Ruby Soul

There was way too much great early soul, R & B and blues being produced in New York City to squeeze onto one double CD, so here we are again with another selection of the best. Several artists on this new compilation are very well known: Ray Charles, Little Willie John and Ike & Tine Turner for example, but many others less so. It speaks volumes about the wealth of talent in the Big Apple around the turn of the 60s that gifted singers such as Ruby Roberson, Bobby Long and Betty O Brien never quite made the grade.

It’s about time BGP got seriously funky and over the next few months we will be serving up some fantastic collections of rare funk and groovy soul from the depths of the black American recording industry. In the last decade funk has gone from the forgotten cousin of soul to the genre that has been most quickly excavated and then sometimes discarded. It often seems that every rare record has been snapped up and compiled already (it’s not true but sometimes it seems like it). However, the Ace collective really does have the ability to go deeper; as with the world of rare soul, our access to the tape vaults of various companies allows us to bring the world some exceptional music that has never been heard since the day it was recorded. “Street Sounds From The Bay Area” is the result of our examination of the recordings made, and then on the whole not released, by Ray Dobard’s Music City outfit between 1971 and 1975.

The Chicago music industry exploded with the growth of soul music in this period, producing thousands of records and dozens and dozens of new labels. The two biggest black music labels Vee-Jay and Chess led in the creation of the Chicago soul brand with names familiar and not so familiar: the former with Etta James and Tony Adams and the latter with Gene Chandler and Moss Tolbert. And yet it's the smaller labels that make up the bulk of the Chicago story: Conlo with Jamo Thomas, Blue Rock with Otis Leaville, Ja-Wes with Sandra Stephens and it's here that we explore some of the finest sounds of the era in this collection.

Ray Charles was the musician most responsible for developing soul music. Singers like Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson also did a great deal to pioneer the form, but Charles did even more to devise a new form of black pop by merging '50s R&B with gospel-powered vocals, adding plenty of flavor from contemporary jazz, blues, and (in the '60s) country. Then there was his singing; his style was among the most emotional and easily identifiable of any 20th century performer, up there with the likes of Elvis and Billie Holiday. He was also a superb keyboard player, arranger, and bandleader.

"Beautiful Soul" collects tracks from Springfield's 1973 "Cameo" album, along with the entirety of its previously unreleased follow-up "Longing". The "Cameo" tracks are produced by then-hot songwriting team Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter, and they're done in the same pop/soul style the pair employed with the Four Tops at the time. Highlights include "Who Gets Your Love," a mid-tempo teaser that became a modest hit, and a spectacularly soulful version of Van Morrison's "Tupelo Honey." The "Longing" tracks, some of which were to some degree unfinished, are a bit more wide-ranging stylistically. Among the best are the haunting, minor-key "Exclusively for Me," on which Springfield does a lovely impression of its co-author, ex-Zombies singer Colin Blunstone," and "A Love Like Yours," a lesser-known Motown song that she re-recorded for her 1977 album "It Begins Again".

This is a first ever collection of Rare Soul that assembles the rarest Soul 45s. Highly collectible, and highly prized by those who love the genre. Virtually all of these songs have never been on CD before, and making their digital debut here in this deluxe collection. With encyclopedic liner notes by Bill Dahl, this book and CD release certainly raises the bar for this genre.

This is a first ever collection of Rare Soul that assembles the rarest Soul 45s. Highly collectible, and highly prized by those who love the genre. Virtually all of these songs have never been on CD before, and making their digital debut here in this deluxe collection. With encyclopedic liner notes by Bill Dahl, this book and CD release certainly raises the bar for this genre.

The glory days for soul music in Philadelphia were the 70s, when the smooth orchestral Philly sound stood tall in the charts, and when writer/producers like Thom Bell, Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff were at the peak of their powers and when almost every soul singer and group travelled to Philly hoping some of the magic would rub off on them.
But this success didn’t happen overnight. Philadelphia was a major music centre long before, particularly in the late 50s when Dick Clark’s Bandstand TV show was the biggest in the US. This platform developed in the 60s as Philly consolidated its position as a key recording location for pop and soul.