LINK WRAY - 3-Track Shack

"Following his instrumental hits 'Rumble' and 'Jack The Ripper,' Link Wray settled into a routine of gigging with his band the Raymen in the Northeastern states, particularly the rough and ready dives of Washington, DC. In the early '70s this stopped, and Link concentrated on working on the farm his brother Vernon had bought in Accokeek, Maryland. Vernon installed a three-track recording studio in the basement of the farmhouse, but his wife complained about the noise so it was moved outside to an old chicken house: the 3-Track Shack was born.

Producer Steve Verroca caught one of Link's performances in a local bar, was impressed, and thought the time was right for a comeback. Extracting elements from his own country, blues and gospel roots and somehow melding them together with the very landscape itself, he created an organic blend of downhome music that was imbued with a primitive spirituality. There is an unpolished, spontaneous feel to the music which sparks it greedily into life, and the Accokeek earth seems to be ground deep into every groove.

These three albums have been out on CD before, but never mastered from the original tapes. You can even hear the frogs croaking outside the shack!" - Ace Records

VA - Reaching Out! Chess Records at FAME Studios

"There aren't many recording studios that play such an important part in their town's history that they’re added to the list of local landmarks and designated part of the town's heritage: that's what happened to FAME Recording Studios in December 1997, when the studios were added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage.

FAME Recording Studios is no ordinary recording studio. It was where some of the greatest soul music of the sixties was recorded. FAME was also home to one of the greatest house bands in soul music, the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. Along with the Muscle Shoals Horns, they featured on countless recordings. Record labels often sent their artists to FAME, seeking that elusive hit single. 

This included Atlantic Records, who in the summer of 1966 started sending artists to FAME. By the spring of 1967, the Muscle Shoals horns and rhythm section had worked their magic, playing on hits by Percy Sledge, Arthur Conley and Wilson Pickett. They would later send Aretha Franklin and Jimmy Hughes.

Reaching Out! Chess Records At FAME Studios, released via Kent Soul on 28th August 2015, features twenty-four tracks recorded at the legendary studios. By 1967, the Chess brothers, who no longer had their own studio band, sent their artists to Alabama, hoping that they would enjoy the same success as their counterparts at Atlantic." - Derek's Music Blog

MICHAEL HEAD AND THE STRANDS - The Magical World Of The Strands

"While Head seems unfussed by his relative obscurity, it is still hard to accept that a masterpiece like The Magical World Of The Strands remains so marginal. If anything, The Magical World has improved with age. In the mid-'90s, there was an imperative to position Head as bruised guru to a generation of British rock classicists, exemplified by the Gallaghers and Richard Ashcroft. Head shared a certain romanticism that was rooted in but transcended the working-class Northwest of the country, and his study of old records was just as thorough and unabashed. He was not, though, a writer of anthems, his songwriting mostly too feathery, too evanescent for blokey singalongs.

The closest he came on The Magical World was a rueful and brilliant song about his heroin addiction called 'X Hits The Spot,' which articulated a difficult choice that he had made—essentially, drugs instead of a relationship—and its consequences: coming round to discover he had sold all his furniture to stay high. The chorus is punchy, emphatic, memorable. The verses, though, are more typical of The Magical World: words come in breathless, jazzy flurries, Head appropriating [Arthur] Lee's trick of squeezing two or three extra words into a line to create a sense of babbling discombobulation." - Uncut

JORGE BEN - Ben (1972)

"If there was one thing that all the movements that swept Brazilian popular music during the '60s and '70s—bossa nova, Jovem Guarda, Tropicalia, Música Popular Brasileira, samba soul, Black Rio—had in common, it was that they all revered Jorge Ben. That's because Ben incorporated aspects of all their styles without compromising his own; as Caetano Veloso put it, 'Jorge Ben, without attempting an artificial or homogenizing 'fusion,' came through with a strong, original sound, confronting a body of issues from the opposite end, that of the finished treatment, while we were groping and coming up with varied and incomplete solutions.' Now, Real Gone Music and Dusty Groove are embarking on a long-awaited tour through Ben's catalog, starting with his 1972 masterpiece, Ben. This is the album that made Jorge Ben a superstar in Brazil, a lean marvel of rhythmic and melodic concision that contains some of his most indelible, durable songs, like the first version of 'Taj Mahal' and his ode to his favorite soccer player, 'Fio Maravilha.'" - Real Gone Music

