Spencer Wiggins - The Complete Goldwax Singles

A reposting has been requested!

"Spencer Wiggins (Memphis, Tennessee 1942) is an American soul - and gospel singer. He is an exponent of the so-called deep southern soul and is considered one of the best kept secrets of soul music."

Wiggins was born in Memphis, Tennessee, where he grew up encouraged by his parents to engage with music, especially gospel; his mother sang in the choir of the Baptist Church where she attended services. He lived in the same area as singers James Carr and Bobby Bland. While at Booker T. Washington High School, he formed a gospel group with his brother Percy and sister Maxine and, on leaving school, formed an R&B group, the Four Stars, that included his brother Percy and David Porter, later to become a leading songwriter and record producer.

In the early 1960s, he began singing in clubs in Memphis, where he was discovered by Quinton Claunch, head of Goldwax Records. In 1964 Wiggins recorded his first single, "Lover's Crime", produced by Claunch, for the label, though his early recordings were licensed for release through the sub-label Bandstand USA. The recording was followed by eight further singles, but none became a hit. His recordings for Goldwax included "Uptight Good Woman", written by Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham, and "I Never Loved A Woman (The Way I Love You)", recorded at the FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals with guitar by Duane Allman.

In 1969, after Goldwax collapsed, Wiggins went on to Fame Records, where he recorded two more singles, including "Double Lovin'", which reached no.44 on the Billboard R&B chart in 1970. However, other singles for Fame, and for the Pama and Vivid Sound labels, were unsuccessful.

In 1973 Wiggins left Memphis, married, and moved to Miami, Florida, where he became active in the Baptist church and in gospel music. He became a deacon and choir director at the New Birth Baptist Church in Miami, and worked with a number of gospel choirs. He has since released gospel recordings, including Keys To The Kingdom released by Tavette Records in 2003.

The Japanese label Vivid Sound released a compilation of Wiggins' singles from Goldwax, and in 2006 the Kent label issued another compilation. Due to copyright issues, however, this compilation contains fewer songs than the Japanese release. The album was widely acclaimed and led to Wiggins being seen as one of the greatest unknown soul singers.

James Carrr - The essential Goldwax Recordings

James Carr (June 13, 1942 – January 7, 2001)

Artist Biography by Steve Huey

"One of the greatest pure vocalists that deep Southern soul ever produced, James Carr is often mentioned in the same breath as Otis Redding, Percy Sledge, and Aretha Franklin in terms of the wrenching emotional power in his delivery. Or at least he is by hardcore soul aficionados; despite producing several classic R&B singles and some of the most intense country-soul ever waxed, Carr never achieved the pop crossover success that could have made him a household name, and his material wasn't always as distinctive as that of Stax artists like Redding or Sam & Dave. Ultimately, though, Carr's greatest obstacle was himself: he was plagued for much of his life by severe depression that made pursuit of a career -- or, for that matter, even single recording sessions -- extraordinarily difficult, and derailed his occasional comeback attempts.

James Carr was born June 13, 1942, in Coahoma County, MS, near Clarksdale; his father, a minister, moved the family to Memphis when Carr was very young. Carr began singing in church at age nine, and performed with several area gospel groups in his teenage years, including the Harmony Echoes (though not, as legend had it, the Soul Stirrers). Both Carr and Echoes manager Roosevelt Jamison had been harboring ambitions for careers in secular music, and the two began looking for a solo deal for Carr in 1963. Stax turned him down, but in late 1964 he caught on with Goldwax, a Memphis label started by Quinton Claunch (who'd earlier co-founded Hi Records) that, in its early days, also featured O.V. Wright (with whom Carr had sung in the Redemption Harmonizers). Over the next couple of years, Carr cut several singles that ranged from Motown-ish pop to soul-blues, searching for the best stylistic match for his richly expressive baritone.

