Customer Reviews

Birth of Soul

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Vaguely defined, multi-artist compilations can be a hit or miss experience, depending largely on the compilers themselves and whether their goal is to assemble great music to tell a story with or try to mislead the public and make a quick buck. Luckily those making "Birth Of Soul" fell in the former category, and while the title may be a little misleading, the collection itself is outstanding.

The "real" birth of soul came from the early 50's gospel-R&B concoctions of the "5" Royales, Ray Charles, Faye Adams and the Clyde McPhatter-led Dominoes. The 28 tracks on this disc fall comfortably into a different realm, that of the early 60's cross between the emerging soul and youth pop sensibilities. The latter doesn't mean the disingenuous teen idol dreck or something equally lightweight, but rather the more advanced production style of the Leiber & Stoller era Drifters ('59-63) and the best of the Brill Building styled girl groups where the songwriters and producers are more instrumental in the sound - tasteful strings, professional musicians and arrangements, etc. It was a highly popular style and one that is still aesthetically pleasing.

But semantics aside, what this DOES focus on - that early 60's R&B move towards the mainstream - resulted in some excellent records of which this disc has an even mix of the well known ("Gypsy Woman", "Cry Baby", "Mama Didn't Lie") and more obscure gems ("You're Not The Guy For Me", "How Can I Forget" and the brilliant "Oh My Angel", one of the sweetest sounding songs ever recorded). There are a few Stax alternate versions of Otis Redding and William Bell for the collector, and some strains of those aforementioned gospel roots with Etta James and Sam Cooke right after he left the Soul Stirrers in the late 50's. Add in the scarce original version by Derek Martin of the bluesy Otis Blackwell penned "Daddy Rolling Stone" (later copped by the Who) and you've got a well rounded and deep look into the era, guaranteeing the music will satisfy the casual listener and more demanding fanatic alike.

It isn't sequenced chronologically but they seemed to go to great care to have each song segue seemlessly into the next, whether musically, lyrically or otherwise. It really plays well as a result and the remastering throughout is first rate. The 15 pages of liner notes are superb, with good bios of the singers and comments on each song and lots of terrific pics.

Overall this stands as an example of how to put together a compilation of this scope. Two sequels have followed it thus far with the same general focus of years and style and are also good buys, with this being the essential opener. The biggest fear people have with buying these kinds of compilation discs is not being sure it was done with care and skill. Rest assured, "Birth Of Soul" is classy and well done. To paraphrase Barbara Lynn, if you should lose out on this, "you'll lose a good thing".

Ace Records' soul subsidiary Kent label launches the first in a series of CD compilations offering a broad-based sampling of tunes representing the emergence of mainstream soul music as it blossomed from its r'n'b origins.

Within the generous 28 tracks included, a wide net has been cast gathering up some big hits - on both the r'n'b and pop charts - along with some true rarities and obscurities but all representing various stages of the development of soul during the late 50's and early 60's. The casual listener will recognize such chart-stormers as Freddie Scott's "Hey Girl", Jerry Butler's "He Will Break Your Heart" and the original "Mockingbird" from Inez and Charlie Foxx. Among the seldom-found gems are the likes of the Tams' "Hey Girl Don't Bother Me" and Bertha Tillman's "Oh My Angel". From Garnett Mimms' wailing "Cry Baby" to Little Anthony's second-coming sophisticated "Goin' Out Of My Head", the wide spectrum of the various stylistic branches of the soul music movement of the era get placed side-by-side here.

With its informative and generously illustrated 16-page liner notes booklet along with Ace's attention to production quality, this piece stands above many of the knock-off soul compilations thrown together and tossed into the marketplace in the hope of some sales for the catalog owner's pockets. The sound quality, with the help of Walter DeVenne, is top-notch with many tracks in stereo (1-3,6,9,15,17-21,28) and while three of the tracks (7,8,27) have been dubbed from disc, the producers have the courage and respect for the prospective listener to acknowledge this on the back cover.

Every compilation CD should come to market with the care and quality of this piece. More in this series will hopefully be forthcoming.

Although the mysterious "Music Fan" reviewer had good insights to the birth of this genre, I do want to add that through the inclusion of some songs that deserved more popularity during their initial release and some "non-hits" by artists who were "one-hit wonders" with other songs, the apparent intent of this compilation has been met. One of the mild hits I have always liked is "I'm Qualified" by Jimmy Hughes. Too bad you can't travel back in time and know the world when these songs were doing their part to give birth to a great genre of music. They shame the Britney lovers. I highly recommend this fine compilation.

Awesome album of truely amazing artists - this is a must have for any serious listener into this period and gendre. You will love it