Re-mastered, on its twentieth anniversary; with a second LP of instrumentals.

His masterful 1971 production, marshalling a stunning lineup bringing jazz luminaries like Monty Alexander, Jim Hall, Freddie Hubbard, Jerome Richardson and Jaki Byard together with up and coming names like Grady Tate, Bob James, Joe Sample and Eric Gale. Highlights include a hard-swinging, show-stopping, big-band version of What’s Going On, with Valerie Simpson at the mic; a lovely Cast Your Fate To The Wind; and a couple of funky do-overs of stuff off the TV, in particular Hikky Burr, nailed down by the great Carol Kaye on bass guitar.

Plunky and co for Strata East.

Guitarist Willie ‘Junei’ Lee spent the late-seventies touring with with Albert King, Curtis Mayfield, and The Emotions, before returning home to Gary, Indiana, to focus on his own sound. ‘The only artists I listened to was Hendrix and Santana,’ he recalls.
‘The emissions coming from his home studio were entirely different, however, as Let’s Ride channels the Euro sensibilities of Kraftwerk or Italo over virtuosic guitar. ‘I just didn’t want to sound like anyone else.’
‘Let’s Ride anticipated Chicago house by a few years. Pressed in minuscule numbers in 1987 on Pharaohs Records, the 45 never connected with the nearby scenes in Chicago and Detroit where it might have found purchase in fertile soils. Decades later, though, it found new life as the bed for Kaytranada’s Scared To Death.’

A terrific compilation of vintage UK street soul — at its nexus with rare groove and lovers rock, so intensely nostalgic for us at HJ — by the same crew which put together the excellent For The Love Of You volumes.
A dozen gems here: treasurable DIY labels and whites teeming with raw longing and overproof sincerity, riding limber Soul II Soul-style grooves, wannabe Jam & Lewis, and crunchy, synthy, electro-soul. (The System were the US overmasters of this.)
Just a touch of cheese, a smidgen of sublimely out-of-tune singing, splashes of sploshy beatbox and dodge sampling, a brazen Roy Ayers pinch… components of loveliness.
Calling all midnight ravers and undercover lovers. You know who you are.