SOUL COLLECTOR

OHIO PLAYERS’ Observations In Time (★★★ Charly) is the Dayton outfit’s 1969 debut album that was originally issued on the Capitol label. Produced by Johnny Brantley, it captures a group still finding their sound on gritty originals (the Stax-like Bad Bargain; the brassy instrumental Lonely Street, the tough Here Today And Gone Tomorrow, the euphoric Street Party), reimagined standards (Over the Rainbow, Summertime) and a cover of Allen Toussaint’s Mother In Law which places them in Funkadelic/ Parliament territory. On translucent green vinyl, it’s expanded over two discs with further Brantley productions including 1968’s Trespassin’ and Northern soul spin Love Slips Through My Fingers.

Ohio Players 1977 (★★★★ Cleopatra) captures the group on 12 March 1977 in San Carlos, CA, on their Contradiction tour. The group with what’s widely acknowledged as their classic line-up – Billy Beck, Leroy ‘Sugarfoot’ Bonner, Marshall ‘Rock’ Jones, Robert ‘Rumba’ Jones, Ralph ‘Pee Wee’ Middlebrooks, Mervin Pierce, Clarence ‘Satch’ Satchell – have perfected their funk on four consecutive US R&B No 1 albums and are at their concert peak delivering a set that reads like a greatest hits with Love Rollercoaster, Who’d She Coo, Skin Tight, Sweet Sticky Thing et al plus a 30-minute rendition of Fire that riffs on Stevie Wonder and tears the roof off.

MILLIE JACKSON It Hurts So Good (★★★★ Kent), her superlative second album, the title track of which featured in the Cleopatra Jones movie and was also included in RC’S recent 1973 soul albums cover feature is reissued on vinyl along with her 1972 self-titled debut (★★★★ Kent). That debut teams her with producer Raeford Gerald and aligns her with Gladys Knight on the Motown-ish My Man, A Sweet Man and Ask Me What You Need although A Child Of God (It’s Hard To Believe) hints at the monologue-soul of the Caught Up trilogy.

Emerging from the same gospel circuit that gave us Mavis Staples, Sam Cooke and Lou Rawls, CANDI STATON combined testifying and yearning with Muscle Shoals greasy grooves to become the ‘first Lady of southern soul’. I’m Just A Prisoner (★★★★ Kent) was her 1970 first album recorded with Rick Hall at his FAME studios and contains landmark tracks I’d Rather Be An Old Man’s Sweetheart (Than A Young Man’s Fool), I’m Just A Prisoner (Of Your Good Lovin’), Evidence, You Don’t Love Me No More and Sweet Feeling.

Shrine Northern: The 60s Rarest Dance Label (★★★★ Kent) cherry-picks 14 tracks from songwriter Eddie Singleton and his wife Raynoma Gordy Singleton’s Washington stable spanning 1965 to 66. Raynoma, of course, had previously been married to Berry Gordy and set up Motown with him, and every cut here is essential from Bobby Reed’s glorious Baby Don’t Leave Me, produced by Clay Roberts and arranged by Freddie Perren, to Ray Pollard of The Drifter fame’s This Time (I’m Gonna Be True), one of the few Shrine singles not to be recorded at their Edgewood studio instead at Rodeo Studio in Georgetown. It also includes My Only Love by the Counts, who later recorded for Chess as Five Miles High and Little Bobby Parker’s I Won’t Believe It Till I See It, Parker of course the writer of You Got What It Takes and Watch Your Step. I Won’t Believe It Till I See It, meanwhile, was written by Singleton and was later covered by Jimmy Armstrong on Jet Set.

MARY WELLS was the early face of Motown. A superb singer, and a talented songwriter also, she came to Berry Gordy as a 17-year-old with

Bye Bye Baby, which she’d written with Jackie Wilson in mind. On Gordy’s instruction, it became her first Motown single in 1960 and that and its follow-up 1961’s I Don’t Want To Take A Chance showcase a vocal that’s rough and bluesy with plenty of soul. The aforesaid sides provide the opening tracks to Bye Bye Baby I Don’t Want To Take A Chance (★★★★ Pan Am Recordings). Her 1963 first album on Motown, it also includes her fab takes on Shop Around and I Love The Way You Love and this vinyl reissue adds four bonus tracks with 1962’s You Beat Me To The Punch the best, capturing Wells’ more delicate side and paving the way for her 1964 signature sound on My Guy.

Also reissued: THE SUPREMES’ The Supremes Sing Motown (★★★★ Elemental), aka The Supremes Sing Holland, Dozier, Holland, their 1967 10th album, which includes their No 1s You Keep Me Hangin’ On and Love Is Here And Now You’re Gone and reimaginings of such HDH songs as I Guess I’ll Always Love You and It’s The Same Old Song. Later that same year HDH would depart Motown.

GLADYS KNIGHT AND THE

PIPS’ Letter Full Of Tears: 60th Anniversary Edition (★★★★ Charly) collects the group’s premotown recordings for Fury and Maxx on crystal clear vinyl and includes US R&B hits Every Beat Of My Heart and the title track.

SKYY’S The Salsoul Albums (★★★ Cherry Red) is just that, their albums Skyy, Skyway, Skyyport, Skyyline, Skyyjammer, Skyylight and Inner City with bonus 12” and 7” versions spanning 1979 to 1984 and detailed annotation from RC’S own Charles Waring.