Super-rare Chicago sweet soul LP, originally out on Arrow Brown’s Bandit label. ‘A string-laden fantasia straddling the street corner doo-wop of the ‘50s and the Me Decade’s studio excess. Backed by the Chosen Few and the Scott Brothers, arranged by Benjamin Wright, sung by Brown’s 17-year-old daughter Tridia and Moroccos falsetto Larry Brown.’ Lovey artwork by label-mate Eugene Phillips clinches the DIY, outsider appeal.

A superb double-header, by way of Joe Evans’ New York label Carnival: a stylish, soulful dancer, and a beautiful harmony ballad.

Jackie Wilson, Gladys Knight, Erma Franklin, Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, Jerry Butler, Esther Phillips, Irma Thomas, Chuck Jackson… This guy wrote Giving Up, the Donny Hathaway masterpiece, for crying out loud.

An early associate of Ray Charles and Ike Turner, Alan Merry ran his YoDi, Gateway and Merry labels like a kind of community youth project, in tough, late-sixties East St. Louis, Illinois.