Spanish Lace

Decades before Corey Harris, Guy Davis, and Keb' Mo' wed the Delta blues to various folk forms, there was Taj Mahal. Almost from the very beginning, Mahal provided audiences with connections to a plethora of blues styles. Further, he offered hard evidence connecting American blues to folk styles from other nations, particularly, but not limited to, those from the West Indies and various African countries, bridging gaps, highlighting similarities, and establishing links between many experiences of the African diaspora…

Various Artists - The Gone Story (1999) {2CD Set, Westside Records WESD206 rec 1957-1964}
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© 1957-64, 1999 Gone Recordings / Westside Records | WESD 206
Rhythm & Blues / Doo Wop / Oldies / Blues / Soul / Rock 'n' Roll

George Goldner Presents The Gone Story: Doo-Wop to Soul 1957-1963 contains 65 songs representing a dead-perfect cross-section of the singles output of one of New York's great R&B labels of the late 1950s and early 1960s. The opening cut, the Dubs' slow, romantic "Don't Ask Me (To Be Lonely)," shows just how far George Goldner's conception of rhythm & blues had come in the four years since he'd founded Rama Records in 1953. Gone Records, starting in 1957, featured a more sophisticated output, oriented toward elegant, impassioned ballads rather than the dance numbers that had gone over so big in the mid-'50s.

With the release of This Way, Acoustic Alchemy's guitarists Greg Carmichael and Miles Gilderdale celebrate a remarkable two decades since Red Dust & Spanish Lace established the British ensemble as an ever-evolving powerhouse of contemporary jazz. Carmichael and Gilderdale's natural chemistry is very apparent on this set of loose and spirited songs, as is the soloing by the complementing musicians on such jazzy tracks as "Egg," which has a very British, blues-drenched, straight-ahead sound. By contrast, "Ernie" has an exotic Latin jazz flavor complete with great solos by Terry Disley, Jeff Kashiwa, and trombonist Dennis Rollins. Rick Braun makes a guest appearance on "Carlos the King," a racy rock, Latin, and blues fusion that also features Gilderdale's electric guitar and Greg Grainger's percussive energy.

This is a collection of Nick Webb's early recordings with his original partner, Simon James, who split to go solo and was replaced by Greg Carmichael. Webb and James may have been calling themselves Acoustic Alchemy, but really, AA didn't start as a stable and successful group until Webb and Carmichael recorded their first album, red Dust and Spanish Lace, in 1987; these tracks precede that. As Acoustic Alchemy's career progressed, they added other instruments to accompany their steel and nylon string guitars, but there is almost nothing here but acoustic guitar.

The Complete Motown Singles has been a dream project of Motown and soul fanatics for many years, ever since the first decade of Stax/Volt singles was compiled in an impressive nine-disc box set in 1991. Prior to that, no soul label had its output as thoroughly documented as that set – there had been the Atlantic R&B box, which collected highlights, but it never attempted to capture the label's entire run – and while The Complete Stax-Volt Singles 1959-1968 missed a B-side or two, it was an exceptional piece of music history, and pretty damn entertaining to boot.