Righteous Brother goes solo in 1968 and 1969

Following his 1968 break with fellow Righteous Brother Bobby Hatfield, Bill Medley kicked off a solo career with this pair of releases for MGM. Both albums grazed the bottom of the Billboard 200, and three singles (“I Can’t Make it Alone” and “Brown Eyed Woman” from the first album, “Peace Brother Peace” from the second) charted short of the Top 40. It would be Medley’s last solo chart action for more than a decade, as he’d reteam with Hatfield in 1974 and forgo solo releases for several years afterwards. By the time he re-engaged his solo career in 1981, the music world and his place in it had changed, leaving this pair of albums the best evidence of the solo sound grown from his first run with the Righteous Brothers.

Following the Righteous Brothers’ falling out with Phil Spector (who had produced three Philles albums and four hit singles for them), Medley assumed the producer’s seat for the duo’s last #1, “(You’re My) Soul and Inspiration.” In conjuring a convincing imitation of Spector’s Wall of Sound, Medley showed himself to have ambition and talent that was larger than the role of featured vocalist. As he took the producer’s chair for his solo records he leaned heavily on big band arrangements of blues, soul and stage standards that suggested he’d been listening to Ray Charles and other blues and soul singers. He creates a Spectorian crescendo for “The Impossible Dream,” shouts his way through “That’s Life,” sings at the ragged edge of his husky voice on “Run to My Loving Arms,” and chews the scenery with the Neil Diamond-meets-Blood, Sweat & Tears gospel-soul of “Peace Brother Peace.”

Soft and Soulful dials down the volume of 100% to provide more nuanced and soulful vocals, including tender covers of Jerry Butler’s “For Your Precious Love” and Joanie Sommers “Softly,” an intense performance of the title song from the 1969 prison film Riot, “100 Years,” and a version of Burt Bacharach’s “Any Day Now” that winningly slows the tempo of Chuck Jackson’s original and Elvis Presley’s contemporaneous cover. Medley wrote or co-wrote four of the album’s tracks, including the period proclamation of personal freedom “I’m Gonna Die Me.” Real Gone delivers the disc and six-panel booklet (featuring liner notes by Richie Unterberger and reproductions of the back album covers) in a folding cardboard sleeve that includes both front album covers. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

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Organ-jazz trio tribute to the Beatles

Soulive is an organ trio (Hammond B-3, drums and guitar) that has been cutting soul-jazz grooves since the late ‘90s. This 2010 entry in their catalog offers instrumental interpretations of eleven well-known Beatles titles, drawn from the Fab Four’s mid-to-late period albums. Jazz and soul tributes to the Beatles are a well-trod path, including Bob Hammer’s Beatlejazz, Roger Webb’s John, Paul and All That Jazz, Count Basie’s Beatle Bag, Don Randi’s Revolver Jazz, the Music Company’s Rubber Soul Jazz, Ramsey Lewis’ Mother Nature’s Son, Booker T. & the MG’s McLemore Avenue and George Benson’s The Other Side of Abbey Road, but none of these earlier efforts reduced their approach to an organ-driven trio. In typical jazz fashion, the arrangements state the melodies – with the guitar or organ taking the vocal line – before the players embark on some improvisation. In keeping with the Beatles’ pop radio roots, however, the jamming is concise and listeners will never lose sight of the familiar melodies. The album’s only real disappointment is the mediocre recording quality, with overbearing bass and drums that lack definition. It’s still enjoyable, but not the audio experience the playing deserves. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

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Downtown jazz band plays funky soul

Steve Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra is a New York nonet, featuring a five-piece horn section of brass and reeds, a foundation of guitar, bass, and drums, and drop-ins of violin and banjo. They’ve made a practice of not practicing, learning tunes and working out arrangements on stage and in the studio, giving their records the vitality of live performance seasoned by the simmered qualities of a road ensemble. Their repertoire mixes jazz-age standards with reworked contemporary pop songs, mating ‘20s and ‘30s classics with the works of the Beatles, Prince and Stevie Wonder. For their third album, they’ve focused on the songs of Sly and the Family Stone, with help from vocalists Sandra St. Victor, Antony Hegarty, Martha  Wainwright, Dean Bowman and Shilpa Ray, as well as Bernie Worrell on Hammond, Vernon Reid on guitar and Bill Laswell on bass.

