VA - Highlife On The Move: Selected Nigerian & Ghanian Recordings From London & Lagos 1954-66

"In conjunction with compiler and highlife researcher Dr. Markus Coester, Soundway Records presents this very special release on double CD or triple 180g gatefold vinyl (with bonus 7-inch).

The 45 includes the two first-ever recordings by Fela Ransome Kuti with his band The Highlife Rakers. Recorded by Melodisc in London in 1960, both tracks have been unearthed after more than fifty years in hiding.

In many ways, this compilation is a prequel to Soundway's groundbreaking Nigeria & Ghana Special compilations, telling the early story of modern highlife's foundation & formulation. It traces the music from West Africa to London, adding elements of jazz, mambo and calypso along the way and paving the way for the Afro sounds of the 1970s." - Soundway Records

VA - Modernists: A Decade Of Rhythm & Soul Dedication

"Modernists is the soul version of Mod Jazz, comprising records we feel could have been massive in mod clubs in the 1960s and could fill dancefloors today. We hope you will be impressed by the high quality throughout, from Jeb Stuart's boogaloo opener to Paul & Rick's perfect ender. Timmy Wilson's 'Long Ways To Go' would surely have been an R&B club smash had his record label not gone bust, while Mel Williams' 'Jet Set' fulfils all the musical and lyrical requisites of a mod classic. It's difficult to choose highlights, but as we've been championing it in clubs for a couple of years, we're going to mention Little Eva's 'Dynamite,' an amazing answer to James Brown's ‘Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag.'" - Ace Records

ts” is the soul version of “Mod Jazz”, comprising records we feel could have been massive in mod clubs in the 1960s and could fill dancefloors today. I hope you will be impressed by the high quality throughout, from Jeb Stuart’s boogaloo opener to Paul & Rick’s perfect ender. Timmy Wilson’s ‘Long Ways To Go’ would surely have been an R&B club smash had his record label not gone bust, while Mel Williams’ ‘Jet Set’ fulfils all the musical and lyrical requisites of a mod classic. It’s difficult to choose highlights, but as I’ve been championing it in clubs for a couple of years, I’m going to mention Little Eva’s ‘Dynamite’, an answer to James Brown’s ‘Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag’, which is amazing. - See more at: http://acerecords.co.uk/modernists-a-decade-of-rhythm-soul-dedication#sthash.znUndL8Z.dpuf

VA - Ultra-High Frequencies: The Chicago Party

"For 23 straight Saturday nights of 1982, The Chicago Party dance show assaulted Chicagoland UHF eyeballs with Spandex, Southside fly guys, tender tenderonies, magicians, contortionists, prismatic video gimmickry, and lip-synched singles by a rising regime of local post-disco casualties. Unfettered nightlife and outlandish humor poured out of oddball outpost The CopHerBox II and onto TV screens, presented here as a 100-minute video mixtape on DVD. Its companion compilation features five previously unreleased tracks, joined by music culled from a trove of self-released 45s and small-time 12”s. Die-cut cathode-ray jacket and six in-package stills put the Party at your fingertips." - Numero Group

VA - Los Angeles Soul: Kent-Modern's Black Music Legacy

"The Bihari brothers, owners of Los Angeles' Kent and Modern labels, knew their black music, signing artists of the calibre of Etta James, Jesse Belvin and Jimmy Witherspoon in the '50s. Their travels to New Orleans, Memphis and elsewhere saw them expand their horizons, recording acts in those locales or licensing in material for release. In the soul era, The Other Brothers from Texas, Jeanette Jones and Wally Cox from the Bay Area, and the Memphis-recorded Earl Wright fit that pattern." - Ace Records

ihari brothers, owners of Los Angeles’ Kent and Modern labels, knew their black music, signing artists of the calibre of Etta James, Jesse Belvin and Jimmy Witherspoon in the 50s. Their travels to New Orleans, Memphis and elsewhere saw them expand their horizons, recording acts in those locales or licensing in material for release. In the soul era the Other Brothers fromTexas, Jeanette Jones and Wally Cox from the Bay Area, and the Memphis-recorded Earl Wright fit that pattern. - See more at: http://acerecords.co.uk/los-angeles-soul-kent-moderns-black-music-legacy#sthash.mkamkvj0.dpuf

VA - Hung On You: More From The Gerry Goffin & Carole King Songbook

"This bumper collection of numbers penned by Gerry Goffin and his wife Carole King includes familiar hits (The Shirelles' 'What A Sweet Thing That Was,' Bobby Vee's 'Sharing You,' The Cookies' 'Will Power,' The Drifters' 'When My Little Girls Is Smiling,' et cetera), overlooked gems (The Hondells' 'Show Me Girl,' The Hearts & Flowers' 'Road To Nowhere,' Walter Jackson's 'Anything Can Happen') and some new-to-CD rarities ('You Turn Me On Boy' by The Honey Bees, The Orlons' 'Keep Your Hands Off My Baby,' The Clovers' 'The Sheik' and Theola Kilgore's 'It's Gonna Be Alright')." - Ace Records

