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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Indispensable Soul Music Collection, March 6, 2002
This review is from: Soul Spectacular! The Greatest Soul Hits of All Time (Audio CD)
Let's admit up front that no soul music box set is going to be definitive, but Rhino comes awfully close with this 4-CD, 90-song set (amazon.com left off Dyke and the Blazers 1969 hit "We Got More Soul" as the last song on disc-3). Beginning with Ray Charles' 1959 classic "What'd I Say" through 1976's chart-topping "Kiss and Say Goodbye" by the Manhattans, this is a thoroughly enjoyable collection of some of the best soul music in pop history. As the amazon.com reviewer noted, these were not merely R&B hits, but huge pop hits as well. A whopping 67 of these songs went top ten on the pop charts, and 17 went all the way to No. 1. The only two tracks that didn't crack the Top 40 were Don Covay's "Seesaw" (No. 44) from 1965 and James Carr's classic cheating song "The Dark End of the Street" (No. 77) from 1967. While this box set cherry picks through the vaults of Motown, Atlantic and Stax-Volt for many of these tracks, what makes this collection so spectacular is that Rhino also has access to smaller labels like Sue, Wand, Charger, Karen, Nola and Crimson. So even if you own Motown's Hitsville USA box, you will not find much repetition here. What this means is that you not only get the superstars like The Supremes, The Temptations, Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin (although Stevie Wonder is conspicuous by his absence), you also get get lesser known artists like Chuck Jackson, Billy Stewart and Arthur Conley, along with one-hit wonders like Doris Troy, J.J. Jackson and Barbara Acklin. For those of you who remember the Soul Shots and the Didn't It Blow Your Mind series that Rhino did in the Eighties, this is an excellent distillation of those. [At one time, both series had nearly 20 volumes each. I have about thirty of them on cassette, but Rhino has let almost the entire series go out of print.] If you love Sixties pop music in general or soul music in particular, this is a must-own set. ESSENTIAL
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant, Cooke or no Cooke, May 17, 2002
This review is from: Soul Spectacular! The Greatest Soul Hits of All Time (Audio CD)
Often when a particular artist is not included in a collection it is because rights were not available for use of his/her recordings. That aside, this box set could not have a more accurate title -- it is spectacular in every sense. The PBS tie-in concert is a fund-raising staple for good reason -- 40 years of brilliant music performed by some of the greatest entertainers of the century. See it, hear it, buy it, love it!
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rhino 4CD Soul Box Familiar , "Spectacular" Starter Set, December 22, 2004
This review is from: Soul Spectacular! The Greatest Soul Hits of All Time (Audio CD)
If Rhino's 4CD "Soul Spectacular" had been released in the mid-1980s it may have stood with Clapton's "Crossroads" and Bob Dylan's "Biograph" as among pop's essential box sets. Success of films like "Dirty Dancing" and "The Big Chill" returned many of these songs to public awareness as baby boomers recognized them as part of the idealized soundtrack of their lives. As Ben Edmonds says in the liner notes, "This music isn't simply of its time; it embodied it." This was a far cry from music critic Dave Marsh once wondering in the mid-1970s if Wilson Pickett and other soul giants would one day be available only on bootlegs.
But the more than 20 years since have seen these songs anthologized countless times on soundtracks,hits and anthology collections (yours truly once owned every one of these songs in one recorded format or another) and played daily on oldies radio. (Barbara Mason's grand 1965 original, "Yes I'm Ready," far from the biggest hit here, has aired more than one million times.)
This collection's best and worst point is its familiarity. Even casual pop music fans know the signature songs of the Temptations, Mary Wells, Percy Sledge, Ben E. King and others here. No choice is a glaring misstep but some are questionable: why "I Count the Tears" from the Drifters instead of 1964's more popular "Under the Boardwalk" or 1959's more influential "There Goes My Baby?" Why James Brown's now-cliched "I Got You (I Feel Good)" over "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," one of music's most aggressive, important singles? Let alone essential performers (Sam Cooke? The Dells? Jerry Butler?) left out altogether. Motown, pop culture's most active recycling plant, whips through 1962-3 songs from the Miracles, Vandellas and Supremes; only three Motown hits are heard across discs 2-3.
Those two middle discs are the set's best as they zip through a variety of styles: Muscle Shoals soul (Sledge, Brook Benton) Philadelphia (Fantastic Johnny C, Intruders, Delfonics), Chicago (Barbara Acklin, Billy Stewart) and, of course, Memphis and Detroit giants. Each artist is represented by one song except Marvin Gaye and Otis Redding, featured on solo and duet track each. The liner notes tell little more than oft-told tales of Stax and Motown's records respective founding.
"Soul Spectacular" is just that; 90 clear-sounding classics worth playing at any party or road trip without a dud in the bunch (at least until deep into disc four with one too many smooth Philadelphia International ballads in a row.) It's a first-class soul starter set, with greatest hits sets from any major individual artist listed an essential buy.
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