As Greg Tates notes in his liners, Sly and the Family Stone date back to an era when collectives were a common social currency and bands mattered as much (if not more) than individual vocalists. Even among soul groups, however, the Family Stone stood out from the carefully groomed powerhouse acts of Motown. Not only was the membership almost defiantly multiracial, but in sound and style, the group was a combination of its unique ingredients, rather than a corporate-developed vision to which the members were trained. The aesthetic is a natural fit for the MTO, as Bernstein provides a framework within which the individual players express themselves – much as do members of jazz groups, and so to the members of the original Family Stone under Sly’s leadership.

The selections combine well-known hits (“Stand,” “Family Affair” and “Everyday People”) with flipsides and album tracks, including a drawn-out take on “Que Sera Sera” that models itself after the Family Stone’s 1973 Fresh cover. The B-side (and U.K. title track) “M’Lady” gives Dean Bowman a chance to wail against an arrangement that works violin into its hard-soul, and “You Can Make it if You Try” is taken by the band as an instrumental. Most of the tracks tread the fine-line between homage and reinvention, though Shilpa Ray’s brooding, gritty redesign of “Everyday People” may leave listeners missing the original’s effervescence. It’s no surprise that MTO has the talent to carry off this tribute, but the musical heritage it reveals is deeper than even fans might have realized. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Steve Bernstein’s Home Page

An oddly sequenced collection of Diamond’s diamonds

As anyone familiar with Neil Diamond’s career knows, he’s had more hits that could possibly fit onto a single CD. But drawing across his stints on Bang, Uni, Capitol (for which he recorded the soundtrack to The Jazz Singer) and Columbia, this twenty-three track set shows Diamond’s maturation from Brill Building songwriter to hit-making singer to worldwide superstar to reinvented elder statesman. Of course, given the set’s non-chronological programming, you’ll only hear the actual arc of his artistic development if you reprogram the tracks as 12, 4, 9, 10, 16, 21, 20, 18, 6, 11, 21, 7, 5, 13, 8, 17, 2, 14, 1, 3, 15, 22, 23, 19. If you play the set as-is, you’ll start near the end of Diamond’s hit-making career with 1978’s “Forever in Blue Jeans” and spin through a few other 1970s releases before jumping back to 1966’s “Cherry, Cherry.”

Given the focus on hits, it’s easy to excuse the great album tracks left behind, but the inclusion of lesser sides in place of the hits “Thank the Lord for the Night Time,” “Longfellow Serenade” and “Heartlight” is surprising. The mix of Top 10s, Adult Contemporary hits (“Beautiful Noise”), low-charting singles that were hits for other artists (“I’m a Believer” and “Red Red Wine”) and latter-day sides with Rick Rubin (“Pretty Amazing Grace” and “Hell Yeah”) covers the breadth and depth of his career, but the muddled timeline and interweaving of mono Bang-era tracks with modern stereo productions is without obvious purpose. Segueing from the 1980’s “Love on the Rocks” to hard-rocking guitars of “Cherry, Cherry” is awkward, as is the mood shift from 1972’s “Play Me” to 1967’s bubblegum-soul “I’m a Believer.”

Despite the set’s odd characteristics, Diamond shines as a talented songwriter who learned early on how to write a hook, and a dramatic vocalist with a memorable voice. He’s been well-served by arrangers and producers who fit his voice into a variety of contexts – guitar-charged rock, organ-backed soul, contemporary pop and huge productions that echo the operatic grandeur of Roy Orbison. Diamond’s song-by-song notes are peppered with interesting recollections and generous sharing of credit with his many exceptional co-workers. It may surprise casual fans to find that he co-wrote with Marilyn and Alan Bergman, was produced by Robbie Robertson, and recorded several of his biggest hits in Memphis at Chips Moman’s American Sound Studio.

