The Employer Brand: Bringing The Best of Brand Management to People at Work (repost)

Infusing traditional gospel music with Memphis soul, Detroit-based singer Rance Allen helped pave the way for the secularized gospel sound of the '80s and '90s. After signing with Stax in 1969, Allen and his group proceeded to bring their hip brand of gospel to the masses by scoring several chart hits and opening concerts for the likes of Isaac Hayes. This hits package covers the group's successful run in the '70s, spotlighting Allen's incredibly flexible and powerful voice (one listens to cuts like "Ain't No Need of Crying" and "Gonna Make It Alright" and it's easy to figure out where Prince picked up his misty falsetto from). The selections include Allen's biggest Stax hit, "I Got to Be Myself," the spiritually reconfigured cover "Just My Imagination (Just My Salvation)," and modern gospel pioneer James Cleveland's "That Will Be Enough for Me." Allen contributes a handful of slick and spirited groovers, like "I Give My All To You" and "I Belong to You," and even goes in for a little disco on another original, "Smile" (considering Allen's devout nature, it's hard to tell if the more commercial elements in the music came from him or hit-minded producers).

A relic from the days when so many artists' catalogs were still unavailable on CD, and a decent hits package was the best you could hope for, Out Demons Out! is a generously stuffed compilation that carves through the Broughton Band's Harvest label catalog, and comes up consistently trumps. Of course the title track is here – a non-LP single at the time, it remains the archetypal Broughton performance, encapsulating everything that made the band great both on vinyl and in concert. But it is by no means the only classic in their arsenal: "Apache Drop Out," "Evil," and "Hotel Room" are all masterpieces, while "Up Yours" rivals "Out Demons Out" in the all-together-in-a-muddy-field shout-along stakes. The subsequent appearance of the full catalog on disc in its own right takes some of the urgency away from this collection, but anybody searching for an easy entry into the world of the Edgar Broughton Band will find no better introduction.

Doug Sahm once sang, "You just can't live in Texas if you don't have a lot of soul," and, as a proud son of the Lone Star state, he seemed bent on proving that every time he stepped in front of a microphone. Whether he was playing roots rock, garage punk, blues, country, norteño, or (as was often the case) something that mixed up several of the above-mentioned ingredients, Doug Sahm always sounded like Doug Sahm – a little wild, a little loose, but always good company, and a guy with a whole lot of soul who knew a lot of musicians upon whom the same praise could be bestowed. Pulling together a single disc compilation that would make sense of the length and breadth of the artist's recording career (which spanned five decades) would be just about impossible (the licensing hassles involved with the many labels involved would probably scotch such a project anyway), but this disc, which boasts 22 songs recorded over the course of eight years, is a pretty good starter for anyone wanting to get to know Sahm's music.