There were fewer Reissues this year than in recent Years but there were some real gems. ‘This is Eleanore Mills’ was our pick for Soul Reissue of the year, a great lesser known 70’s Soul gem from the All Platinum vaults. Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes ‘To Be True’ is one of their best albums a real Philly Soul classic. The JB’s ‘Doing it to Death’ is an iconic Funk album and the re-master in a mini LP sleeve sounds fantastic. Anglo Saxon Brown are a less well known Philly band, their album ‘Songs For Evolution’ is an underground classic,...
2016 saw some great Compilations ‘Mainstream Modern Soul’, Soul on the Real side Vol 5’, ‘Sprirt of Philadelphia Vol 4’, ‘Beauty’, ‘Black Gold’, ‘Extra Added Soul’ and ‘Greg Belson’s Divine Disco’ were all superb compilations of heritage material whilst ‘Soul Togetherness 2016’ has proved to be one of the most popular of this long running series highlighting contemporary dance floor winners
There were some great Smooth Jazz albums in 2016, Richard Elliot ‘Summer Madness’ was the best, but also check albums from Gerald Albright, BWB, Rippingtons, U-Nam, Kim Waters and more
2016 was an incredible year for Jazz. Top of the pile was an amazing album by Trumpeter Theo Croker ‘Escape Velocity’, we haven’t heard music like this for many years. It just piped Terrace Martin ‘Velvet Portraits’ another great album fusing Jazz, Soul , Funk and a little hip-hop to great effect. Shola Adisa Farrar joined with Florian Pellissier Quintet to make the best vocal jazz album of the year, the deep and at time spiritual ‘Lost Myself’. Tom O’Grady from Cambridge is Resolution 88 who made a superb heavy jazz fusion album ‘Afterglow’. Ashleigh Smith charmed us with her...
Sharon Lafaye Jones – 4th May 1956 – 18th November 2016 Sharon Jones was considered by many to be the spiritual leader of the 2nd wave of funk music production that initially grew out of the late Acid Jazz/early ‘Deep Funk’ days, where more commonly heard sounds where being replaced by a desire to dig deeper into the vast back catalogue of America’s otherwise unheard black music past. Often taking James Brown as their departure point, the productions that labels like Desco, Pure and Hotpie & Candy were creating deliberately plugged into the analogue side of soul and absorbed the...
Solange has made a new album that includes the beautiful 'Cranes in the sky' a killer new soul cut. Hannah Williams teams up with the Affirmations for some retro soul in 'Late nights and Heartbreak' and John Ellis has a nice floaty jazz album on Gondwana, plus there a limited edition single from Lee Fields. There are some classic 180gm vinyl reissue,albums on the Be With label from Edna Wright and Willie Hutch, and a couple more Northern soul comps on Outta Sight. Kenya enjoyed her birthday with Gwendolyn Collins and other artists at Soul Brother last friday , you...
Check this list of out of print Soul brother and Expansion vinyl titles which have recently been found, some we haven't had for years. We only have limited quantities on these titles so please order early to avoid disappointment, once they are gone it is unlikely that we will find any more. happy diggin Laurence
There are some great new releases and reissues this week. Khari Cabral Simmons & Jiva 'Heaven & Earth' is a lovely samba soul album, R C and the Gritz is slightly edgier jazzy Neo-Soul and Richard Sears ft Albert 'Tootie' Heath 'Altadena' great spiritual jazz all from the fantastic Ropeadope group of labels. Louis Marks from Ropeadope visited the store on Wednesday you can see pictures here and a feature on the label here. Bahama Soul Club have a good album 'Havana 58' ft Brenda Boykin out on CD this week, Vinyl pre-order for early December. Kenya has an album...
We have just had a new shipment from Ropeadope arrived today with 3 great new titles from Khari Simmons and Jiva, RC and the Gritz and Richard Sears, plus we are back in stock of Edgewood Agents, Southwes terminal, Christian Scott, Terrace Martin, Chantae Cann and Snarky puppy Cd's. All existing and backorders will be shipped today.Here is a list of all Ropeadope titles that we have in stock now. Louis Marks from Ropeadope visited the store yesterday you can see the pictures here. Don't miss Terrace Martin at the Jazz Cafe on Saturday or Christian Scott at Scala on...