LIZZY MERCIER DESCLOUX - Press Color

"The lower Manhattan music scene circa the late '70s was a bubbling, effervescent confluence of disco, No Wave, jazz and punk. It birthed the careers of Patti Smith, Talking Heads, Television, the Ramones and even Don Was, whose Was (Not Was) band was also a player. Somewhere on the fringes was Lizzy Mercier Descloux, a French import who used music as just one aspect of her artistic avant-garde arsenal which also included poetry and fashion. This reissue of her off-the-radar ZE label debut didn't make much of a splash upon its 1979 release. Regardless, it has come to be regarded as a charming, evocative curio of a time and place that was fleeting and temporal yet fascinating and influential in its ambitious attempt to join jazz, punk and dance.

Originally only eight selections clocking in at under 30 minutes, this reissue more than doubles that tracklist and is still only 46 minutes long. Extensive liner notes by noted critic/scenester Vivien Goldman in a sumptuous 20-page booklet tell the Descloux story in detail with rare photos and quotes from Smith and Richard Hell, both of whom were friends.

These minimalist pieces—many can't be considered songs—were often improvised in the studio and Descloux, who spoke virtually no English, wasn't exactly a driven vocal talent. Nonetheless, it's the air of cool detached ambiance with mostly sung/spoken vocals over a funk/jazz backing that makes this such a mesmerizing time capsule." - American Songwriter

VA - Ian Levine's Solid Stax Sensations

"Most people on the soul scene know of Levine's youthful obsession with Motown and Detroit soul in general, and how it led to a 45-year (and counting) career as a tireless promoter of the music he loved as a teenager, whether behind record decks or in more recent times as a successful songwriter-producer. Less well known is the fact that the young Ian was almost as obsessive about Stax, collecting the blue and yellow Stax-era 45s and those on the company's many subsidiaries with the same level of single-minded intensity that he applied to acquiring rare gems on obscure Detroit labels.

I've known Ian since 1969. We met by chance in the Soul City record shop and immediately established a bond of friendship that has continued unbroken ever since. As far as I am concerned, my good friend Ian will always be a man with the most extraordinary passion for soul music, and a lifelong desire to share that passion with others.

Many of Ian's 25 choices are well-known floor-fillers via the extensive play they have received from discerning DJs down the decades, but he's also chosen a pile of lesser-known and equally great sides that deserve to be part of every soul DJ's playlist. Ian's notes fully convey the pleasure he still gets from this music after all this time." - Tony Rounce for Ace Records

JACKSON C. FRANK - The Complete Recordings (3CD)

"The long wait is over. Justice, at long last, is being done. The prophet is no longer without honor in his own country.

The late Jackson C. Frank was announced early this month as a member of the newest group to be honored in the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame. The irony is that is not all, not by a long shot.

In October and November, Buffalo is scheduled to be visited by two French documentary filmmakers shooting a doc on this utterly remarkable and utterly tragic musician from Buffalo. But more than that, his hometown will finally have an opportunity to know exactly why he is so revered by folk musicians everywhere but especially in Europe, where his songs were loved and recorded by Sandy Denny, Richard Thompson, Bert Jansch and Nick Drake, among many others.

His one album, which included the classic song 'Blues Run the Game' (still sung by folk singers, including by one in the concert honoring the recent movie Inside Llewyn Davis), was produced by Paul Simon of Simon and Garfunkel before Simon and Garfunkel were cornerstones of their era's folk music. Nevertheless, it has never before been released in America. (Frank later claimed that Simon had stolen 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' from another folk musician.)

