Firing interpretations of Curtis, full of funk and soulfulness, grooving jazz fire, and good old-fashioned revolutionary politics, by this octet with Hamid Drake, Dave Burrell, Leena Conquest, Amiri Baraka.
Dynamite twenty-minute version of (Don’t Worry) If There’s A Hell Below, We’re All Going To Go.

One of their best, most diverse LPs: gritty soul, country hillbilly, raucous funk — the classic Nothing Before Me But Thang — and bagpipes galore on The Silent Boatman.

Gene Russell signed Kellee Patterson to Shadybrook in 1976, after the demise of his Black Jazz label.
Three years on from her Maiden Voyage LP, he engineers and plays piano, but Kellee is running the show, with her own arrangements and production.
More bang-on covers, including a killer, sleazy Barry White and a rough Mister Magic (both revived by Jazzman a decade ago), to put a dip in the hip of all b-boys and girls, and I Love Music on speed.
William Upchurch is here, from Motown; Marlo Henderson, who plays guitar on Off The Wall; Don ‘Tabu’ Cunningham…

No-messing funk with whiffs of reefer, hooch and baize.
Eddie and Al Pazant came through with Lionel Hampton and Pucho. These are their locked-down, brassy, smoking, streetwise blends of R&B, soul, latin and jazz, from the late 1960s and early 70s.
Fab.

Live street funk at its hottest. Sizzling versions of most of the early singles; plus three vocal cuts from the fabulous Betty Barney, who continued to work with the brothers right through the 1970s.

Originally self-released in 1993 by Peter Mekwunye as a small-run cassette, soon after his arrival in the US from Nigeria. Moody, personal, moving, freeform afro-pop, or DIY soul, using just a Casio keyboard and a microphone, with a rawly naked message of love, struggle, spirituality and hope, ‘dedicated to all Nigerians all over the world, and to all freedom fighters around the world.’ Strange — a bit like eavesdropping on someone talking to himself — and warmly recommended.
We got these from Mississippi.

Superb Memphis soul LP, originally out on Hi in 1972.
Rawly soulful across a range of styles, with strong songs — many co-written by Peebles and her old man, Don Bryant — in excellent arrangements by Willie Mitchell for the Hodges Brothers and Hi Rhythm, and exceptional singing.
Crucial stuff like I Feel Like Breaking Up Somebody’s Home Tonight.

The first official 12’ release of these two walloping classics by one of the very greatest soul singers of all time. Undimmed after forty years.

Lovely, rough, heartfelt doowop, with a dash of early Impressions. Prix demos.
As featured in the recent Ikea ad.