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Blood & Fire dips into their excellent catalog of fine, fine reggae and pulls together an outstanding little compilation of some of the best tracks from the catalog! This nicely priced set focuses on vocal numbers, all voiced by top notch artists, showcasing the breadth of great music cut during the golden era of Jamaican music that makes up the body and soul of Blood & Fire's dynamite releases! 18 tracks in all, including "Fire Fe The Vatican" by Max Romeo, "Storm" by Gregory Isaacs, "Children Of Jah" by the Chantells, "Problems" by Horace Andy, "Rent Man" by Black Uhuru, "Chant Down Babylon" by Sylford Walker, 'Go Down In Silence" by Prince Alla, "Man Next Door" byDennis Brown, "Fight It To The Top" by Michael Prophet, "Every Knee Shal Bow" by Johnny Clarke, "At The Feast" by the Congos, "Yes Yes Yes" by Errol Holt, "Jah Jah The Conqueror" by Linval Thompson, "Give Jah Praise" by WIlli Williams, "Deliver Me From My Enemies" by Yabby You, "Judgement Time" by Junior Ross & The Spear, "Bandulu" by Cornell Campbell and "Remember Me" by Junior Byles & Rupert Reid.

A crucial Yabby You set, dug up by the crew at Blood & Fire – this set contains the whole of the Yabby You & Michael Prophet "Vocal and Dub" album, plus 8 extra tracks taken mostly from hard to get 45s. We've always loved Yabby You, and his dub collaborations with King Tubby have yielded some of the fattest rhythms around. Tubby's in full effect here, along with his disciple Prince Jammy, and the band's a killer too, with Santa Davis, Chinna Smith, Ansel Collins and a great horn section: Tommy McCook, Bobby Ellis and Vin Gordon. 18 tracks: "Zambia", "Steppin' High", "Mount Zion Version", "Heads A Roll Dub", "Rock With Me Dub", "Conscious Man Dub" & "Warn Them Jah Dub".

Gloriously soulful and passionate postwar gospel – one of the best ever compilations on the Tompkins Square label – shining a powerful light on rare African American church recordings, street corner sermon style numbers, choir backed testifying soul & blues, and straight up wonderful spiritual soul music all the way! The tunes range from the mid-to-late 1940s through the 1970s for the most part, with a few later recordings – and part of what's so inspiring about it is the disregard of formality to the program. It has crackly field recordings of congregations, reverends and choirs, back porch gospel blues, and more polished, but no less passionate recordings – the common thread being the raw, honest devotion and deeply felt soulfulness of it. Hats off to producer, compiler Mike McGonigal for putting together such an excellent set, and for his concise, but well done notes on each track, and to Tompkins Square for continuing to raise the bar! 80 tracks on 3 discs: "Peace In The Valley" by Rev Lonnie Farris, "Rock And Roll Sermon" by Elder Beck, "So Glad" by Rev Robert Ballinger, "Wasn't That A Mystery" by Madison County Senior Center Singers, "The Wicked Shall Cease From Troubling" by Nathaniel Rivers, "Jesus' Blood" by Golden Stars Of Greenwood, SC, "God's Mighty Hand" by Rev Utah Smith, "Fire Shed In My Bones" by Boyd Rivers, "Power Is In The Heart OF Man" by Brother & Sister W B Grate, "You Ought To Been There" by The BC Harmonizers, "Go Devil Go" by Madam Ira May Littlejohn and more.

Blood Sweat & Tears are really stretching out here – working their already-famous magic through a range of great tunes, both originals and covers – and coming up with some great longer-form expressions of their sound in the process! David Clayton-Thomas is firmly in the lead on vocals – but at points, the instrumentation almost takes over even more – especially on some of the jazz-heavy jam numbers that would go onto shape generations of high school and college music ensembles! Side two features the excellent "Symphony For The Devil/Sympathy For The Devil" suite – and other cuts include "He's A Runner", "The Battle", "Lucretia MacEvil", "Lonesome Suzie", "Fire & Rain", "40,000 Headmen", and "Hi De Ho".

