We'll be honest, there's not that much funk going on in this album – or at least not nearly as much as you'd expect from the title – but it's also not a bad soul record, and it's probably one of Eric's best overall. Steve Cropper arranged and produced the set, and there's enough of a Memphis groove on the best cuts – especially the extended "It's Time For Me To Make Love To You" – to keep the record going. Other titles include "A Gift To You", "Like It Should Be", "I Can Smell That Funky Music", "Stop Looking Down", and "Wrap Me In A Map". LP, Vinyl record album

... CD

... CD

... CD

... CD

A beautiful box set, and one that's filled with amazing material by one of our favorite players of all time! Roland Kirk's work for Mercury has always been darn tough to come by on wax, and even though a number of titles have been reissued individually over the years, this box set is still the best way to approach his early and mid 60's work for Mercury and related labels. The set's got a whopping 10 CDs in all – plus a bonus CD of unreleased stuff – and it's filled with rare material, live tracks, big band tracks, and just plain ol' great hard-wailing straight ahead material by Roland. Players on the set include Jaki Byard, Benny Golson, Wynton Kelly, Roy Haynes, Andrew Hill, Elvin Jones, and Horace Parlan. Very nice, and one you won't tire of quickly! CD

A mighty nice dive into the late 50s years of Mercury Records – a UK only set that brings together 16 tracks from a time when the label was cutting some totally great early rockers! Includes work by Eddie Bond, Roy Moss, Billy Wallace, Curtis Gordon, JP Richardson, Johnny T Talley, and Thomas Wayne! LP, Vinyl record album

Music from Helen Merril, Dinah Washington, Shirley Horn, Morgana King, Abbey Lincoln, Thelma Grayson, Chet Baker, Ernestine Anderson, Monica Zetterlund, Patti Page, Rita Reys, Louis Armstrong, Blossom Dearie, Nina Simone & more. CD

Super-sharp work from Con Funk Shun – one of the best of the mainstream funk acts to emerge in the second half of the 70s – working with the sort of style that was trained in the funky 45 underground, then given a bigger, fuller push to album-length glory! The set is a superb selection of their work for Mercury records – and the tracks here also really show why Con Funk Shun were always a cut above – as they had a way of bringing strong soul vocals to play that often illuminated the tunes very strongly – especially when the group would harmonize together. The set features 32 tracks in all – including "So Easy", "Chase Me", "Ffun (12" mix)", "Confunkshunizeya", "Loveshine", "Shake & Dance With Me", "Sure Feels Good To Me", "Electric Lady", "Burnin Love", "Can You Feel The Groove Tonight", "Ms Got The Body", "By Your Side", "Bad Lady", "California 1", "Too Tight", "Lady's Wild", "Let Me Put Love On Your Mind", "Who Has The Time", "Ain't Nobody Baby", and "Got To Be Enough". CD

... CD

Great work from the second chapter in the career of Lindisfarne – three full albums, and lots of bonus tracks too! First is a double-length live album – a set that definitely has some Magic In The Air – as it features a re-formed lineup of Lindisfarne, sounding nicely different there than on their earlier, folksier material – but all in a really great way! Singer Alan Hull has a presence that's even more powerful than before – a confident way of putting over a tune that's backed by mostly electric instrumentation from the rest of the group – ringing out in the double-length concert setting with a vibe that's catchy, and a great evolution of their earlier sound. Titles include "Court In The Act", "Turn A Deaf Ear", "Lady Eleanor", "Scarecrow Song", "Dingley Dell", "Clear White Light", "Fog On The Tyne", and "Wake Up Little Sister". Back & Fourth is a late 70s hit for Lindisfarne – and a record that shows a different kind of magic than the group had at their start! Songs are mostly the kind of gems that Alan Hull brought to the group's repertoire – sung by Hull with this confidence that's matched by sharp instrumentation that blends acoustic and electric elements, all wrapped up by strong Gus Dudgeon production. Titles include "Get Wise", "Only Alone", "Warm Feeling", "Juke Box Gypsy", "Angels At Eleven", and "Make Me Want To Stay". The News is a record that does a good job of mixing earlier Lindisfarne folk elements with more streamlined late 70s production – definitely more acoustic than electric, but with a compression style that puts the vocals and guitars together in a nicely catchy way! Titles include "1983", "People Say", "Easy & Free", "Miracles", "When Friday Comes Along", and "Dedicated Hound". 3CD set features 61 tracks in all – including 20 more bonus tracks that include "See How They Run", "Brand New Day", "Reunion (demo)", "Warm Feeling (mono)", "When It Gets The Hardest", "Run For Home (short)", "Happy Or Sad (demo)", and some live tracks too. CD

The legendary Pharoah Sanders joins the Chicago/Sao Paulo Underground – and the result is one of the most striking records in years from everyone involved! Pharoah blows with this really open, searching sort of tone – wonderfully concerned with sound texture at points, and not nearly as straight a some of his other sessions in recent decades – definitely drawing strong inspiration from the freewheeling work of Rob Mazurek on cornet, flute, and electronics – with additional electronics from Guilherme Granado. Drummer Chad Taylor provides a firm grounding for the experiments – as does bassist Matt Lux – and the group gets some Sao Paulo touches touches Mauricio Takara, who also plays percussion as well. Tracks are all relatively long – cosmic and open, with a stunning mix of acoustic and electric elements – and titles include "Spiral Mercury", "Asasumamehn", "Blue Sparks From Her", "Pigeon", "Jagoda's Dream", "The Ghost Zoo", and "Gna Toom". CD

