Skip James

Hard Time Killin' Floor isn't the first Skip James collection, and one could bet it will not be the last. But Hard Time Killin' Floor makes a pretty good argument for itself: the hour-and-six-minute album holds all of James' early work, and it's been remastered. James' soulful vocal style, like Robert Johnson's, has often been noted, but his quick picking style is also distinctive. "I'm So Glad" is performed at an up-tempo, breakneck pace, and the finger work will leave the listener dizzy. The title cut, on the other hand, has a slow, lazy quality, with the blue notes of the guitar matching the singer's mournful cry. James was somewhat unique among blues guitarists in that he also played piano. His spunky gospel style is on full display on songs like "How Long Buck" and the bizarrely titled "Little Cow and Calf Is Gonna Die Blues"…

Skip James was a Delta blues artist from Mississippi. Known for his career during the Great Depression and subsequent decades, he was “rediscovered” and became much more widely recognized during the 1960’s when he was in very poor health nearing the end of his life. His playing style was primarily in a minor key, featuring complex fingerpicking. After years of being out of print, The Complete 1931 Sessions, taken from James' Paramount recordings, will be remastered and reissued by ORG Music for RSD Black Friday on color vinyl. The compilation is made up of some of the earliest years of the artist’s career and showcases the astounding talent he possessed from the very beginning.

Leonard Chess dispatched Etta James to Muscle Shoals in 1967, and the move paid off with one of her best and most soul-searing Cadet albums. Produced by Rick Hall, the resultant album boasted a relentlessly driving title cut, the moving soul ballad "I'd Rather Go Blind," and sizzling covers of Otis Redding's "Security" and Jimmy Hughes' "Don't Lose Your Good Thing," and a pair of fine Don Covay copyrights. The skin-tight session aces at Fame Studios really did themselves proud behind Miss Peaches.

2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the release on Goldwax of James Carr’s recording of ‘The Dark End Of The Street’, a record rightly hailed as a benchmark in soul, and in southern soul in particular. James’ recording of Dan Penn and Chips Moman’s genre-defining song is one of dozens but it was the first and is by unanimous consensus the best.

Esoteric Recordings is pleased to announce the release of a newly re-mastered, re-mixed and expanded 3 disc clamshell box edition of the classic album, “Barclay James Harvest and Other Short Stories”. Recorded and released in 1971, the album was the third by BJH and was recorded at Abbey Road studios and was co-produced by the band and ex-Pretty Things member Wally Allen. Widely regarded (along with “Once Again”) as one of the band’s early masterpieces, “…Other Short Stories” featured such classic tracks as ‘Medicine Man’, ‘Ursula (The Swansea Song)’, ‘The Poet’ and the epic ‘After the Day’. The album was critically acclaimed upon its release by Harvest Records and was also issued by Sire Records in the United States with some remixed versions of tracks. The album also featured the Barclay James Harvest symphony orchestra conducted by Martyn Ford and arrangements by Toni Cooke and Martyn Ford.

James Brown’s celebrated homecoming concert in Augusta, Georgia will have its 50th anniversary marked by Republic/UMe’s first-ever release of the complete show on 25 October. Live At Home with His Bad Self will be available on CD, 2LP vinyl, and digital audio as a full memento of the Godfather of Soul’s concert at the Bell Auditorium in Augusta on 1 October 1969.