Blood Sweat & Tears are really stretching out here – working their already-famous magic through a range of great tunes, both originals and covers – and coming up with some great longer-form expressions of their sound in the process! David Clayton-Thomas is firmly in the lead on vocals – but at points, the instrumentation almost takes over even more – especially on some of the jazz-heavy jam numbers that would go onto shape generations of high school and college music ensembles! Side two features the excellent "Symphony For The Devil/Sympathy For The Devil" suite – and other cuts include "He's A Runner", "The Battle", "Lucretia MacEvil", "Lonesome Suzie", "Fire & Rain", "40,000 Headmen", and "Hi De Ho".

Excellent work by Klemmer – filled with the kind of fire and emotion that you don't get on many of his other records! The set was recorded live at two different venues – and it's a choppy slightly-funky batch of modal soul jazz tunes, with an approach that makes it feel like a lost album on Strata East. On side one, Mike Nock is on Fender Rhodes, Wilton Felder plays bass, and Eddie Marshall is on drums. Titles on that set include "Blood Of The Sun" and "How Cum Ya Got Ta Rip Off Your Brothers?". Side two was recorded live at Montreux, and features more Fender Rhodes, plus backing by Cecil McBee and Alphonze Mouzon. Klemmer plays tenor with echoplex processing, and titles include "Free Love" and "Tree Of Forbidden Fruit".

A fantastic collection of rare bossa material from Italy! The set's one of the best we've ever seen of this type, and it's a completely fresh batch of tunes that breaks past a lot of the other Italian compilations of recent years. Some of the artists are familiar names – like Morricone, Piccioni, and Trovajoli – but there's plenty of other artists that we've never even heard before! A few themes are reworkings of familiar soundtrack tunes, but most of the material is original – and done with a sparkling sound that's really great! The grooves are filled with loads of tight drums, bubbling organ, jangly piano, and sweet female vocals in sort of a Morricone-ish tradition. Great stuff, and with 20 excellent tracks that include "Amori Finiti" by Giancarlo Gazzani, "Relief" by The Black Fire, "Rossana" by Armando Trovajoli, "Sometime" by A Santisteban, "Tema Di Linda" by Franco Micalizzi, "Curriculum" by Franco Chiari, "Coronado 990" by Orchestra Henry Stone, "Meditation" by Romano Mussolini, and "Warm Blood" by Tullio Gallo.

A fantastic collection of rare bossa material from Italy! The set's one of the best we've ever seen of this type, and it's a completely fresh batch of tunes that breaks past a lot of the other Italian compilations of recent years. Some of the artists are familiar names – like Morricone, Piccioni, and Trovajoli – but there's plenty of other artists that we've never even heard before! A few themes are reworkings of familiar soundtrack tunes, but most of the material is original – and done with a sparkling sound that's really great! The grooves are filled with loads of tight drums, bubbling organ, jangly piano, and sweet female vocals in sort of a Morricone-ish tradition. Great stuff, and with 20 excellent tracks that include "Amori Finiti" by Giancarlo Gazzani, "Relief" by The Black Fire, "Rossana" by Armando Trovajoli, "Sometime" by A Santisteban, "Tema Di Linda" by Franco Micalizzi, "Curriculum" by Franco Chiari, "Coronado 990" by Orchestra Henry Stone, "Meditation" by Romano Mussolini, and "Warm Blood" by Tullio Gallo.

Strong and rawly percussive sounds from Chicago legend Ron Trent! Ron has way of carrying the torch for classic club soul soundscapes – the kinds that he helped pioneer – and all the while continues to evolve and innovate. It's a pretty tricky balancing act, yet he gets across each time out! Raw Footage has some pretty insistent, African percussion-inspired beatscraft paired with spacey keys and some hypnotic bits of vocal. Includes "Message To The World", "Sundance", "Electric Blue", "Pressure Zone", "Exotic Drums", "Her", "Atmoshere", "Sweetness", "Space Dance", "Blood And Fire" and more.

A cool combat-themed country rock record by The Red Rippers – largely the work of songwriter and Vietnam veteran Lt. Edwin Bankston – and a pretty riveting obscurity from the early 80s private press vaults! The sounds range from breezy, Creedence-styled backdrops and 70s outlaw country inspired grooves, to more of a fuzzed out, slightly harder-edged feel – but it's the lyricism that really pushes Red Rippers into a different realm. It's full of war-wizened songs about forgotten soldiers, bloody jungle battles and other prideful and mournful tales from this veteran's point of view! The difference between the catchy, if quite raw tunefulness and the frank lyricism gives it a really dichotomous, intriguing feel! Includes "I Roll", "Soldier Of Fortune", "Firefight", "Who Remembers", "Vietnam Blues", "The Dark And Bloody Road", "She's Been Down", "Body Bag".