JOHNNY ADAMS - I Won't Cry: The Complete Ric & Ron Singles 1959-1964

"It was a lucky day for music lovers when Johnny Adams' songwriter neighbour Dorothy La Bostrie knocked on the young gospel singer's door and asked if he would consider singing the demos for two R&B songs she was hoping to pitch to record man Joe Ruffino of Ric and Ron Records. One of the songs was 'I Won't Cry,' which started the Tan Canary on a career that spanned five decades, gave so much pleasure to fans of New Orleans soul and R&B, and which now features as the title track of a must-have Ace CD.

It was only a local hit, but 'I Won't Cry' set standards for the great music collected in this first-ever compilation to include the A- and B-sides of all 11 of Adams' Ric and Ron singles, along with two otherwise unrecorded demos that made their first appearance on a vinyl single in a boxed set of Ric and Ron 45s issued for Record Store Day a couple of years back. It beggars belief that of these 11, only 'A Losing Battle' became a national R&B hit, so high is their overall quality." - Ace Records

CURTIS KNIGHT & THE SQUIRES - You Can't Use My Name: The RSVP/PPX Sessions

"In the mid 1960s, before launching a solo career that profoundly influenced and altered the course of popular music, Jimi Hendrix was a little known sideman, working for short periods with a variety of artists including the Isley Brothers, Don Covay, Little Richard, and the Harlem-based R&B combo Curtis Knight & The Squires.

These recordings made for PPX and RSVP are part of Jimi Hendrix's extraordinary legacy. They neatly align with those other sessions Hendrix participated in during this same era as a sideman for other acts. 'I was a backing musician playing guitar,' Hendrix explained in a 1967 interview. 'I was always kept in the background, but I was thinking all the time about what I wanted to do.' Enjoyed in this context, these Curtis Knight sessions showcase his evolving technique and emerging brilliance." - Experience Hendrix

THE NOTATIONS - Still Here 1967-1973

"From the dawn of doo-wop to the death of disco, the Notations saw—and sang—it all. Persisting through changing trends and technologies, on major labels and minor ones, produced by both Syl Johnson and Curtis Mayfield, nothing could stop the Notations from representing Chicago's Southside for decades. The first overview of their indie label golden age, Still Here 1967–1973 finds the Notations at a musical crossroads, turning from simmering R&B ballads to socially-conscious soul." - Numero Group

THE STAPLE SINGERS - Freedom Highway Complete: Recorded Live at Chicago's New Nazareth Church

"By April 9, 1965, as the Staple Singers set up at the New Nazareth Church in Chicago to record the album that would become Freedom Highway, the group had moved far afield of its original gospel roots. Galvanized by the emerging Civil Rights movement, Roebuck 'Pops' Staples and family had offered a series of stirring protest songs like 'March Up Freedom's Highway,' 'Why? (Am I Treated So Bad),' and 'Washington Is A Long Walk To D.C.'—moments that helped frame the era.

But, as Sony Legacy's Freedom Highway Complete makes viscerally clear, the Staple Singers could still rattle the back pews.

Formerly constrained by the physical limitations of a 12-inch vinyl LP, the Staple Singers' performance—recorded in glorious mono by Billy Sherrill—is now available in its entirety. A highlight of this reissue's never-before-heard material is 'Jesus Is All,' which begins like a field holler before gaining steady, hand-clapping momentum, finally emerging as a jubilant paean to the sturdy faith needed to persevere through the toughest of times." - Something Else Reviews

MATTHEW E. WHITE - Fresh Blood

"On 'Rock & Roll Is Cold,' the second track on Matthew E. White's second album, the 32-year-old Virginian takes a rare break from essaying love in its many various forms to get a little meta, singing about music itself. Off-mic, some cynical cur boasts that he's figured out how to fake it in gospel, soul and R&B. White rolls his eyes, pitying the fool. 'Everybody sees that R&B is free,' he whispers, incredulously. 'Gospel licks,' he adds, 'ain't got no tricks.'