Noting the missing chart entries, as well as the terrific list price, this is a good single-disc sketch of Diamond’s career as a hit maker, but it’s only a sketch, and only a sketch of his hits. It balances his years at Bang (seven tracks), Uni (seven), Columbia (six) and Capitol (three), and plays well for those wishing to relive the artist’s most familiar songs. The two Rick Rubin-produced cuts, “Pretty Amazing Grace” and “Hell Yeah,” show Diamond still vital and growing in his fifth decade of recording. Still, a career as rich as Diamond’s can’t really be condensed onto one disc; even the three-disc In My Lifetime left fans arguing about what was missing. A more complete picture of Diamond’s early years can be heard by picking up The Bang Years: 1966-1968 and Play Me: The Complete Uni Studio Recordings… Plus!, and his Columbia years are well represented on original album reissues and several anthologies. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Neil Diamond’s Home Page

Ray Charles live in 1961 at the height of his powers

1961 was a banner year for Ray Charles. The crossover seeds he’d sewn with Atlantic on 1959’s The Genius of Ray Charles had led him to bigger bands and orchestras and a contract with ABC. In 1960 he’d notched his first #1 on the pop chart with a cover of Hoagy Carmichael’s “Georgia on My Mind,” and by 1961 the demand for his concert appearances finally brought him to Europe, where he headlined the second-annual Antibes Jazz Festival in southeastern France. Charles performed four dates with the classic lineup of his octet, featuring Hank Crawford (alto sax), David “Fathead” Newman (tenor sax and flute), Leroy Cooper (baritone sax), Phillip Guilbeau (trumpet), John Hunt (trumpet), Edgar Willis (bass), Bruno Carr (drums) and the Raelettes (Gwen Berry, Margie Hendrix, Pat Lyles and Darlene McCrea).

The two full dates captured here – July 18th and 22nd – split their set lists between earlier titles recorded for Atlantic and then recent sides for ABC. The two sets repeat a few titles (“Let the Good Times Roll,” “Georgia on My Mind,” “Sticks and Stones” and crowd-rousing versions of Charles’ first crossover hit, “What’d I Say”), but also add unique titles, including a swinging take of Charles then-current Latin-rhythm single “One Mint Julep” a celebratory performance of “Hallelujah, I Love Her So” (with Newman stepping to the front for a short solo), and a cover of Nat King Cole’s “With You On My Mind.” The band’s instrumental tunes give Charles an opportunity to show off his considerable talent as a pianist, and the fluidity with which the shows move between jazz, blues, R&B, gospel and pop is mesmerizing.

The two sets are augmented by six bonus performances culled from shows on the 19th and 21st, bringing the total program to a satisfying 105 minutes. Originally filmed (not videotaped) for French public television, these performances have been unseen for nearly fifty years. The black-and-white footage is neatly edited, with interesting close-ups of the instrumentalists and images of the sunglasses-wearing cigarette-smoking audience. The audio is crisp, well-balanced mono with only a few inconsequential artifacts, including Charles’ enthusiastic foot stomping rattling his microphone stand on “Let the Good Times Roll.” This is a terrific archival discovery and a must-see for Ray Charles fans! [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Complete recitation of Ray Charles’ fifty-three singles for ABC

Ray Charles long ago graduated from a hit-seeking artist to an omnipresent musical god. His iconic singles, innovative albums and sizzling live performances are so monumental as to obscure the time before they existed. It’s all but impossible to recall the excitement of a new Ray Charles release climbing up the charts to popular acclaim and immortality. But Charles’ genius was both artistic and commercial, and his growth and triumphs as a musician were paralleled by success on the charts. Concord’s 5-disc set gathers the mono A- and B-sides of all 53 singles that Charles released on the ABC label, starting with 1960’s “My Baby (I Love Her Yes I Do)” and concluding with 1973’s “I Can Make It Thru the Days (But Oh Those Lonely Nights).” Along the route the set stops at eleven chart-topping hits, numerous lower-charting A-sides and a wealth of terrific B’s. Thirty of these tracks are making their first appearance on CD, and twenty-one their digital debut.

By the time Charles joined ABC-Paramount, he’d already begun to translate his success on the R&B charts into broader crossover acclaim with the Atlantic singles “What’d I Say” and “I’m Movin’ On.” His recordings for ABC included both indelible albums (e.g., Genius + Soul = Jazz and Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music), and an incredible string of charting singles that included “Georgia on My Mind” (his first Pop #1), “Hit the Road Jack,” “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” “You Don’t Know Me,” “Busted” and “Crying Time.” Charles repeatedly showed himself to be a master of blues, soul, jazz, gospel, pop and his own brand of country, and a musician (both as a pianist and vocalist) whose brilliance was amplified just as fully by a small combo as it was by an orchestra.