Carr finally hit in 1966 with the country-soul ballad "You Got My Mind Messed Up," a Top Ten R&B hit that earned him comparisons to Otis Redding. It kicked off the prime period of Carr's recording career, and among his next few singles was his clear-cut masterpiece "Dark End of the Street." Given a tortuously intense performance by Carr, "Dark End of the Street" was a bleak tale of adultery that marked the first songwriting collaboration between Dan Penn and Chips Moman; although the song was recorded by the likes of Aretha Franklin, Clarence Carter, Linda Ronstadt, and the Flying Burrito Brothers, Carr's original version still stands as definitive. Featuring other hit singles like the Redding-esque "Love Attack" and the exquisite "Pouring Water on a Drowning Man," Carr's 1966 debut LP You Got My Mind Messed Up is also considered a classic by many Southern soul collectors.

Despite Carr's first flush of success on the R&B charts over 1966-1967, things were not looking up. Carr signed on with Phil Walden, Otis Redding's manager, in 1966, but without Roosevelt Jamison around (he'd served as Carr's caretaker just as much as his manager), Carr found himself unable to deal with the stress of touring; he frequently wandered off alone and got lost. By 1968, his mental state had deteriorated greatly, making even recording sessions a challenge. He was able to complete a second LP, 1968's A Man Needs a Woman, but in Muscle Shoals for his last Goldwax session in 1969, he simply sat at the microphone and stared into space, singing only one song (the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody"). Not long afterward, Goldwax went bankrupt; wary of the singer's instability, Capitol rescinded an offer to buy out his contract, and although Carr signed with Atlantic, he released only one single in 1971.

In 1977, Carr released one single on the small River City label, which was run by Roosevelt Jamison. Two years later, he undertook a tour of Japan that started off well; however, at the Tokyo gig, Carr -- apparently having taken too many anti-depressants -- stood motionless at the microphone as though in a hypnotic trance. He returned to Memphis, where he lived with his sister (in between institutionalizations), and spent much of the '80s barely conscious of the world around him. With medication, his condition improved to the point where Jamison and Quinton Claunch cut an album with him in 1991 for a revived Goldwax. The record, Take Me to the Limit, received mixed reviews, although its very existence was an achievement in itself. Carr was even able to return to the road, touring the blues circuits in America and Europe. In 1994, he released another album on Claunch's new Soultrax label, titled Soul Survivor. Unfortunately, Carr was soon diagnosed with lung cancer, and spent several years battling the disease before finally succumbing on January 7, 2001."

O.V. Wright - The Complete Recorded Works By The Boss Of Southern Soul for Backbeat/ABC, disc 1

by Bill Pollak (Originally published in MusicHound R&B: The Essential Album Guide, Gary Graff, Josh Freedom du Lac, and Jim McFarlin (eds.); Visible Ink Press (Detroit, MI): 1998.)

Born Overton Vertis Wright, October 9, 1939, in Leno, TN. Died November 16, 1980, in Mobile, AL.

"Let's not mince words: O.V. Wright was the greatest deep-soul singer ever. By the time he cut his first secular recording, "That's How Strong My Love Is" for Goldwax Records of Memphis, Tennessee (1964), Wright was already a well-known and successful gospel singer, having sung and recorded with gospel groups such as the Spirit of Memphis Quartet and the Sunset Travelers. Wright is by no means the only artist to abandon the sanctuary of the church in search of the rewards and temptations of the secular world. The pop recordings of Sam Cooke, Al Green, Aretha Franklin, and Johnnie Taylor all make overt or oblique reference to the trauma of this self-imposed exile. But in the work of no other artist, with the possible exception of Green, does this exile play so central a role. Wright's recordings are unmistakably the work of a spiritually troubled man. As if to underscore the gravity of his choice, Wright's secular recordings, more than those of any of his peers, cleave faithfully to the style, structure, and most importantly the feeling and fervor of the deepest and most heartfelt gospel music. The presence of this theme in all of his strongest performances--"You're Gonna Make Me Cry," "Eight Men,

Four Women," "Everybody Knows (The River Song)," "Born All Over," "Heartaches, Heartaches," "Memory Blues"--give them a timeless universality that places them on a par with the hymns of Mahalia Jackson, the blues of Robert Johnson, or the country music of Hank Williams.

