Honest Jons logo

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.

French-Belgian electro-samba, cornered. A mini-LP on the Brussels label, Les Disques Du Crepuscule, from 1982; augmented here by the first Antena EP, a few B-sides, compilation tracks, and unreleased cuts.

‘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 Numero Group guide to private issue new age. Featuring Laraaji, Iasos, Joanna Brouk, Don Slepian, Peter Davison, Master Wilburn Burchette, Jordan De La Sierra, David Casper, Robert Slap and nine other pioneers of the Perrier underground. Adorned with Marcus Uzilevsky’s Linear Landscapes, this 2xLP compilation is housed in a sturdy tip-on jacket and is accompanied by a 32-page booklet. The fourth world awaits.’

Almost preposterous, this beautiful snapshot of a US expat community fetched up in Dimona, Israel, in the second half of the seventies, holding faith with its love of Chicago soul and spiritual jazz.

‘Home to Cuca Records and hundreds of Nashville-fantasizing pluckers and singers, Wisconsin’s Driftless region was a hotbed of country music in the 1960s. Influenced by old-timey ethnic songs, Bakersfield outlaws, countrypolitan rainbows, and the lonesome twang of every rural route roadhouse, these seventeen Driftless Dreamers washed up at Jim Kirchstein’s Sauk City record plant with little more than $100 and a longing.’

‘Venomous Tex-Mex R&B and early rock n’roll from San Antonio’s West Side scene. From 1961-67, Bexar county kingmaker Abe Epstein cut every teen combo to grace the Patio Andaluz stage, launching the careers of Doug Sahm, The Royal Jesters, Sonny Ace, The Dreamliners, and hundreds more throughout the decade.’

Reviewing Ellis Taylor’s Kansas City imprint — from prime Marva Whitney all the way through to Sharon Revoal’s ace, slinky, early-eighties disco-funk.

‘Operating in the farthest margins of L.A.’s cutthroat music business from 1961-1991, Mel Alexander’s Consolidated Productions was among the longest running Black-owned independent record conglomerates of the 20th century. Disentangling a web of imprints — including Ajax, Angel Town, Car-A-Mel, Emanuel, and Kris — this first volume gathers 28 smouldering R&B cuts by the likes of Lee Harvey, B .B. Carter, Marilyn Calloway, the Del Reys, the Deb Tones, the De Velles, Gene Russell ’s Trio, Jimmy ‘Preacher’ Ellis, and Ty Karim.’
Presented with customary class and attentiveness by Numero.