Charles had first expanded his musical boundaries with Atlantic on 1959’s The Genius of Ray Charles, augmenting his R&B band with additional players and strings; ABC capitalized on this by providing the opportunity to record with big bands and orchestras. The through line that links the two eras is the soul Charles poured into each vocal, the personal experience he wrote into his lyrics, and the imagination with which he created definitive interpretations of others’ songs. Charles’ piano playing – particularly on the electric – was as iconic as his voice, and as a bandleader he surrounded himself with exceptional instrumentalists, including tenor saxophonist David “Fathead” Newman, who developed their own notoriety and followings.

It wasn’t until Charles’ third single for ABC, 1960’s career-defining cover of “Georgia on My Mind,” that he topped the pop chart and fully exploited his crossover success. It was a feat he’d repeat with 1961’s “Hit the Road Jack,” 1962’s “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” and with other titles on the R&B chart. Charles’ sessions often turned out enough high-grade material to stock both sides of his singles. 1962’s landmark cover of Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” for example, was backed by an even higher-charting take on Governor Jimmie Davis’ “You Are My Sunshine.” But the biggest hits aren’t this set’s most intriguing material – it’s the lower-charting singles and B-sides, overshadowed by Charles’ commercial success, that are the biggest surprise.

Lesser-known highlights include Phil Guilbeau’s trumpet work on Percy Mayfield’s sly blues “But on the Other Hand, Baby,” Gerald Wilson’s moody arrangements of “Careless Love” and “Something’s Wrong,” a sizzling two-part live remake of Charles’ 1955 hit “I Got a Woman,” the Wrecking Crew’s Carole Kaye laying down a funky bass line on “The Train,” Charles’ cooking original version of Ashford & Simpson’s “I Don’t Need No Doctor,” Jimmy Holiday’s southern-tinged blue soul “Something Inside Me,” Billy Preston’s gospel organ on “Here We Go Again,” the bittersweet waltz-time “Somebody Ought to Write a Book About It,” the gospel testimony of “Understanding,” the Stax-styled “Let Me Love You,” and the run of Buck Owens tunes (“Love’s Gonna Live Here Again,” “Crying Time” and “Together Again”) Charles covered in 1965-6.

In the Fall of 1965, Charles began recording in his own RPM International studio, and many of the singles from this era sound pinched (Billy Vera’s liner notes say they’re “drier”), as though they were mixed and EQ’d narrowly for AM radio. As the timeline rolls into 1966 and 1967, the compressed dynamic range and mono mixes become anachronistic. As Charles’ fame grew, he became more dependent on interpreting the songs of staff writers and others. The musical invention of the early ‘60s settled into a comfortable groove, but Charles’ blend of soul, blues, jazz, country and pop never failed to offer something unique. Treats in the latter half of the collection include a superbly wrought cover of Sam Cooke’s “Laughin’ and Cryin’,” a subtle double-tracked vocal on the soul B-side “If You Were Mine,” a soulful reworking of “America the Beautiful,” and a sharp take on “Ring of Fire” that was Charles’ last B-side for ABC.

The five discs are housed in individual cardboard folders, with interior reproductions of a label or picture sleeve. The folders are packed in a heavy-duty box with a linen-textured finish and magnetic clasp. The 48-page booklet includes archival photos, detailed musician credits and release data, and new liner notes by Billy Vera. All 106 tracks are mastered in mono. This is a superb way to get acquainted with the range of Ray Charles’ recordings of the 1960s and early 1970s, combining his best-loved hits with superb B-sides and lower-charting singles that remain obscure to many listeners. It’s not a substitute for hearing his groundbreaking albums of the era, but an equally worthy profile of the Genius of Soul. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Six original Philles albums plus B-side instrumental bonuses

Much like the Cameo-Parkway catalog, Phil Spector’s seminal records of the 1960s are only recently starting to see the reissues they deserve. For years they were reissued in dribs and drabs – greatest hits packages repeating the same chart entries, hard-to-find vinyl albums from the UK leaking out stereo mixes, reissues of the Christmas album, and so on. The 1991 box set Back to Mono and the more recent Phil Spector Collection each dug more deeply into the catalog, but there was still much to be done. With Sony’s Legacy division having obtained reissue rights, 2011 kicked off with anthologies of the Ronettes, Crystals, Darlene Love and Spector’s other hit productions. The reissues now continue with this box set of six original Philles albums, packaged in reproduction mini-LP sleeves.