Now, finally, courtesy of Frank's crucial biographer and late-life protector Jim Abbott, among others, his complete known recordings have been blessedly been collected on three discs by BaDaBing Records." - The Buffalo News

VA - Kollektion 4: Bureau B compiled by Richard Fearless

"I always listen out for music with a sense a space, where compositions are stripped down to the barest components while retaining the power to conjure emotion. It's for this reason that I'm so drawn to dub, techno and German avant-garde minimalist music. To me the bands and labels in the Bureau B archive, current and past, were looking to distant lands, their own 'Neuland,' whether in the future with bands like YOU and Riechmann, or from a more remote past, like medieval folk band Ougenweide. They were creating something radical and experimental, something that didn't draw on the same rhythm and blues, Anglo-American rock that was saturating the airwaves at the time. They were pioneers in every sense of the word. With all due respect for the music that forged these paths, it was on hearing the mental guitar on Faust's 'Herbstimmung' that I knew to look not only at the so-called golden years of this era, but to look at what these artists were doing later, as well as the new bands that were emerging from those schools. Artists who are still creating, still innovating. I hope you enjoy the journey." - Richard Fearless for Bureau B

AMARA TOURÉ - 1973-1980

"Although already brimming with incredible talent, Amara Touré joining Le Star Band de Dakar in 1958 began the band's meteoric rise to the top. The band quickly became Dakar's number one orchestra, and it cemented the reputation of the Miami nightclub as the hottest spot in the country. The place was packed nightly, and Dakar was boiling. 

Amara Touré's Senegalese adventure lasted for ten years when he received an irrefutable offer and in 1968, joined by a few talented Senegalese musicians, headed to Cameroon and immediately formed the Black and White ensemble. Many live gigs later, and it was time for the first songs to be recorded. A total of three singles were produced between 1973 and 1976. These singles, representing the first six songs on this compilation, fully epitomise and distill the essence of what Touré had learned during his career, his Mandingue roots fused with the Senegalese sound that he had mastered: the perfect foundation for the Touré's Cuban interpretations. 

If Touré's intention was to create the most sensual music ever recorded in Africa, he might very well have reached this goal. The musicians on the recording sound like they are playing in a smokey, poorly lit juke joint, where dark rum was sipped ever so slowly, and the pulse of the music took up a life of its own. How many couples have danced, swayed, and melted together to the distinct sound of Amara Touré? Nobody can say for sure..." - Analog Africa

VA - Rastafari: The Dreads Enter Babylon 1955-83

"Emerging in Jamaica in the 1930s from a period of political and social upheaval, Rastafarianism was not always as synonymous with reggae music as it would go on to become. With reference to Ethiopia—the seat of Emperor Haile Selassie I since 1930—first appearing in Jamaican music on Lord Lebby and the Jamaican Calpysonians' 1955 recording 'Etheopia,' it wouldn’t be until the mid '60s and '70s that the Rastafarian faith would dovetail so heavily with the island's emerging reggae sound.

Telling this story from calypso through to ska and roots reggae, Soul Jazz have pulled together a double compilation charting the music of the Rastafari like never before. Pivoting on figurehead master drummer Count Ossie who was the first to bring the deeply spiritual nyabinghi and burro rhythms to popular music (influencing everyone from The Skatalites to Clement Dodd), the compilation also includes music from Johnny Clarke, The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari, Ras Michael and The Sons of Negus, Bongo Herman and Roy Ashanti of The Congos, alongside many more." - The Vinyl Factory

MILES DAVIS - Miles Davis at Newport: 1955-1975 - The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4 (4CD)

"The fourth volume in the ongoing Miles Davis live Bootleg Series, Miles Davis at Newport: 1955-1975 is a four-disc anthology that brings together all of the legendary trumpeter's live recordings captured at the storied Newport Jazz Festival. Founded by organizer George Wein in 1954, the Newport Jazz Festival grew into one of the premier music festivals in the world, thanks in no small part to Wein's longstanding association with Davis. With Wein's support and famous dedication to encouraging artistic experimentation, Davis would return to the festival throughout the most creatively vital years of his career. Although he first appeared at the festival in 1955, unbilled, ostensibly as part of an all-star group featuring pianist Thelonious Monk and saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, it was his star-making rendition of "'Round Midnight" (the microphone buried deep in his trumpet to overcome sound-system issues) that landed him a record deal with Columbia and marked his ascent as one of the most innovative and important figures in music history. Miles Davis at Newport details the association between Davis and the festival, each performance serendipitously documenting his ever-morphing sound, from swinging cool jazz in the '50s to aggressive, free jazz-influenced modal bop in the '60s and finally to funky, acid-soaked fusion in the '70s." - Allmusic

CARL HALL - You Don't Know Nothing About Love: The Loma/Atlantic Recordings 1967-72

"Short of discovering one of his old 45s in a trade store, few were the pathways into the lost legacy of Carl Hall, a four-octave gospel-inspired singer who made a string of glowing turn-of-the-'70s R&B side that simply vanished. Though Hall built a third career in film and on stage—notably appearing in The Wiz and the movie version of Hair—his soul-lifting recordings never hit, and thus remained unissued.

