Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
UNIQUE FOR ITS TIME, 6 Jul 2007
I bought this in 1969 and it was the centre of a very small collection of 45s, EPs and LPs. It meant everything that was great in soul music to me and then .................. at a party someone stole it!! (And I know who it was.) I have searched for a replacement for years and at last here it is. Some of the less known songs can seem a bit weak now but they are are still special and are among so many key soul pieces. Buy this and enjoy it and don't let it out of your sight!
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A must have selection, 13 Jun 2007
This UK sampler compilation hit the shops in June 1969 to immediate acclaim and very strong sales, helped in no small part by its very reasonable price of 12/6d (62.5p). From the record label's point of view it was a way of promoting soul music in the absence of any regular mainstream radio exposure. For the punters it was a way to get hold of an awesome bunch of recent hits and some very credible looking lesser known tracks from the much respected Stax and Atlantic labels. Knock On Wood? Sweet Soul Music? When A Man Loves A Woman? All on the same record by the original artists and costing no more than the hopeless wooden recreations found on budget Top Of The Pops albums or Embassy label singles! This was almost unheard of at the time, though samplers like CBS's The Rock Machine Turns You On and Island's You Can All Join In were beginning to appear.
All twelve tracks are here in this replica reissue, the first time it has appeared on CD, book ended by two of Wilson Pickett's finest and featuring timeless classics by Otis and Carla, and Aretha's smoldering Atlantic debut, I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You). Sam and Dave are represented by the excellent but long forgotten I Got Everything I Need, to be found on the B-side of the monster hit Hold On, I'm Coming. Each track sounds as fresh and vital as the day it was made.
All but one of the twelve tracks are in mono (Aretha Franklin is the exception), and though I am a stereo aficionado, I have to admit that Knock On Wood in mono packs a punch that the stereo mix lacks. The vinyl release of the album was stereo-playable-mono and may well have contained a number of mono versions.
To the original half-hour of vinyl Rhino have added a further forty-six minutes of matching items, every one a winner, all taken from the Stax/Volt/Atlantic/Atco cluster of labels.
It is sad to see how many of the names are no longer with us: Otis, Wilson Pickett, King Curtis, Arthur Conley, Johnny Taylor, Dave Prater (of Sam and Dave), Joe Tex (here as one of the Soul Clan). Most tracks were recorded in Tennessee with Booker T and the MG's or in Alabama with the Muscle Shoals crew, and some were bigger hits than those on the original record. Of the lesser known, the Mad Lads' update of Lee Dorsey's Get Out Of My Life Woman stands out, as does Jeanne and the Darling's Soul Girl, a riposte or homage, take it as you will, of Sam and Dave's Soul Man. Again the grooves are predominantly mono, with just six stereo mixes, Aretha's Save Me and Barbara Lynn's majestic You're Losing Me among them.
Rhino have kept to the spirit of the original album and been generous with the bonus selections, making this a must have selection, complementing classic compilations like Sock It To 'Em Soul and Where It's At.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
60's Soul as it was meant to be heard, 30 Jun 2007
I owned this compilation on vinyl - it quickly got worn out, containing as it did a dozen stone classic Soul cuts. The tracks on the original have been supplemented by more of the same on the CD reissue, and so now you'll get a full hour or more of 60's Soul.
All the original tracks came from the Atlantic catalogue, which before mid '68 included the licensing deal for the output of Stax. The ending of that deal, and the discovery that Atlantic had the rights to all the Stax output, effectively allowed this album to be released.
As to the music, unless you have no interest in Soul (in which case why are you reading this), you will have heard a lot of these tracks. No matter, when gathered together like this, the sheer quality of the output of Memphis/Muscle Shoals is staggering.
The classics by the likes of Aretha, Pickett and Redding made the original release well worth having. Now check out "Memphis Soul Stew" by the sadly neglected King Curtis, the Mad Lads "Get Out of My Life", or Lynda Lyndells now well known "What a Man", all tracks which add to the appeal of the reissue.
Should you buy this? Well, yes, you should, unless your collection has all these already. As Bobby Byrd said "You know you got Soul, if you didn't you wouldn't be in here"
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