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R&B and Soul Classics (1945-1975 or so)

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    #76
    Peter Guralnick's 'Sweet Soul Music' rates Solomon Burke very highly. e.g. 'Cry To Me' (1962):




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      #77
      Aretha Franklin - impossible to pick one track, but my favourite right now is See Saw, a cover of a 1965 R&B hit by Don Covay (cowritten with Steve Cropper):



      But then there's this:



      And that's before we get to the ballads, such as 'Ain't No Way'. Her early Atlantic stuff is as good as music gets.
      Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 24-01-2022, 14:02.

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        #78
        Motown Chartbusters vol 1-12 playlist

        https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...FzqbGjUDedhr4l

        This lesser-known Supremes track is a banger:


        Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 24-01-2022, 15:04.

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          #79
          Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
          Motown Chartbusters vol 1-12 playlist

          https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...FzqbGjUDedhr4l

          This lesser-known Supremes track is a banger:

          Yes I had that Supremes track on a Motown compilation - the Motown Hits of Gold series rather than Chartbusters. 8 or so volumes, all done chronologically.

          Recently I saw Summer of Soul on Disney plus. Highly recommended for any soul fans of that era. So many highlights. The only Stevie Wonder song used was Shoo-be-Doo-be-doo-day. A lesser known but still fantastic track. 60s Stevie Wonder has so many gems that I come back to again and again, especially late 60s, just before his indomitable early 70s period.



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            #80
            When Berry Gordy bought out the Ric Tic/Golden World group of labels for $1 million, most of their acts were rolled into the Motown firmament - Edwin Starr, Detroit Emeralds, Fantastic Four etc. However Gordy felt that J.J. Barnes sounded too much like Marvin Gaye, so they let him go. You can see his point I suppose, nobody needs two Marvin Gayes.


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              #81
              The Supremes & Temptations - I Second That Emotion:

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                #82
                The Velvelettes - These Things Will Keep Me Loving You

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                  #83


                  Cymande- Bra.

                  came across this watching 25th Hour last night, what a bassline.
                  Last edited by Lang Spoon; 26-01-2022, 15:33.

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                    #84
                    The title track from 'Straight From The Gate' (1977), the second of two albums that The Headhunters released in the mid-70's without Herbie Hancock.
                     

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                      #85
                      LS, I can heartily recommend every track from Cymande's self-titled debut album (which 'Bra' is taken from). The follow-up, Second Time Around, is full of bangers too. Here's my favourite from that second album, 'Genevieve' (this video's from the official Cymande channel but seems to have had about 40 seconds cut from the version on the album).

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                        #86
                        And since Cymande and the Headhunters take us into what I think of as the slightly jazzier, more instrumentally driven (while still containing vocals) side of things, another (because I've posted it before) bit of love for the most appropriately named song I've ever come across, 'Joyous' by Pleasure. Admittedly it's just outside this thread's remit as it was released in 1977, but I'm going to take the 'or so' at the end of the thread title to mean I can get away with it. This is the whole thing; none of the intro has been clipped off. It just comes straight in like this.

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                          #87
                          The Supremes - Bad Weather, produced and co-written by Stevie Wonder (interestingly, Berry Gordy had originally wanted Syreeta to replace Ross, and you can hear some similarities between how Stevie frames Jean Terrell's lead vocal here and the work he was doing with Syreeta in that period, plus his own 'Fulfillingness' First Finale', which moves into that smoother, groove-based style (Al Green/Sly Stone).

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                            #88
                            Barbara George - I Know (You Don't Love Me No More), charted in November 1961.

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                              #89


                              Right on the sweet spot between soul and jazz

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                                #90
                                Ooh I like that. I didn't know the story behind 'Wade in the Water' until now – an old spiritual whose lyrics were first written down in 1901, according to Wikipedia. I'm a big fan of the version by the very underrated Marlena Shaw.

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                                  #91
                                  The bassline on this. Nice.
                                   
                                  Last edited by Mr Delicieux; 04-02-2022, 12:55. Reason: Bass/base

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                                    #92
                                    If I ever find myself in a coma, I've instructed my wife to play this song as I think it has a good a chance of getting me up on my feet as anything else.
                                    ​​​​​​
                                     

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                                      #93
                                      Solomon Burke's chart debut (1961) was a country song (a Faron Young cover) but interesting given that Ray Charles was also moving to country at that point:



                                      Aretha's Columbia debut recordings (also 1961) is also interesting (from the same year) because this is still officially 'R&B' but is clearly drenched in soul:





                                      Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 04-02-2022, 15:03.

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                                        #94
                                        Aretha - If I Should Lose You



                                        Dinah Washington - If I Should Lose You

                                        Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 06-02-2022, 13:58.

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                                          #95
                                          Touching base again with soul tracks based on nursery rhymes perhaps the biggest, at least in the US, was Sally Go Round The Roses, by the Jaynetts which reached #2 for a couple of weeks in 1963, but did squat in the UK.

                                          Reputedly the most expensive song ever recorded at the time, session fees ran to $60,000 per week, it started out as a riff on 'Ring Around the Rosie' but ended up somewhere quite different. I played the grooves though to the other side of the vinyl — which was the same track minus the vocals, call "Sing Along Without the Jaynetts. There was actually a group called that, but as many as twenty people laid down vocal tracks, so it's not clear who's voices are on the record. Artie Butler, the songs arranger and producer, claims he played all the instruments except guitar. It has, of course become a classic, with just about every significant female singer (and a fair few male ones) in the past half-century taking a crack at it. It is one very strange and brilliant Three minutes and ten seconds.



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                                            #96
                                            Seeing as Syl Johnson died today (just six days after his brother Jimmie, a blues guitarist, passed away)...

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                                              #97
                                              One artist I really wish I'd seen live is Betty Davis. Hot, wild and dramatically different from anyone else by all accounts. Her career was short, 1973-79, though she broke cover to release a song three years ago. Here's Anti-Love Song from her brief heyday.

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                                                #98
                                                There's a documentary on her:

                                                https://vimeo.com/ondemand/bettydavis

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                                                  #99
                                                  Cheers, though the comments aren't too encouraging. She really is "legendary" in the original sense of the word. People seem to be able to dine out on the fact that they saw her perform, or say they did.

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                                                    Prescient, Amor de Cosmos . She's just passed away.

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