That makes You Don't Know Nothing About Love: The Loma/Atlantic Recordings 1967-72 both a badly needed primer and a well-packaged framing moment for Carl Hall's lost vocal genius.

A winning eye for material from Grammy-winning industry legend Jerry Ragovoy (composer of the Irma Thomas/Rolling Stones gem 'Time Is On My Side' and Janis Joplin's 'Piece of My Heart,' and a producer for Bonnie Raitt, Dionne Warwick and Lorraine Ellison) completed the package. Ragovoy was, in fact, the perfect foil, having contributed to countless classic sessions that blended an overt gospel feel with touches of R&B, opera and Broadway. Yet, each time, their collaborations sunk like a rock.

Eventually, of course, Loma Records—the R&B subsidiary of Warner Bros.—would have simply lost interest if it hadn't already gone under entirely. Carl Hall ended up briefly on Atlantic, and though he broadly diversified his songbook (taking on the Beatles' 'The Long And Winding Road,' 'Change With the Seasons' by Elliot Lurie of Looking Glass fame, and The Jefferson Airplane's 'Need Somebody To Love,' all included here), it was again for naught. Atlantic issued a debut single, but none of the rest.

Listening today to You Don't Know Nothing About Love, we find a singer who is at one with the song. Carl Hall gave each performance a charge, unleashing a voice that simply must be heard to be believed." - Something Else Reviews

KARIN KROG - Don't Just Sing - An Anthology: 1963-1999

"The work of Karin Krog may be unfamiliar to much of the world, but in her native Norway and Scandinavia at large, she's practically a household name. This says much about the local enthusiasm for post-bop jazz but also about the tyranny of distribution: until 1994, Krog's albums weren't available in the USA or UK, meaning three decades of recordings were waiting to be discovered. In theory, until now, she hasn't had any regularly distributed albums in the US or the UK—this is certainly the first one even marketed/promoted in here and in England. With this anthology of her best recordings from 1963 to 1999—curated with Krog’s own input—we hope to set the record straight." - Light In The Attic

DUSTY SPRINGFIELD - Faithful

"Had these songs been released in late 1971, when they were originally scheduled, these dozen tracks would have been Dusty Springfield's third Atlantic album. Coming on the heels of 1969's successful Dusty In Memphis and 1970's A Brand New Me, the songwriter/producer Jeff Barry-helmed tracks would have made for a pretty great trilogy. But that never happened.

Springfield decamped for ABC Dunhill leaving these songs in the vaults where they were thought to have vanished or even burned in a fire. Rhino released four on their expanded edition of Dusty In Memphis, but the rest stayed hidden away…until now. Reissue label Real Gone found the missing tunes and sequenced them along with an extra single to recreate the missing album, named after the key word in its opening tune 'I'll Be Faithful.'" - American Songwriter 

VA - Too Slow To Disco Vol. 2

"It took us one year to finally come back with Volume 2 of Too Slow To Disco. This time we dug even deeper into the sundrenched, relaxed and funky, smooth and megalomaniacal west-coast sound of the late '70s/early '80s: from singer/songwriter funk, yacht pop, blue-eyed soul to AOR disco, tracks somewhere between delusions of grandeur and a mountain of soul. Again, there are hall-of-fame-honored acts like Hall & Oates and Michael Nesmith (from the Monkees) placed next to a completely lost troubled genius and recent rediscovery such as Jimmy Gray Hall, who only released three promo 7 inches in his short life." - How Do You Are?

ARTHUR RUSSELL - Corn

"It's been seven years since Audika Records (the label created for the sole purpose of releasing Russell's work) last issued an album of his material. In that time, Russell's partner, Tom Lee, teamed up with the label's Steve Knutson to compile this nine-track record. Each song is pulled from Russell's original quarter-inch tape masters that were compiled on three separate test pressings in 1985: El Dinosaur, Indian Ocean, and Untitled. The collection is, unsurprisingly, both experimental and pop, noisy and disco, classical and modern.

