Released by Stax in 1973 — a massive rare groove album, sampled by Digable Planets and Jay-Z (amongst others) — Ghetto: Misfortune’s Wealth was a brooding, deep-funk admonition to the new black middle class, with no prospect of commercial success.
For its follow-up, Dale Warren cut out the rhetoric, and for political consolation dug deep into his musical roots, and his time in the mid-sixties as a songwriter at Shrine and Motown.
But Stax closed in 1975, and the tapes were abandoned. Now, miraculously retrieved from a Chicago basement, here’s a precious taster: hurt, disillusioned, beautiful, pure, sensuous Windy City soul music ,jazzy but street, musically sophisticated but emotionally direct. 
The sleeve is all-black, with black-on-black text, and an embossed silhouette of the group — ‘probably the nicest single LP we’ve ever made’, says Numero.
Hurt, disillusioned, beautiful, pure, sensuous Windy City soul music from the mid-1970s, never out before.

The first of three volumes surveying surely the mightiest Gospel label of them all.
Stomping, rollicking gospel music, intermingling with raw soul, searing blues, hard-rocking doo-wop and jazz, and storming r&b.
Infused and incandescent with the hurting, surging indignation of the Civil Rights movement, here are twenty-four precious scorchers by giants like the Staple Singers and Jimmy Scott, alongside devastating sides by less celebrated names like the Harmonising Five of Burlington, North Carolina, and teen-group the North Philadelphia Juniors, culminating triumphantly with slamming, sanctified versions of Hit The Road Jack and Wade In The Water. Drawn from nigh-impossible-to-find 78s, sevens and LPs, hardly any of these recordings have been reissued since their first release.
Presented in a gatefold sleeve, with full-size booklet; beautifully designed, with stunning, rare photographs and original Savoy artwork. Sound restoration and mastering at Abbey Road; pressed at Pallas.
Co-curated by Greg Belson, compiler of Divine Disco; with deep, extensive notes by Robert Marovich, author of A City Called Heaven: Chicago and the Birth of Gospel Music (University of Illinois), and host of the award-winning radio show Gospel Memories.

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

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.