VA 60's Ballads

Scepter/Wand and Musicor/Dynamo records were quintessential New York soul labels. Their common link was Luther Dixon, who set Scepter on the right road with the Shirelles and followed up with success for Tommy Hunt, Chuck Jackson and Maxine Brown. He split for Musicor in 1966 where he got the Platters, Tommy Hunt and Inez & Charlie Foxx back into the charts. Scepter/Wand had the bigger black music catalogue and dominates this compilation. It is the third in the recent Manhattan Soul series: across-the-board soul covering the 60s and the first half of the 70s.

New York label Spring, and its Event and Posse subsidiaries, were very active from 1967 up to the late 80s. They specialised in the city’s black music and tried most variations, including soul, gospel, disco, show tunes, funk, harmony and later electro and rap.We have chosen the most soulful tracks that have not appeared on Kent CDs before, including six completed recordings that were previously unreleased. Two of these are ballads: a stunning version of Ray Godfrey’s song ‘I’m The Other Half Of You’ by Maxine Weldon and an unknown sweet soul number from one-time Tavares member Victor Tavares. Ray Godfrey himself features with ‘I Love You More Than Anything’, as covered by Joe Simon, and the unheard song ‘Hold On’, both previously unissued dance tracks. The Determinations’ opener ‘Save The Best For Me’ is another of Ray’s great songs, previously only on a rare LP. Other 70s dancers come from Ronnie Walker, Act I and the Joneses. More ballads are provided by Joe Simon, Leroy Randolph and, surprisingly, the Fatback Band, while uptempo 60s soul comes from Prince Harold, Little Eva Harris and Richard Barbary.

NOW Music is proud to present the newest addition to the ‘Yearbook’ series: NOW – Yearbook 1981. 4 CDs of 85 tracks that defined the charts in 1981. This special edition CD is housed in ‘hard-back book’ packaging, including a 28-page booklet with a summary of the year, a track-by-track guide, a quiz, and original singles artwork, and as a standard 4-CD package.

In the pre-Beatle era, when British pop was a veritable smorgasbord of genres and musical ideas without a dominant narrative, Joe Meek sampled almost everything on offer. From novelty hits to sound effect laden masterpieces, straight forward pre-beat pop and light instrumentals to cinematic ballads, his work with excellent singers such as JOHN LEYTON and MIKE BERRY, alongside talented writers like GEOFF GODDARD and RAY DEXTER, always carried his signature studio techniques, still years ahead of many major commercial studios.

Operated by a pair of cutthroat radio promotion men, Chicago's Twinight label made its strides via "friendola" - the trading of favors, not dollars, for local radio airplay. Much of the outfit's 56-single output - excepting the work of bona fide hitmaker Syl Johnson - was written and recorded by moonlighting on-air talent eager for a leg up in the Second City's notoriously crooked record racket. Twinight's Lunar Rotation spins 40 former tax write-off tracks on 2 CDs - or 54 cuts on 4 LPs - into works of true soul beauty revealed by the light of a new day.

With the British Invasion of the mid-60s, Italy’s music scene underwent a powerful transformation. A new wave of local bands emerged, passionately reinterpreting British rock and fusing it with elements of Italian musical tradition, giving rise to the “beat” movement. Initially a hugely popular youth phenomenon and a symbol of rebellion fueled by the social unrest of the era, Beat music quickly evolved into a full-fledged cultural movement. It shaped not only the sound of a generation but also—and perhaps more importantly—its aesthetic. Mondo Beat gathers some hidden gems from bands and singers who released their music on vinyl 45s between 1964 and 1970. Made available here for the first time ever in digital format, these tracks fully capture the energy and rebellious spirit of Italian Beat, from the most sentimental ballads to the most danceable rock tunes.

Featuring 11 previously unissued recordings, this second and final volume of Jack Ashford's independent soul productions from 1967 to the mid-70s is an equal to the first well-received compilation. It opens with the now revered original version of Softouch's After You Give Your All by the writer Sandra Richardson. Only previously issued on 2016's 100 Club anniversary single, this is its first digital appearance. Kent also used an Ashford-produced track for last year's 100 Club 45; an edit of the Magnificents I Can Fly (the original incarnation of what Jack would sing as I'll Fly To Your Open Arms on his Hotel Sheet album) presented here is the full version.

Jackie DeShannon’s status as a singer is assured. Her vocal range, diversity and skill, as exemplified by her original and stunning performances of ‘Needles And Pins’, ‘When You Walk In The Room’, Bacharach and David’s ‘What The World Needs Now Is Love’ and the generational anthem ‘Put A Little Love In Your Heart’, will be well known to readers of this article. But her status as a songwriter also deserves to be celebrated – something that Ace have done for us with this 27-track cracker, “Break-A-Way”.

It was distinctly ironic: at the very zenith of America's postwar space-age love affair with TV, 3-D, and rock & roll (and other disposable cultural ephemera), a grassroots movement set out to recapture the country's lost musical heritage. These curious minds not only found it in a wealth of seemingly forgotten protest songs, spiritual blues, and country laments, but also forged new songs in its image. That this crusade sprang from lower Manhattan's Washington Square and the doorstep of New York University made the paradox all the sweeter. Ted Myers, the producer of this triple-disc anthology, grew up just blocks from the epicenter of that folk-quake, and his generous sense of place and time permeates this rich collection. Generally misunderstood and historically pigeonholed, the era finally gets its due, chronicled here by 72 tracks that extend far beyond the roots-conscious work of Woody Guthrie, the Weavers, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, and Pete Seeger on one hand, and the more popular material by the Kingston Trio, Limeliters, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan on the other. Culturally, the Folk movement was the alt-rock of its day–if eminently more conscious of history and politically committed. Musically, it encompassed an ethos that enthusiastically blurred the boundaries between blues, Appalachian ballads, jug music, pure country, honky-tonk, work songs, and even unbridled novelty; this set explores them all, often with a palpable sense of discovery. Historically, the movement championed preservation at the same time it gleefully tweaked old sensibilities in pursuit of new inspiration. Listen and you'll hear music that became touchstones for artists as diverse as the Byrds, Roberta Flack, Rod Stewart, and–wittingly or not–every passionate coffeehouse minstrel who's strode on stage with a guitar ever since. –Jerry McCulley