{"id":3795,"date":"2015-06-16T11:49:36","date_gmt":"2015-06-16T10:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eyeplug.net\/magazine\/?p=3795"},"modified":"2012-09-11T10:25:23","modified_gmt":"2012-09-11T10:25:23","slug":"album-reviews-september-2012-by-colin-bryce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/album-reviews-september-2012-by-colin-bryce\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Reviews – September 2012 by Colin Bryce"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Nobody Wins, Stax Southern Soul<\/strong> 1968-1975 (Kent\/Ace) <\/em><\/p>\n

By all accounts the tail end of Stax Records business life wasn\u2019t very pretty. The label still managed to put out some great sounds but relationships within the label had been damaged, the MGs connection was done and things were being recorded outside of Stax\u2019s own studios with a number of acts brought in that some argued weren\u2019t really in keeping with the identity Stax had forged for themselves.<\/p>\n

This collection includes some great tracks by some great talent but it also includes some things a Stax fan most likely can live without. I personally find Calvin Scott\u2019s take on \u201cNever Found Me a Girl\u201d considerably inferior to Eddie Floyd\u2019s original take. The Soul Children certainly shone brighter than \u201cMove Over\u201d and the same could be said of William Bell\u2019s \u201cLove on Borrowed Time\u201d and the great Johnnie Taylor\u2019s \u201cWill You Love Me Forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Full marks on Johnny Daye\u2019s \u201cStay Baby Stay\u201d (co-written with Steve Cropper), Mable John\u2019s \u201cShouldn\u2019t I Love Him\u201d, the Al Green-ish \u201cGroovin\u2019 On My Baby\u2019s Love\u201d by Freddie Waters (one of those licensed to Stax and recorded elsewhere), Inez Foxx\u2019s \u201cCrossing Over the Bridge\u201d and of course the inclusion of the great Ollie and the Nightingales\u2019 \u201cYou\u2019re Leaving Me.\u201d Ollie is and was the bizness. I can\u2019t think of a track recorded by him that ever disappointed me \u2013 and that includes those he recorded right up until the very end of his career. RIP Ollie.<\/p>\n

All in all this is worth hearing but fans of Stax will most likely feel the frustrations \u2013 once again \u2013 of how one of the great labels and studios were left at the losing end of the record industry game. (21 tracks.)<\/p>\n

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Lost Soul Gems from Sounds of Memphis<\/strong> (Kent\/Ace) <\/em><\/p>\n

A decidedly superior collection of rare and recently unearthed tracks of southern groovin\u2019 recorded for the Sounds of Memphis label.<\/p>\n

Carl Sims\u2019 (former Bar-kay vocalist) passionate pleader \u201cPity the Fool\u201d gets things going here and it just keeps getting better. Dan Greer\u2019s \u201cI Don\u2019t Want No One Way Love\u201d that follows is a tune with, what I consider to be, considerable hit potential and while Dean Rudland\u2019s liner notes cover the basics of the labels story we don\u2019t have a track by track breakdown to follow so I\u2019m left wondering how this stunner came to be left in the vault. Truly a shame whatever the story cause this little item is a gem. The same can be said of any number of songs included here. Otis Wheat\u2019s version of \u201cTennessee Waltz\u201d is as fresh as a new born babe and the raw basic funky grooves of Fran Farley\u2019s \u201cStop Boy\u201d and Rudolph Taylor\u2019s \u201cWhat\u2019s That You Got\u201d are neither tired nor hidden behind in a glossy production in some vain effort to make them more than they are \u2013 simple and straight up groovin\u2019.<\/p>\n

Better-knowns like George Jackson, Barbara Brown and Louis Williams (Ovations) are featured here as well. Jackson with a couple of typically deep feeling cuts. Brown with an alternative take of \u201cI Don\u2019t Want To Have To Wait\u201d and \u201cSo Cruel\u201d and Louis Williams with an easy pop-soul number full of poppin\u2019 bass and electric piano. The recordings run late 60s through the early 70s so there are some stylistic changes but apart from maybe the, uh, sensitive \u201cWhen I Look Inside\u201d by Takelia there is nothing but lost soul gems as the title of the release suggests. (22 tracks.)<\/p>\n

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Clarence Carter:<\/strong> The Fame Singles Volume 1, 1966-1970 (Fame\/Kent\/Ace) <\/em><\/p>\n

Have they ever come any funkier than Clarence Carter? Don\u2019t think so. The laugh, the guitar lines, the lyrical themes, the man got it. The collected Fame singles included here from 1966-1970 features a number of his classics from \u201cSlip Away\u201d, \u201cTell Daddy\u201d (driven further into hitsville when Etta James re-did it as \u201cTell Mama\u201d), \u201cSnatching It Back\u201d, and \u201cFunky Fever\u201d to the truly incredible \u201cLooking For A Fox\u201d. \u201cLooking For A Fox\u201d is one of the songs I can never get enough of. It has so much subtle power that it is simply impossible NOT to get your behind in gear. Unreal.<\/p>\n

Larger than life deep ballads, soulful southern grooves and funky fevers that one just never hears anymore – buy it. (24 tracks.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nobody Wins, Stax Southern Soul 1968-1975 (Kent\/Ace) By all accounts the tail end of Stax Records business life wasn\u2019t very pretty. The label still managed to put out some great sounds but relationships within the label had been damaged, the MGs connection was done and things were being recorded outside of Stax\u2019s own studios with a number of acts brought in that some argued weren\u2019t really in keeping with the identity Stax had forged for themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":3802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,78,128,71,74,85],"tags":[657,669,596,663,670],"series":[],"class_list":["post-3795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-funk","category-hot-plugs","category-music","category-reviews","category-soul","tag-ace-records","tag-clarence-carter","tag-colin-mohair-sweets-bryce","tag-kent-records","tag-stax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3795"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3805,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3795\/revisions\/3805"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3795"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=3795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}