Tracklist:

1. Solomon Burke - Everybody Needs Somebody To Love 2:46
2. Wilson Pickett - Ninety-Nine And A Half (Won't Do) 2:39
3. Don Covay - Seesaw 2:58
4. Brenton Wood - The Oogum Boogum Song 2:26
5. Billy Stewart - Sitting In The Park 3:17
6. Percy Sledge - It Tears Me Up 2:50
7. King Curtis - Memphis Soul Stew 2:57
8. Dyke & The Blazers - We Got More Soul 2:44
9. Al Greene & The Soul Mates - Back Up Train 2:21
10. Lou Rawls - Love Is A Hurtin' Thing 2:13
11. James Carr - The Dark End Of The Street 2:33
12. Otis Redding - Mr. Pitiful 2:33
13. Bobby Moore & The Rhythm Aces - Searching For My Love 2:33
14. Laura Lee - Dirty Man 2:53
15. Clarence Carter - Too Weak To Fight 2:17
16. Howard Tate - Ain't Nobody Home 2:29
17. Linda Jones - Hypnotized 2:39
18. Jerry Butler - Never Give You Up 3:06
19. Junior Walker & The All Stars - Pucker Up Buttercup 3:19
20. Lee Dorsey - Get Out Of My Life, Woman 2:28
21. Joe Tex - The Love You Save (May Be Your Own) 2:57
22. Barbara Acklin - Love Makes A Woman 2:56

Media Condition: Mint (M)
Sleeve Condition: Mint (M)

Cat # : 2CLR-28, OPCD-2625

Barcode :

Funk / Soul, Pop / Rhythm & Blues, Soul, Funk

Notes:

Volume 28 of a 30 volume set.

Track durations obtained from software.

Complete liner notes:

Along with Ray Charles, James Brown and Sam Cooke, Solomon Burke is considered one of the fathers of soul music - one who embraced its blend of the spiritual and the profane in a highly idiosyncratic way. Born in Philadelphia, Burke was delivering sermons at age seven at Solomon's Temple, the House of God for All People, which was founded by his family in his honor. At nine he was known as the Wonder Boy Preacher, and by 1955 he was cutting records that today would be labeled as contemporary Christian - secular songs with spiritual imagery and messages. In 1960, Burke signed with R & B pioneer Atlantic Records and began laying the foundation for soul with his country-flavored ballads. By 1964, he had accelerated into the up-tempo, preaching Everybody Needs Somebody to Love, which Burke later sang as he danced through the aisles passing the collection plate at his church. 

Soul music is usually considered the domain of Detroit and Memphis/Muscle Shoals, the former having spawned Motown, and the latter two being, respectively, the home of Stax-Volt and a favored base for Atlantic and independent productions. Saxophonist Junior Walker's Pucker Up Buttercup, like his 1965 debut hit Shotgun, represented Motown at its grittiest. But when it came to true grit, soul music definitely looked to the South. 

Washington, D.C.'s Don Covay was a singer-songwriter who recorded in the Northeast. Covay's songs were often bigger hits for other artists: Aretha Franklin put his Seesaw on the pop charts three years after his original failed to make it beyond black radio. From Rogers, Texas, Joe Tex sang unique country homilies. Tex had been around since the mid-1950s as a Little Richard imitator, but his career didn't begin taking shape until he hooked up with Nashville writer-producer Buddy Killen in 1961. Tex recorded in Music City, using integrated bands; his moralistic songs, often laced with sassy recitations, were invariably smart and good-humored. After 1965, his records crossed over to the pop charts, The Love You Save being a rare exception. 

Otis Redding was the figurehead for the Memphis scene. He had surfaced in 1963, cutting one song at the Stax studios at the end of a Johnny Jenkins and the Pinetoppers session (Redding was Jenkins's chauffeur). Originally a Little Richard imitator himself, Redding developed a galvanizing style that integrated his rural Georgia roots with more sophisticated urban arrangements. He wrote Mr. Pitiful one night after a bad gig. His writing partner, white guitarist Steve Cropper of Booker T. and the MGs, the Stax house band, helped shape it into an even more autobiographical song. Cropper also co-wrote Wilson Pickett's Ninety-Nine and a Half (Won't Do), based on a Coca-Cola billboard slogan he had spotted. The soft drink company had lifted the line from a gospel standard, substituting soda pop for God; Pickett and Cropper then replaced the soft drink with love and sex. 