White, by contrast, is no faker, and has got no tricks, evading the valley of slavish copyists by locating his own idiosyncratic dialect within the larger lexicon of soul. The house band at his Spacebomb studio robes his songs with strings, horns, Fender Rhodes, the sort of rich instrumentation that evokes soul at its plushest, but White’s vocals–dry, understated, deadpan–are something else, and the friction between those styles lends Fresh Blood a frisson. His lyrics, meanwhile, are more Bill Callahan than Bill Withers: dark, blackly humorous, mischievous and erotic." - MOJO

UNIVERSAL TOGETHERNESS BAND - S/T

"Between 1979 and 1982, The Universal Togetherness Band tracked unearthly portions of their sprawling songbook for bewildered students in Columbia College’s audio engineering program. Storming the gates of Chicago’s premier recording studios, the erudite party band explored permutations of soul, jazz-fusion, new wave, and disco with little regard for studio rates or the availability of magnetic tape.

Universal Togetherness Band captures the brightest, never-before-heard moments from this visionary group’s 5-semester recording bender." - Numero Group

JIMMY HOLIDAY - Spread Your Love: The Complete Minit Singles 1966-1970

"Jimmy Holiday is probably best known as the co-writer of 'Put A Little Love In Your Heart,' 'All I Ever Need Is You' and a handful of other hit songs, including several for his friend and mentor, Ray Charles. But to connoisseurs of '60s soul, he is regarded as a singer of no small talent, with an individual style that made the release of each new single an important event.

This Kent compilation shines the spotlight on the recordings Jimmy made for Minit in the second half of the 1960s, a period in which he was at his peak as a vocalist and songwriter, working with some of the best musicians and producers of the era, and enjoying a hit or two along the way. Those sides mark him as a man who should have been a big star. He might well have become one, but for a busy schedule writing for others and health problems that led to his death at the age of just 54." - Ace Records

THE SUPREME JUBILEES - It'll All Be Over

"A band of brothers and cousins, the group was founded from two families: brothers Joe and Dave Kingsby plus Dave’s son David Kingsby Jr., and keyboardist Leonard Sanders plus his brothers Phillips (drummer), Tim (bassist), and Melvin (tenor). The Sanders clan grew up singing together in the Witness of Jesus Christ church in Fresno, CA, where dad Marion was pastor. Guitarist Larry Price completed the line-up that recorded the group’s first (and, prophetically, only) album, It'll All Be Over.

If God had a disco, the DJ would be playing The Supreme Jubilees. 'We won’t have to cry no more,' the tuxedo-clad group would sing, in high, angelic vocals over smooth grooves. 'It’ll all be over.' Prepare to dance and contemplate death all at the same time." - Light In The Attic

EDDY GILES - Southern Soul Brother: The Murco Recordings 1967-1969

"Losin' Boy" appeared on Volume 2 of the classic Deep Soul Treasures series compiled by Dave Godin; a full compilation has been much sought after by lovers of Southern soul.

"Shreveport, Louisiana's Eddy Giles was the star of Dee Marais' Murco label, on which he released a handful of singles between 1967 and 1969, scoring with the regional hit 'Losin’ Boy.' Southern Soul Brother gathers together all his recordings for the label for the first time ever, including the single that was licensed out to Silver Fox. It highlights a talented artist who was adept at covering all the bases required of soul singers of the time from ballads such as 'Happy Man' and 'While I'm Away (Baby, Keep The Faith)' to the up-tempo dance style of 'Eddy’s Go Go Train.'" - Ace Records

Shreveport, Louisiana’s Eddy Giles was the star of Dee Marais’ Murco label, on which he released a handful of singles between 1967 and 1969, scoring with the regional hit ‘Losin’ Boy’. “Southern Soul Brother” gathers together all his recordings for the label, for the first time ever, including the single that was licensed out to Silver Fox. It highlights a talented artist who was adept at covering all the bases required of soul singers of the time, from ballads such as ‘Happy Man’ and ‘While I’m Away (Baby, Keep The Faith)’ to the up-tempo dance style of ‘Eddy’s Go Go Train’.

Access to the Murco master tapes allows us to include three previously unreleased recordings: a bluesy alternative version of his final Murco single ‘Ain’t Gonna Worry No More’, the wistful ‘It Takes More’, and ‘Pins And Needles’, a country song given an exemplary soul treatment. ‘Love With A Feeling’ also verges on the blues, while ‘Soul Feeling’ is revered by fans of southern funk.

- See more at: http://acerecords.co.uk/southern-soul-brother-the-murco-recordings-1967-1969#sthash.MmEqlU6Z.dpuf

BESSIE JONES with the Georgia Sea Island Singers and others - Get In Union: Recordings by Alan Lomax 1969-1966

"Students of ethnomusicology and folk music enthusiasts fortunate enough to hear the two or three LPs of Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers can tell you the thrill of hearing the group’s music for the first time.

The singers' dedication to preserving a music with roots that run all the way back to West Africa has enabled generations to hear something of the foundation of spirituals, the blues, jazz, gospel, and many other genres.

