Warm, comfy and loose — unashamedly inchoate — for Capitol in 1967.
Nice Percy Mayfield version.

A word to the wise from Will Bankhead — ‘I think Ralph’s really underrated, his two records on TTT are probably the best records I’ve put out.’
Both thrashed by Ben UFO and JO, too.

‘*****’, The Independent; ‘captivating… Q Recommends’; ‘there is no end of exhilarating music on this beguiling album’, The Sunday Times; ‘full of heartstopping musical twists and turns’, The Beat.

‘*****’, The Independent; ‘a vibrancy and energy that make it impossible to sit still’, Metro; ‘shines from Shina to Shina’, The Beat; ‘CD Of The Week… astonishing’, Daily Telegraph; ‘incendiary’, The Observer.

‘an exquisitely poignant, evocative record’, Daily Telegraph; ‘wonderful… album of the year’, Sunday Times; ‘simply a classic album. Music by the people, for the people,’ The Voice.

‘superlative’, Mojo; ‘sensational’, The Observer; ‘hugely evocative and poignant’, Daily Telegraph; ‘*****’ The Times, Metro; ‘sheer joy from start to finish’, Sunday Telegraph.

Modern Nigerian music starts here.
‘*****’, Mojo; ‘these songs leap out of the past like madeleines soaked in palm wine’, The Observer; ‘impeccably curated and packaged’, The Wire.

‘*****’, The Times, Independent On Sunday, Daily Telegraph, What’s On, Evening Standard, The Independent. ‘Marvellous pop — catchy, fun, young, effortless’, The Times; ‘one of the delights of the age’, Songlines.

More open-hearted, bitter-sweet, mash-up postcards to the here and now, from young black London. 
Proper Brit Pop.

Still deeper forays into the musical landscape of the Windrush generation.

A dazzling range of calypso, mento, joropo, steelband, palm-wine and r’n'b. Expert revivals of stringband music, from way back, alongside proto-Afro-funk.
An uproarious selection of songs about the H-Bomb and modern phones, prostitution and Haile Selassie, mid-life crisis and the London Underground, racism and solidarity, the Highway Code and a 100% West Indian Royal Wedding.

For example some frantic British-Guianan joropo music-hall about Eatwell Brown from Clapham, who starts out biting off a piece of his mother-in-law’s face at a party, then devours everything in his path… a chunk of Brixton Prison, a Union Jack, a policeman’s uniform. Or Marie Bryant — collaborator of Lester Young and Duke Ellington — taking time off from skewering the South African PM Daniel Malan at her West End revue, to contribute some arch, swinging filth about uber-genitalia.

Superior sound, courtesy of Abbey Road, D&M and Pallas; lovely gatefold sleeve; full-size booklet, with full notes, and fabulous previously-unseen photographs, including a set from the family archive of Russ Henderson (who led the first, impromptu Notting Hill Carnival march, in 1966).

The genius of Lord Kitchener has been the mainstay of our series.

In this volume devoted to his post-war London recordings, Kitch plays his many roles with signature aplomb and poised subtlety.

First there is the hooligan chantwell, up for anything in the hurly-burly of carnival proper; and then the casual reporter, firing off postcards to Trinidad about taxis, flashy booze, fast women and football in Manchester, with homesickness and grievance nestled just behind the optimism, pride and tentative senses of belonging.
There is the bearer of news from home, in detailed accounts of murders, tales of stupid local coppers, and reminiscences about food and particular mango trees; the political thinker, considering racism and Africa; and the diarist, with his vivid tales of infidelity, and disclosure of the break-up of his marriage, and his desire to get away.

One foot in the UK, the other in Trinidad; but the man himself somewhere in-between. Kitch In The Jungle, nobody around. A ‘diasporic explorer’; a key twentieth-century witness, alongside such hallowed figures as Samuel Selvon and Edward Kamau Braithwaite.

Though in frustration Kitch would sometimes take over double-bass duties himself, the musicianship of Rupert Nurse, Fitzroy Coleman and co is top-notch. The original glorious sound is down to Denys Preston, recording for Melodisc, often at Abbey Road Studios (where we transferred and restored the 78s compiled here).

Presented in a lovely gatefold sleeve, with a full-size booklet containing superb, specially-commissioned sleevenotes by Kitch biographer Anthony Joseph, and fabulous, previously-unseen photographs.

The latest volumes in this much-loved, highly-acclaimed series presenting the music of the Windrush milieu: the post-war, London recordings of West Indians and West Africans, in the first wave of modern migration to Britain.

‘One of the delights of the age’ (Songlines).
’Superlative’ (Mojo); ’superlative’ (Independent); ’sensational’ (Observer).
‘Hugely evocative and poignant’ (Daily Telegraph); ’sheer joy from start to finish’ (Sunday Telegraph); ‘a witty and joyous testament’ (Guardian).
‘Impeccably curated and packaged’ (Wire).

***** Mojo, ***** Times, ***** Independent, ***** Daily Telegraph, ***** Evening Standard, ***** Metro.

Presented as a luxurious mini-book — all paper, no plastic — with suspended card sleeves for the discs. Forty pages of fabulous, previously-unseen photos and full notes, including a terrific, specially-commissioned essay by Kitch biographer Anthony Joseph.

With loving detail reproducing the label of the original Lord Kitchener 78, in all its finery. Expertly hand-printed in zinging pinkish red and canary yellow (and white and black), on Gildan ‘ultra cotton’ shirts. Bim.

‘a terrific soca compilation… a vital contemporary follow-up to London Is the Place for Me’, Village Voice; ‘*****, Compilation Of The Month’, Touch; ‘chaotic and compelling… an ace selection’, Time Out.

‘***** beautiful, deeply affecting… hard to beat as the year’s most worthwhile reissue’, The Guardian; ‘magnificent… wonderfully austere’, Time Out.

Exhilarating reggae music from Stoke Newington, north east London, made by soundboys on a Casio and a drum machine, in a room over Eddie Regal’s record shop.