There were two distinct periods in Wright's 15-year secular career, delineated by the demise of his first record label, Back Beat, which had been owned and operated by the don of Houston rhythm and blues, Don Robey. Midway in his career, Wright migrated to Hi Records, where his longtime producer Willie Mitchell was the principal talent director. (Somehow he fails to mention that Wright went to prison for narcotics, his label was sold to ABC and Don Robey died so his hold on OV was gone. ABC was not interested in him when he was released from prison so he was a free agent picked up by old friend Willie Mitchell who was now producer and AR guy for Hi Records! Surprising in what is otherwise a nice piece.) Few artists in any medium exhibit so huge a gap between artistic quality and commercial success as O.V. Wright. Wright's two most successful records, "You're Gonna Make Me Cry" and "Eight Men, Four

Women," came early in his career at Back Beat, and neither recording received any airplay outside the circumscribed world of 1960s R&B radio. In fact, R&B radio in the late 1960s, the heyday of southern gospel-inflected soul music, is the only radio format during the years spanned by Wright's career in which it is possible to imagine Wright's chilling statements from the spiritual void finding a home. Wright is an artist whose reputation is destined to grow with the historical perspective afforded by time.

Willie Mitchell's production values and house musicians (the Hi Rhythm Section, among others) were essential elements in the brilliance of Wright's recordings. Mitchell had achieved great commercial and artistic success helping Al Green craft a new kind of Memphis soul music in the 1970s. Undoubtedly motivated by the desire to help Wright achieve more of the success and recognition that he so deserved, Mitchell attempted to adapt this softer, more melodic sound to Wright's recordings during Wright's later period at Hi Records. That this sound was not entirely suited to Wright's unique gifts provides one explanation for the relative superiority of the Back Beat recordings. Another factor is that, by all accounts, the O.V. Wright who recorded for Hi was deteriorating from a drug habit that ultimately claimed his life. A comparison of the photographs from the BackBeat albums and the later Hi albums provides stark evidence of his physical deterioration. He died in an ambulance, en route to the hospital, at the age of 41, consumed by the music that haunted him and the life that went with it."

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I have used KCs original post, but we will be looking at this wondrous boxset again.  This time, we have found a copy of the second edition released from P-Vine.  This included 5 mini LP style albums, of which we will be sharing here with all of you lucky souls!!!  The set itself has gone out of print quickly each time it's been released to market - no surprise there.  At this point, the real beauty of having access to these great tracks is the fact that the box costs 2 - 300 on the grey market!!

P-Vine really did soul fans a solid on this collection, the remastering is incredible, particularily on the older Goldwax 45s.  I have decided to start things off with 8 Men And 4 Women, simply because it's my favorite tune by the man.  It also contains a couple other real zingers like "You're Gonna Make Me Cry", but I think you'll notice something else about this side.  Aside from the few exceptional tracks, alot of the material, at least in my mind, comes across as pretty straightforward.  The tunes are pretty run of the mill, and in anybody else's hands would probably have been dropped to the cutting room floor.  I'm thinking of songs like "Why Don't You Believe Me" and "Can't Find True Love".  O.V. really shows his interpretive skills on this album, and that's what makes it really special in his discography.

The first time this post went up I didn't even know who this legend was - now much like KC, he is my favorite.  I think the best evidence lies in his (the FIRST) cut of "That's How Strong My Love Is".  When compared to Otis, in my mind it's 10 times more the ballad.  O.V. really found the heart of that track.  When I listen to Otis rendition, I find his phrasing really diminishes the feeling as does the rather hokey shuffle beat that sets the tone.  I am not trying to pit Otis against O.V.!!!  But hell this man could out do the so called best of them, so let's shed some light on it.  At this point, I think O.V. Wright is more than just my favorite soul artist, he is possibly the most significant for the genre.  That's a tall order but he was really responsible for tying together the old school with what was to come.  It's a shame he never seemed to get the attention he deserved.

Anyhow gang, this was ripped using EAC and is in 16/44.1 FLAC.  Tremendous!!!  We will be following it up with the rest of the set so keep your eyes peeld on Chitlins in the upcoming weeks.  Nothin but a party y'all!!!