Among the albums are three by the Crystals (although, as will be seen, they hold little more than one album’s worth of original material), one each by the Ronettes and Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans, and a 1963 collection of label hits. Philles, like the pop music industry of its time, was focused on singles, with albums being little more than promotional afterthoughts. These albums were built around existing singles, and filled out with previously released material and album sides. Though some of the album material failed to match the brilliance of the hits, and the productions weren’t always as lavish, neither were the tracks often throwaway filler. The Philles singles pipeline was well-stocked through these years, and otherwise hit-worthy tracks simply couldn’t find room in the release schedule. The set’s designated filler is disc seven’s collection of instrumental B-sides; but even here you get the Wrecking Crew in their prime.

The box kicks off with PHLP-4000, The Crystals Twist Uptown from 1962, which opens with the group’s second hit, Mann & Weil’s thrilling urban love song, “Uptown.” Their first hit, the divine “There’s No Other (Like My Baby),” is here too, but it’s the album tracks that are likely to be new to many listeners. Spector’s co-write with Doc Pomus, “Another Country – Another World,” puts a fresh spin on an outcast love by replacing class separation with a cultural divide. Several of the songs, including “Oh Yeah, Maybe Baby” (featuring Patsy Wright on lead vocal) and “What a Nice Way to Turn Seventeen,” feel the pull of ‘50s doo-wop and earlier girl groups like the Chantels, but the swirling strings, clacking castanets and underlying baion beats mark these as Spector’s. The album take of “On Broadway” predates the Drifters hit, and the group’s cover of “Gee Whiz” (retitled “Gee Whiz Look at His Eyes (Twist)”) followed Carla Thomas’ original by a year.

The Crystal’s second album, PHLP-4001 He’s a Rebel, was released in 1963 to capitalize on the hit single “He’s a Rebel.” The track list repeats nine selections from the debut, dropping “Please Hurt Me” and “Gee Whiz,” and adding the title single alongside the hit “He’s Sure the Boy I Love” and the notorious “He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss).” The title hit holds two major distinctions: it was Spector’s first chart topper with Philles (he’d scored a #1 with the Teddy Bears in 1958), and it wasn’t actually the Crystals singing – it was Darlene Love (obscurely referenced by her then-married name Darlene Peete in Mick Patrick’s liner notes) and the Blossoms. Accounts vary as to how the Crystals name was bestowed upon Darlene Love, and it’s unclear if the failure of “He Hit Me” (a song whose violent theme is all the more chilling given Spector’s personal history) was a factor, but Spector began recording Love and her backing group in Los Angeles and hit the jackpot with “He’s a Rebel,” as well as “He’s Sure the Boy I Love.”

The group’s third album, PHLP-4003 The Crystals Sing The Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 isn’t entirely a Crystals album. It includes only one new Crystals recording, 1963’s “Da Doo Ron Ron” (featuring Lala Brooks on lead vocal) and fills out the track list with repeats from the group’s first two albums, the leftover “Look in My Eyes”, and four dance-themed titles (three covered from the Cameo-Parkway catalog: “The Wah Watusi,” “Mashed Potato Time” and “The Twist”) sung by the Ronettes. The latter had yet to release anything on Philles, and these covers weren’t repeated on Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes Featuring Veronica. Still, with the Crystal’s second album having mostly repeated their first, and their third cherry-picking from the first two, Spector showed his allegiance to the single as his ultimate format, as well as his savvy in picking the pockets of unsuspecting record buyers.

Philles’ third album, PHLP-4002 Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah, was dedicated to Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, a group that had three hit singles. Two of the hits are here, and the third (“Not Too Young to Get Married”) is on disc five of this set, Philles Records Presents Today’s Hits. Bob B. Soxx was vocalist Bobby Sheen, who was supposed to be backed by Darlene Love and her fellow Blossom, Fanita James. But once they began to record, Spector had Love step to the front and provide the lead vocals for everything but “Dear (Here Comes My Baby)” and the bluesy “Everything’s Gonna Be All Right.” The album tracks generally haven’t the energy of the singles, with album filler like “White Cliffs of Dover” trying, but mostly failing to capture the magic of “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah.” The one real discovery, aside from Sheen’s two tracks, is the funky Jackie DeShannon tune “I Shook the World.” The album closes with the instrumental B-side “Dr. Kaplan’s Office,” suggesting that Spector lost interest before producing a full album of twelve tracks.