A sweet tribute to Jimi Hendrix – served up by older soul legend Lonnie Youngblood – who actually recorded with Jimi in his early days! The set here is a very faithful presentation of the Hendrix aesthetic – maybe a bit more funk than rock, which is a good thing for us – and feeling a lot like some of the best underground Hendrix-inspired rock funk sets from the early 70s! All tracks have vocals, and plenty of guitar – maybe not as fuzzy or frenetic as Jimi's, but still pretty darn nice – and the rhythms and track selection definitely focus on the more soulful side of the Hendrix oeuvre, especially once the album gets going. Titles include "If Six Was Nine", "All Along The Watchtower", "Fire", "Foxy Lady", "Stone Free", "Red House", "Changing Lanes", "We Gotta Live Together", and even a version of "Star Spangled Banner".

A deep dip into forgotten, politically-motivated Americana from the impressive diggers at Omni – and a surprisingly strong collection of material from singers who served as the American right's response to the largely left-of-center folk singers of the mid-to-late 60s – and we're not gonna lie to you, reactionary conservatism never sounded so groovy! It's pretty amazing stuff – not only serving as an answer to the left's protest song ideals, but it's full of well-crafted, well-produced, creatively worthy songcraft. It features multiple tracks by 3 artist – pulling together rare songs from 45 EPs by Janet Greene, album and 45 tracks by Vera Vanderlaan, and the rare Cry, The Beloved Country album by Tony Dolan. Given just how far social, political and musical culture has progressed in the decades since, it's easy to listen to these songs, and their warnings of insidious Commie threats and other supposed left wing terrors waiting to happen, as a bit of a novelty item – but on the other hand, there's plenty of contemporary parallels to consider. While some of the songs border on self-parody, others are actually reasonable and pretty fair-minded – and nearly all of it is irresistibly listenable! Includes "Fascist Threat", "Commie Lies", "Poor Left Winger", "Run" and more by Janet Greene; "Abolish, Abolish!", "Cuba Will Be Free", "Cry, The Beloved Country", "Remember Bloody Budapest", "Harry Pollitt", "New York Times Blues" and more by Tony Dolan; "Freedom Is A Hammer", "Hello World", "Stand Up And Be Counted", "Red Fire" and more by Vera Vanderlaan. 29 tracks in all – and it includes a detailed booklet with bios and artist facts, as well as some fascinating right-of-center newsletter stills, shots of rally posters, etc. from the period.

Heavy funk with a contemporary twist – a host of James Brown classics, all replayed here by the roster of the Gamm label! Given the hip hop stylings of most of the artists, the funk here is often cut, pasted, and sampled – but there's also clearly a bit of live instrumentation going on too – as well as some occasional deep soul vocals which really help send home the tunes! The overall feel is almost a James Brown remix mode, but in a way that really lets the producers leave their own stamp on the tracks – and the set list includes "The King James Version (part 2)" by D-Frost Beats, "Bang It On" by BadSim, "You Dead Wrong" by Red Astaire with Caretta Bell, "Ain't It Funky" by Yosaku, "Mama's Dead" by Bloodfire, "Fonky President" by Pure P, "Sayin It & Doin It" by Sugarloaf Gangsters, "U Got Soul (Swell's power surge mix)" by Swing Session, and "Give It Up Or Turn It Loose" by DJ Ayres.

A cool combat- themed country rock record by The Red Rippers – largely the work of songwriter and Vietnam veteran Lt. Edwin Bankston – and a pretty riveting obscurity from the early 80s private press vaults! The sounds range from breezy, Creedence-styled backdrops and 70s outlaw country inspired grooves, to more of a fuzzed out, slightly harder-edged feel – but it's the lyricism that really pushes Red Rippers into a different realm. It's full of war-wizened songs about forgotten soldiers, bloody jungle battles and other prideful and mournful tales from this veteran's point of view! The difference between the catchy, if quite raw tunefulness and the frank lyricism gives it a really dichotomous, intriguing feel! Includes "I Roll", "Soldier Of Fortune", "Firefight", "Who Remembers", "Vietnam Blues", "The Dark And Bloody Road", "She's Been Down", "Body Bag".