Corn spends most of its time catering to quasi-classical electronics, the underground New York niche that earned Russell his first fans back in the '70s. Between his 1982 album 24 ->24 Music and his 1983 disco single 'Tell You Today,' he set aside several solo dance numbers not yet rounded by his perfectionism, many of which are alternate versions of Russell staples. 'See My Brother, He's Jumping Out (Let's Go Swimming #2)' speeds into double-time with celebratory horns, while 'This Is How We Walk On The Moon' expands into a twisted version where thin cello plays like a fiddle. Russell's first posthumous release, 2004's staple Calling Out of Context, contained four songs from these sessions, but unlike those, this new collection boasts sharper, rougher tracks. 'Hiding Your Present From You' is riddled with distorted cello, but angelic keyboard and Mustafa Ahmed's buoyant congas keep the pulse thriving, even with three faux fade endings thrown in. It's the type of work that current innovators like Hot Chip and James Murphy routinely cite as an influence." - Consequence of Sound

KENNY KNIGHT - Crossroads

"There's a very singular combination of world-weariness and hope running throughout Crossroads, a still timely grappling with the realities of getting by in this country. You can hear it most clearly in 'America,' which is at turns a paean to this nation, as well a plea to it: 'don't lock me out.' This juggling of sophisticated dualities extends even to his love songs, as on 'One Down' (possibly the album's finest track, and one which could sit comfortably next to American Beauty's best), where he asks, 'how much can one heart take?' while still acknowledging that he'll 'stay in love forever more.'

As so often is the case, life got in the way of Kenny's music, and even after crafting such a perfect LP, his hopes and dreams would remain unrealized, with family obligations and service to his country ultimately having to take precedence." - Paradise Of Bachelors

VA - Sherwood At The Controls, Vol. 1: 1979-1984

"Sherwood At The Controls, Vol. 1 captures the producer very early in his career, applying dub techniques to an eclectic variety of rhythms, including a surprising amount of punk-funk grooves.

Sherwood takes an aggressively experimental approach to remixing, even when working with more traditional reggae artists. When you apply that attitude to songs by post-punk bands like The Fall, the results sometimes walk the line between mind-blowing and irritating, but at least they're always interesting. He was far from the first to combine dub reggae and punk, but he took the results farther into outer space than anyone else." - NOW

CHARLIE RICH - So Lonesome I Could Cry

"Fat Possum's 2015 So Lonesome I Could Cry release is a reissue of the 1977 Hi album of the same name, which itself is a reissue of a 1967 LP called Charlie Rich Sings Country and Western. An alternate title for the album could've been Charlie Rich Sings Hank Williams because this is a 12-track collection of Hank covers, about half of which are well-known and the other half relatively obscure. A handful of the songs are as loose and groove-oriented as the Hi imprint would suggest—there's a nice swagger to 'Half as Much' and 'Nobody's Lonesome for Me,' while 'Cold, Cold Heart' finds an oddly appealing rhythm halfway between Memphis and Nashville—but there's also a heavy dose of ballads, some of which are austere, some of which are lush. The backing vocals can be a little bit much at times, but Rich's casually virtuosic touch remains the focal point and is always alluring." - Allmusic

VA - Loose The Funk: Rare Soul From Sound Stage 7 Records / Rarities From The Jewel/Paula Vaults

"Heavy funk from Sound Stage 7, a legendary label that's often known for its deep soul work of the late '70s, but an imprint who are equally skilled in the funk department as well! The label's Nashville placement gave them a unique opportunity to draw from sources like Memphis, Muscle Shoals, and even Ohio, and create a tight blend of grooves that was one of the hippest on the underground scene of the time, one of the few southern soul labels you could trust for funky cuts as much as any of the New York or east coast indies.

Jewel and Paula were more than able to come up with the goods again and again over the years, with roots in the south, and artists in styles that included blues, gospel, and jazz, making for a fresh and unique criss-crossing of modes in a set of singles that dug way deeper than the usual hits from the label." - Dusty Groove