The Ronettes only full-length album, PHLP-4006 Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes Featuring Veronica, was issued in 1964 and collected their five biggest hits, “Be My Baby,” “Baby, I Love You,” “(The Best Part Of) Breakin’ Up,” “Do I Love You?” and “Walking in the Rain.” Also included was their earlier recording of “So Young,” credited at that time to Veronica, a pair of non-charting singles (“How Does it Feel?” and “When I Saw You”) and four album tracks (“I Wonder,” “What’d I Say,” “You Baby,” and “Chapel of Love,” the latter written for the group and recorded the year before the Dixie Cups had a hit, but not issued as a single). The album peaked at #96, and though the group would release excellent singles in 1965 and 1966 (and record many that Spector withheld, including “Girls Can Tell” and “Paradise”), their star had peaked. The album, never before officially reissued on CD in its original form, continues to be a collector’s item, and is presented here, like all tracks in this box, in mono.

The fifth disc in this collection, PHLP-4004 Philles Records Presents Today’s Hits, repeats six tracks from the Crystals’, Ronettes’ and Bob. Soxx and the Blue Jeans’ albums, but fills in six more Philles hits. Chief among them is the Crystals’ “Then He Kissed Me” and a pair of favorites by Darlene Love (“Wait ‘Til My Bobby Gets Home” and “(Today I Met) The Boy I’m Gonna Marry”), but also essential is Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans’ third hit (“Why Do Lovers Break Each Other’s Hearts”), Darlene Love’s “Playing for Keeps” and the Alley Cats’ energetic doo-wop “Puddin ‘n’ Tain,” featuring Bobby (“Soxx”) Sheen on high-tenor. The added tracks flesh out the Philles picture, and the repeated tracks provide further evidence of albums being marketing items rather than artistic statements.

The last disc in this collection, credited to The Phil Spector Wall of Sound Orchestra, and titled Phil’s Flipsides, presents the rarest material. The seventeen B-sides are instrumental flipsides of Spector hits, duly purposed to be cheap to produce,  and to keep DJs focused on the A-sides. These are a mix of backing tracks and two-minute jams by Spector’s assembled workforce, name-checking Wrecking Crew stars (and Spector’s psychiatrist and first wife) in the song titles. In addition to the pop sounds you’d expect from Spector’s band, there are some fine jazz and blues workouts, with sax, piano and guitar stretching out on lead and Julius Wechter’s vibraphone adding atmosphere. Spector’s instrumental B’s for the short-lived Phil Spector label (“Larry L.” and “Chubby Danny D”) are included, but contemporaneous flips on Annette (including “Beatle Blues”) and Shirley are omitted.

Each of the albums clock in at roughly 30 minutes, suggesting these could have been doubled-up, but it’s hard to fault Legacy’s artistic decision to reissue each in their original form in mini-LP sleeves. Given U.S. royalty laws (which charge per-track, rather than per-album), two-fers wouldn’t necessarily have cost any less anyway. There’s one album missing from Philles initial run, A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector, which has been reissued several times, most recently in 2009. The tail-end of Philles album releases, including three from the Righteous Brothers, one from Lenny Bruce, and the aborted 1966 release of Ike & Tina Turner’s River Deep – Mountain High await a second box. The Turner title was issued in 1969 by A&M and reissued earlier this year by Hip-O Select.

