The great Earth Wind & Fire singer with Robert Glasper, Christian McBride, Kamasi Washington and co. Kicks off with Curtis’ mighty Billy Jack.

For Your Precious Love started out as a Bandera recording (subsequently leased to Vee-Jay), made by co-owner Vi Muszynski — and there are eleven Impressions sides here, seven of them previously unissued.

Sometimes considered the greatest soul recording ever made, this was in the news a few years ago because a copy of the UK release on London Records went for £14,543.
Sensationally, the flip delivers the previously unreleased instrumental version by the Funk Brothers — the Solid Hitbound in-house band including Rudy Robinson, Uriel Jones, Eddie Willis, Bob Babbit and Dennis Coffey.

Trippy early-70s folk-jazz-soul from guitarist Ernie Calabria and singer Barbara Massey (back-up for Cat Stevens, amongst others)  — orchestrated by Deodato, with Keith Jarrett amongst the guests.

‘This sequel to their landmark 1971 masterpiece Like A Ship finds the young Chicago preacher and his Youth for Christ Choir continuing their genre-bending spiritual journey. Banging drums, soaring falsettos, euphoric tambourines, effulgent horns, and Barrett’s unwavering devotion spark off a forty-piece choir, working up a sanctified slab of gospel funk. Pressed in a minuscule quantity in 1973, Do Not Pass Me By was sold primarily from the pulpit of Barrett’s Mt. Zion Baptist Church, disappearing into Chicago’s south side for forty-five years.’

The victorious if unlikely 2004 return of the legendary Latin soul vocalist.
Bumping, clavinet-led, rare-groove funk… cosmic synths… that unmistakable voice… a modern soul anthem.

With the funky, bad-ass Smoking Cheeba-Cheeba. A bit of a skeleton in the closet, surely — the debauched transition from Wes Montgomery-styled 60s soul jazz, to the urbane sophistication of his super-stardom.

Gorgeous, wistful, tentative two-step from her late, hard-to-find, 1974 LP Love Rhymes (with production by Johnny Guitar Watson and David Axelrod).
Bim.

Hats off every time to the founding father of New Orleans rhythm and blues. DB holds the master recipe for soul-ska-rhumba-blues gumbo. Just check the tracklisting for a sense of his achievement. Don.