Thanks to Tompkins Square, a leader in black sacred music reissue projects, many thousands more can experience the Georgia Sea Island Singers with the release of Get In Union. And for those who have heard the group before, take heed: more than half of the 51 selections, recorded by Alan Lomax between 1959 and 1966, have not been issued publicly until now." - Journal of Gospel Music

VA - The Soul Of Designer Records (4CD)

Fans of the Sinner's Crossroads podcast or the stellar I Heard The Angels Singing compilation from last year will find much to like in this 4CD set of soulful, impassioned gospel.

"Between 1967 and 1977 Designer label founder Style Wooten and his studio main man Roland Janes, a heroic figure in Memphis music, produced between 400 and 500 gospel singles. Many of the artists they recorded came from Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas, but as the label’s reputation grew they began arriving from more far flung locales—Chicago, St. Louis, Boston, Ohio, the Carolinas, Florida, California—sometimes literally waiting in line for their turn to cut at Janes' Sonic Studios." - Big Legal Mess

BUDOS BAND - Burnt Offering

The Budos Band have consistently produced retro grooves that could have been written in an earlier era (namely, that of the '60s/'70s). On this new outing, they let their hair grow out by adding some heavy fuzz to the mix. Like The Chamber Brothers said, my soul has been psychedelicized!

"Don't let that album cover and title fool you. The level of departure here is so slight that the boys could've gone ahead and just slapped a roman numeral four on there. The Budos Band's approach to instrumental funk/soul has always had a touch of the ominous. They reclaim the original grandeur of Beethoven's Fifth while fitting into the fun and frivolity of how the symphony has been fetishized over time. It's music for dancing, to be sure, but it contains a mood that sort of hovers over the revelry. It's looking down on itself from a great height. It isn't imbued with judgement, necessarily, but a grave sort of knowingness. It feels good in the crowd, bathed in darkness and strange lights. But something is moving us, and we are a little bit scared of the possession. Most dance music uses this feeling as a segue to release; Budos Band just lays in the pocket and glowers with a fierce but composed solemnity." - Tiny Mix Tapes

VA - Cracking The Cosimo Code

Cosimo Matassa, who passed away very recently, was an essential figure in the development of R&B, rock'n'roll and soul in New Orleans. Cracking The Cosimo Code provides a great taste of just some of the incredible talent who recorded in Matassa's studio in the Sixties. 

"What is the Cosimo Code? Quite simply, it's an ongoing, website-based discographical tool at www.cosimocode.com documenting the 1960s recordings from Cosimo Matassa’s studios in New Orleans. This CD release has been compiled by website co-founders Red 'Soul Detective' Kelly, John 'Sir Shambling' Ridley and John Broven. It brings to life the Cosimo Code data, unveiling many of the mysteries surrounding New Orleans R&B and soul recordings from the post-Fats Domino era.

As the '60s started, Domino and his producer Dave Bartholomew, with their timeless brand of R&B, still dominated the New Orleans recording scene. Soon there would be a changing of the guard, led by producers Allen Toussaint, Harold Battiste, Wardell Quezergue and Eddie Bo. Under these younger men, the music would take on a funkier soul edge while still imbued with the eternal New Orleans street rhythms." - Ace Records

VA - DJ Snowboy Presents The Good Foot

DJ Snowboy runs a club night called The Good Foot in London's Soho district. This compilation gives listeners an excellent and accurate picture of the exciting '60s R&B, soul, funk and Latin grooves Snowboy spins for the club's lucky patrons.

"Madame Jojo's, in an outpost of old Soho where Snowboy wears his DJ hat, is where he runs his weekly club night, the Good Foot. In the past, this central London area was known for its bohemian nightlife and shady characters. Most of that has gone now, replaced by modern life's big brands and identikit shops, but step down the velvet-lined stairwell into Jojo's subterranean space and you're into a lost world where the music played by Snowboy and his guests keeps an audience of enthusiastic dancers glued to the club's sunken dancefloor.

The Good Foot plays the best of '60s soul, R&B and latin with a touch of funk, and Snowboy always looks to find a perfect blend of classics and records that you are unlikely to have heard in a club before. Our compilation attempts to recreate the feeling of a night at the club, and features many of the tunes that have become signature plays there." - Ace Records

VA - Brent: Superb 60s Soul Sounds

The Brent record label released soul from across the States, and some of the best it had to offer is found on this new Ace/Kent collection.

"Bob Shad ran several record labels between the late '50s and the mid-'70s, Brent being the one he chose to issue the majority of his '60s soul output. He made good contacts around the USA while working for Mercury and used them when he launched his labels...Shad released music from any area that was happening, and was one of the first to venture into Detroit soul, before it had really exploded." - Ace Records