare Soul & R&b Masters

Barbara McNair is certainly not the only singer to get lost in the shuffle at Motown at the company's mid-'60s zenith, but her tenure there seemed particularly star-crossed – as this 48-track Ultimate Motown Collection illustrates, much of her finest material was inexplicably withheld from release (in particular the much-bootlegged Northern soul classic "Baby a Go-Go"), while official singles like "My World Is Empty Without You" were issued in the wake of existing hit renditions by other Motown artists. But McNair boasted a genuinely sophisticated, sexy style that was unique in the Motown canon, and her voice – though by no means a powerhouse – is nevertheless stronger and more affecting than Diana Ross, whose hand-me-downs she often received. Compiling her full-lengths Here I Am and The Real Barbara McNair, the unreleased Barbara McNair Sings Smokey, non-LP singles, and rare vault material, this two-disc set finally pays McNair the respect she's always deserved – complete with informative liner notes and excellent sound, it's tough to imagine a better representation of her music.

Stoney and Meatloaf is the only album by Stoney & Meatloaf, a collaboration between Meat Loaf and female vocalist Shaun Murphy, released in 1971 on the Motown subsidiary label Rare Earth. Meat Loaf and Murphy met while performing with the Detroit cast of Hair…

To mark 60 years, Motown Unreleased 1969 boasts 60 tracks, all recorded in 1969 and left unheard – until now. The label’s heaviest hitters are all here, including Diana Ross and The Supremes with their rendition of the Ron Miller/Orlando Murden standard “For Once in My Life,” Gladys Knight and The Pips (“You Took Me This Far (Take Me All the Way)),” Jackson 5 (“What’s So Good About Goodbye”), and Marvin Gaye (“I’ll Take Care of Business”). Three tracks each can be heard from The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, and Jr. Walker and The All-Stars, and four each from Edwin Starr and Bobby Taylor.

Martin Scorsese Presents: The Blues - A Musical Journey [7 DVD Box Set] (2003) {Snapper Music}
7xDVD -> 46.0 Gb | All Regions | PAL 16:9 | English (LinearPCM, 2 ch / Dolby AC3, 6 ch / Dolby AC3, 2 ch) | ~ 13 hours | ISO Images
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 546 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2003 Snapper Music / Reverse Angle / Vulcan Prod | SMADVD039
Blues / Traditional Blues / Moderm Blues / Soul / Documentary

This 7 DVD set features rare archival performance footage of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker, Bo Diddley, Eric Clapton and many more. It also features newly filmed performances by contemporary artists singing classic blues songs. It may have been underrated when first broadcast on PBS on consecutive nights in the fall of '03, but executive producer Martin Scorsese's homage to the blues is a truly significant, if imperfect, achievement. "Musical journey" is an apt description, as Scorsese and the six other directors responsible for these seven approximately 90-minute films follow the blues–the foundation of jazz, soul, R&B, and rock & roll–from its African roots to its Mississippi Delta origins, up the river to Memphis and Chicago, then to New York, the United Kingdom, and beyond.