King Curtis, a saxophonist originally from Fort Worth, Texas, had come to New York in 1953, working his way up through the studio ranks at Atlantic until he became a session leader. He cut Memphis Soul Stew as a tribute to his Southern compatriots, having backed many of the same singers they had. By 1967, the year of Curtis' hit instrumental, Atlantic was already taking business to Muscle Shoals, where the resident band of white musicians had developed a more country sound than that of the Stax players. Percy Sledge's 1966 When a Man Loves a Woman helped establish the recording scene there, and his It Tears Me Up continued in a similar groove. Clarence Carter, a blind singer-guitarist who was once half of a duo called Clarence and Calvin, took the Muscle Shoals treatment after going solo in 1968. Too Weak to Fight was the follow-up to his huge debut hit, Slip Away. 

Other labels and artists began going to Muscle Shoals in hopes of absorbing some of the special magic at Rick Hall's Fame Studios. Alabama journeymen Bobby Moore and the Rhythm Aces had one of the first Fame hits in Searching for My Love. Laura Lee, who started as a gospel singer, cut her first popular secular recording, Dirty Man, in 1965 by accident. Hall later declared that the record wasn't even made at a Lee session; she had simply wandered into the studio one day and recorded it during someone else's break. 

To many, James Carr is one of the great lost soul singers. Memphis medical technologist Roosevelt Jamison discovered Carr performing with a local gospel group and paired him with producer Quinton Claunch of Goldwax Records. Thanks to a distribution deal with the Bell label, Carr flirted with national fame on his 1966 song You Got My Mind Messed Up. But The Dark End of the Street, written for him the next year by soul maestros Dan Penn and Chips Moman - and covered numerous times since - is the song most associated with Carr, whose severe mental and emotional problems prevented his capitalizing on what had started out to be a most promising career. 

Despite the conventional wisdom, classic soul was not limited to Motown or Memphis/Muscle Shoals. Linda Jones, who was from Newark, cut incredible sides like Hypnotized with producer George Kerr in New York. In Philadelphia, Howard Tate recorded bluesy soul such as Ain't Nobody Home for writer-producer Jerry Ragovoy. From Chicago, Barbara Acklin worked as a backup singer and occasional writer for local labels before going solo in 1967. Love Makes a Woman was co-written and produced by Eugene Record, later the creative force behind the Chi-Lites. Jerry Butler, the first lead singer of the Impressions and a founder of the smooth Chicago soul style, moved to Philadelphia and hit with Never Give You Up. This song proved to be seminal in shaping the 1970s Philly International sound of writer-producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff.

Soul music also had its adherents in New Orleans, where Lee Dorsey and writer-producer Allen Toussaint crossed the sound with a traditional second-line beat to create R & B hits such as Get Out of My Life, Woman. An unusually serious song from the normally whimsical Dorsey, it was even covered by Iron Butterfly. Out in Los Angeles, former gospel singer Lou Rawls, who had developed a slick brand of nightclub blues and soul, was moaning Love Is a Hurtin' Thing, and Brenton Wood was amusing himself with The Oogum Boogum Song. 

Dyke and the Blazers had one of soul music's more off-the-wall histories. Dyke was Arlester Christian, a native of Buffalo who sang and played bass in the O'Jays' backing band, the Blazers. When the group was stranded in Phoenix during an aborted tour, Dyke took charge. He wrote Funky Broadway, named after the main drag of Phoenix's ghetto, as a dance tune in 1966. Wilson Pickett had a bigger hit with the song, but Dyke kept going strong through 1969, when he worked in the studio with the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band. Tragically, in 1971, the singer was shot dead on the Phoenix street he had immortalized in song. However, as a testament, he left behind the 1969 hit that spoke for a whole generation of black artists: We Got More Soul. 

- John Morthland