Increasingly, and especially in a day and age where music is so widely and readily available thanks to advanced technologies, when a company or act wants to make a good box set, it had better deliver. To its credit, Beggars Banquet did just that with Rare Cult, an astoundingly comprehensive and entertaining collection that packs in 90 tracks over the course of six discs…
Continuing their trawl through the vaults of Joe Ruffino's legendary New Orleans R&B labels Ric and Ron, Ace pairs the complete Ric and Ron recordings of Tommy Ridgley with the complete sides of the singer's friend and follower Bobby Mitchell. The reason they're paired on a single disc instead of showcased on an individual title is simple: by 2015 standards, neither cut enough material to fill out a CD. Ridgley came much closer than Mitchell, though. Between 1960 and 1963, he put out six singles on Ric, which amounts to a total of 16 songs, none of which saw much circulation outside of New Orleans due to Ruffino's preference not to license his singles to larger labels.