Sweet Soul Music 1970

And so the series comes to it's end with one last blast. With these 2 series we've journeyed through 26 amazing years. I have seen that there is a new set out from a different company that pursues the same concept with 4 discs for each year! Perhaps there is such a thing as overkill.

This final volume is every bit as magical as it's predecessors, songs straight out of my high school years, the soundtrack of my youth.

Sweet Soul Music 1969

 And the beat goes on.....

Sweet Soul Music 1968

"... This volume covers the year 1968 and includes classics like Smokey Robinson's "I Second That Emotion," Sam & Dave's "I Thank You," Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay," the Temptations' "Cloud Nine," and so much more. Every track shines and reveals new joys by affiliation -- listening to these 29 sides is like time traveling back to a beautiful summer's night and a long drive with the top down. This is what Bear Family does so well, turning out collections of essential music lovingly assembled, remastered, and restored. Sweet is exactly the right word for each of the ten volumes in this series." AMG

Sweet Soul Music 1967

 Oooooo Yeah! 1967...Another fine, fine year! Nothing but stone cold winners here!

Cannonball, Arthur Conley, O.V., Otis, The Franklins,,,this thing is so loaded you may  as well mention every track.

Sweet Soul Music 1966

1966 On the mainstream pop side of things the airwaves belonged to The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Monkees, The Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel, The Mamas and the Papas, The Righteous Brothers... Frank Sinatra was singing 'Strangers in the Night' and his daughter was walkin' in them boots. 'Cherish', 'Winchester Cathedral', 'Wild Thing', 'Hanky Panky', 'Sunshine Superman', and 'Summer In The City' were all huge multi-week number ones. Was R&B and Soul withering on the vine? Unh, no, actually, a look at this list of tracks makes it clear that Soul music was absolutely SMOKIN'!

Mowtown is in full flight but Southern Soul is pumping out many of it's greatest hits too. Joe Tex, Lee Dorsey, Wilson Pickett, James Carr, Sam & Dave, Percy Sledge, Jimmy Hughes, Carla Thomas, Robert Parker, Aaron Neville, Howard Tate, James and Bobby Purify....whew!

Dis'here one is ALL KILLER!

Sweet Soul Music 1965

 I heard the call that someone was getting impatient for the next installment soooo...quite a dizzying lineup here. The Blues is nearly absent, only a lone Jimmy McCracklin tune and the  blue soul of Southern Soul singers like Joe Tex, Otis Redding, Solomon Burke, Wilson Pickett, Little Milton and Lee Dorsey retain any echos. The strong rhythmic instrumental tradition of R&B is carried on by Booker T & The MG's, Jr Walker and The All Stars and the jazz crossover from Ramsey Lewis. Motown and Philly with some help from Chicago are beginning to flex the hit making muscles that will soon have them dominating black radio and pushing southern soul gradually into the background. Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, The Supremes, The Impressions, The Miracles, The Four Tops...Fontella Bass bursts on the scene burning brightly but is soon to be lost in the giant shadow that Aretha will cast. James Brown has begun his break from everyone with the loud proclamation that Papa Has a Brand New Bag! New Orleans is still heard from in both Lee Dorsey's second run on the charts and the novelty song of the year, which was a Mardi Gras tune by a girl group called the Dixie Cups. (Of course most of America had no idea it was an Mardi Gras Indian chant and took it as a teen age nursery rhyme) Add in the usual sprinkle of good one hit wonders and 1965 is a fine selection.

Sweet Soul Music 1964

 Da Beat Goes On! Back to that theme of the British Invasion arriving on the shores of a desolate American music scene and sweeping away the remains of the earlier R&B and Rock movements here in the States....I don't know about you but this looks like some pretty fertile ground that was allegedly swept over....ya know what? I remember 85% of THIS music far better than I do the 1964 Beatles or Dave Clark Five (Well...Okay, I was pretty familiar with the DC5), or Rolling Stones of that era. When you look at the rather stunning quality of what is here, and add what would be evident in similar compilations in other genres, the overwhelming success of the Brits is a little mystifying to me. Of course I don't exactly represent mainstream America music tastes either so to me the early 60's were an incredibly fertile time in Jazz, Blues, R&B and Soul and the British Invasion interrupted and marginalized what should have been a Golden Age....

Sweet Soul Music 1963

 When you start from way back in 1945 and do these one at a time, it gets increasingly difficult to find anything to say, but the year 1963 makes me think....I've read pieces where the period just prior to the British Invasion is described as a near vacuum which the new music rushed in to fill....Hmmm Bobby Bland, Mary Wells, Ruby & The Romantics, Otis Redding, The Miracles, Chuck Jackson, Jackie Wilson, Baby Washington, Marvin Gaye, Solomon Burke, Etta James, Garnet Mimms, Little Johnny Taylor...hardly what I would call a vacuum and that is just within the narrow focus of this compilation. The sad truth is, however, that many of the folks on this disc would be scuffling for work just a year or two down the road. 

Looking down the list I am struck by how little blues there is compared to previous years.

Sweet Soul Music 1962

And
da
beat 
goes
on!

Sweet Soul Music 1961

Well I told you you we were not done with these but there would be a name change from Blowing The Fuse to Sweet Soul Music. I am content to let AMG tell you about it:

"The year 1961 ushered in more than just a new decade -- it heralded a new era in black popular music as the gritty, street-smart sound of postwar R&B gave way to the smooth, sophisticated approach spearheaded by Motown Records. The first entry in Bear Family's ten-volume Sweet Soul Music lays the foundation for the transformation to follow, cherry picking formative classics from then-fledgling Motown (the Miracles' "Shop Around") and Stax (Carla Thomas' "Shop Around"), the Memphis label that would prove its greatest creative rival -- spanning across the U.S., from New Orleans (Ernie K-Doe's "Mother-in-Law") to Chicago (the Impressions' "Gypsy Woman") to New York City (the Shirelles' "Will You Love Me Tomorrow"), the collection also encompasses all of the major U.S. R&B labels, negotiating the licensing snafus that undermine these types of anthologies to offer a true panoramic overview of soul's epic scope and scale. And it's packaged with Bear Family's usual attention to detail -- the mastering is pristine (better than has ever been heard on even the major artists) and the accompanying booklets are authoritative (averaging 60 pages in length, stuffed with color photos, track-by-track commentary, and related recording data). The result is an anthology series that's as educational as it is entertaining."