All of the albums have been newly transferred by Kabir Hermon and Steve Rosenthal, and remastered by Vic Anesini, but some collectors will no doubt grouse about the lack of stereo mixes, particularly the well-circulated Ronettes and Christmas cuts. Others will note the repetition within the box, overlap between the box and the group compilations released earlier this year, the lack of rare and unreleased material, etc.; all fair criticisms, but really beside the point. Legacy is scratching an itch felt by many collectors to get reproductions of the original artifacts – the original albums. Is it a good value? That depends on how highly you prize what Legacy’s reproducing, rather than what they’re not. Spector may have dismissed albums as two hits and ten pieces of filler, but his vanity as a producer rarely let him attach his name to junk. The concentration of A-list singing, playing, producing, arranging and writing represented on these discs is nearly unprecedented, making even the instrumental B-sides shine brightly. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Stax exits the stage on a high note

Soul singer Shirley Brown owns the somewhat dubious distinction of having the last major hit single for Stax. The title track from her 1975 debut album, issued on the Truth subsidiary, reached the top of the R&B chart in 1974, and just missed the pop Top 20. The album’s lead off, “It Ain’t No Fun,” was issued as a follow-up, but with Stax sliding into bankruptcy, the release stalled further down the charts. Stax had survived the near-death of their 1967 break with Atlantic, and with the 1968 creation of an instant album catalog under the direction of Al Bell, the label had successfully expanded its roster with non-Memphis acts. But a shaky distribution deal with CBS eventually undermined the company’s foundations.

Brown was born in West Memphis, but raised in Illinois, where her church singing provided a strong gospel background. Her musical education was advanced by an apprenticeship with blues guitarist Albert King, who also introduced her to Stax. Her debut was co-produced by Stax founder Jim Stewart and MG drummer Al Jackson Jr., and the songs collected loosely around the title hit’s theme. Brown delivers performances that are infused with anguished strength and heartbreak that may or may not be repairable. The calm with which she delivers the hit single’s spoken introduction suggests the protagonist will thrive, whether or not her relationship survives the infidelity at the song’s core.

Brown is magnificent singer, with a voice that could have easily overshadowed a song’s lyrics or melody. But when she lets loose with an impassioned wail or soars to a high note, it’s to express and punctuate the song’s emotion rather than demonstrates her range. Brown stays strong in the face of unrequited love, failing relationships, infidelity and unfulfilled desire. But it’s not all romantic gloom, as she revels in the love of “Long as You Love Me,” and celebrates her mate in “So Glad to Have You” and “Passion.” Concord’s 2011 reissue adds five bonus tracks, including covers of “Respect” and “Rock Steady” previously unreleased in the U.S., and a previously unreleased version of “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours” that stretches the Stevie Wonder title into seven minutes of simmering gospel soul. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Stax’s elder statesman hits a funky ‘70s groove

R&B singer Rufus Thomas had been with Stax for over a decade when he recorded this 1970 album. He and daughter Carla had hooked up with Stax’s predecessor, Satellite, as early as 1960, and Rufus scored a Top 10 hit with “Walking the Dog” in 1963. He released a steady stream of singles throughout the 1960s, with only limited success until 1969’s “Do the Funky Chicken.” Though it only rose to #23 on the Pop charts, it was a big hit on soul radio, and the title and dance became lasting totems of ‘70s pop culture. The album from which the single sprang includes other novelty tunes, including a remake of Thomas’ 1953 hit “Bear Cat” and a two-part gospel/funk workout on the nursery rhyme “Old McDonald Had a Farm.”

More interesting than the novelty tunes is an extended take on “Sixty Minute Man” that mixes African-styled chanting, a rough-and-ready vocal and hypnotic bass, guitar and drum figures. The album is an interesting mix of shtick and soul, as the band – mostly likely the Bar-Kays throughout – hits funky instrumental grooves, such as the break on “Let the Good Times Roll,” and the 52-year-old Thomas steps out front to sing and ham it up. At the same time, his straight-up Stax-styled remake of the Valentinos’ “Lookin’ for a Love” proves he could stand still and deliver stirring soul music.

Concord’s reissue adds eight bonus tracks that include pre-LP singles “Funky Mississippi” and “Funky Way” and their B-sides – all backed by Booker T. & The MGs. The bonuses are rounded out by a pair of generic mid-70s two-part funk jams, “Itch and Scratch” and “Boogie Ain’t Nuttin’ (But Gettin’ Down).” Like the other entries in Concord’s Stax reissue series (including The Dramatics’ Watcha See is Watcha Get and Shirley Brown’s Woman to Woman), this has been remastered in 24-bit audio by Joe Tarantino, making this among the best sounding Stax reissues in the digital domain. Fans of Stax, early-70s funk and Rufus Thomas will all find something special here. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]