The stuff of legend – and not just work by the Jazztet combo, but also solo albums from Art Farmer and Benny Golson too! Set includes Jazztet albums Meet The Jazztet, Big City Sounds, Jazztet & John Lewis, Jazztet At Birdhouse, Another Git Together, and Here & Now; Benny Golson albums Turning Point, Free, and Take A Number From 1 to 10; plus Art Farmer albums Art, Listen To Art Farmer, and Perception. CD

... CD

The first truly great David Bowie electric guitar album – an all-out, power-driven set of tracks played by a group that included Mick Ronson and Tony Visconti! Bowie's in prime pre-Ziggy mode here – ripping into tunes that blister with dark energy that are some of the first truly dangerous songs he ever recorded – with this strong undercurrent of mania that follows some of the darker whimsy of his earliest records – set to searing sounds that would forever help Bowie cross over to audiences who might previously have thought him an arty wimp. The set includes classics like "Saviour Machine", "The Width Of The Circle", "All The Madmen", "Black Country Rock", "The Supermen", and the title track, "The Man Who Sold The World". LP, Vinyl record album

... CD

The most beautiful collection of work we've ever seen from this legendary French Rocker – a package that brings together his first 24 albums in a huge book-like set – filled with pages of notes and very groovy vintage images! The scope of work here is wonderful – as the set really shows Hallyday moving from just a French singer picking up American rock styles, to an artist who was able to pen tunes in his own voice – then really experiment nicely as the 60s come to an end! The set features a rare set of early 60s sessions in Nashville – plus albums that include Reve Et Amour, Riviere Ouvre Ton Lit, Vie, Flagrant Delit, Palais Des Sports 71, Le Terre Promise, Rock N Slow, Je T'Aime, Insolitudes, Les Rocks Les Plus Terribles, Olympia 64, Johnny Chante Hallyday, and La Generation Perdue – and there's a fair bit of bonus tracks in the set as well. CD

A great run of music – one that includes Impulse and Smash Records sessions too – titles that appeared on That's How I Feel About Jazz, The Quintessence, We Had A Ball, Birth Of A Band, Great Wide World Of Quincy Jones, I Dig Dancers, At Newport 61, Quincy Plays For Pussycats, Birth Of A Band Vol 2, Great Wide World Of Quincy Jones Live, and Curtis Fuller & The Jazz Ambassadors – with bonus tracks too! CD

Titles include "The Lark", "Wade In The Water", "The Snake", "Nashville 1 AM", "Summer Sequence", "Honky Tonk", "Ridin' High", and a classic take on Duke Pearson's "Cristo Redentor" – 27 tracks total. CD

Includes the songs "(Say) Won't You Be Mine","I Long To See The Old Folks","This Weary Heart You Stole Away","Memories Of Mother","A Voice From On High","Could You Love Me (One More Time)","Blue Moon Of Kentucky","Close By","Just A Little Talk With Jesus","I Worship You","Daybreak In Dixie","Tragic Love","Calling From Heaven","Life Of Sorrow","Baby Girl","Let Me Walk, Lord, By Your Side","Will He Wait A Little Longer",and "Angel Band". CD

A great session from 1959 – one that features John Coltrane playing tenor in a combo that's billed as being led by altoist Cannonball Adderley – but which is really more of a Miles Davis combo, without Miles! The set was recorded in Chicago when both were stopping through the city with Miles Davis' combo at the time – and since the rhythm section includes Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Jimmy Cobb on drums – the album's essentially a Kind Of Blue-era Miles album, recorded without Miles on trumpet, and grooving in a slightly more soul-based Adderley mode! Given the presence of Coltrane, there's a bit less of the gutbuckety soul jazz that Cannon was cutting in his own Quintet – but that's more than ok with us, as the Coltrane solos more than make up for that difference! The set's got 2 great originals by Coltrane – "The Sleeper" and "Grand Central" – plus the cuts "Wabash" and "Limehouse Blues". LP, Vinyl record album

Cannonball Adderley's enroute to a great jazz legacy here – stepping out in a groove that begins to show some of the soul jazz modes he was forging at the end of the 50s – a great change from the straighter bop styles of his early years! The lineup here is a wonderful early expression of the familiar Adderley groove – with brother Nat Adderley on cornet, Junior Mance on piano, Sam Jones on bass, and Jimmy Cobb on drums – with Mance and Jones bringing an especially nice bottom end to the record – one that gets things moving in a very soulful way! Titles include "Porky", "Hoppin John", "That Funky Train", "I'll Remember April", and "18th Century Ballroom". CD

A set that's right on target, right from the start – and one that has the young Cannonball Adderley really coming into his groove! The set's a lot more soul jazz-oriented than some of Cannon's records from a few years before – played by a rock-solid group that includes brother Nat Adderley on cornet, Junior Mance on piano, Sam Jones on bass, and Jimmy Cobb on drums – hitting a groove that's got plenty of nascent elements of that Cannonball sound that would virtually take over jazz in the 60s! Yet there's also a nicely different vibe going on here too – a bit less structure, and a looser approach to the mode – spun out with some modern moments too, on titles that include "Straight No Chaser", "Jubilation", "Our Delight", "Fuller Bop Man", and "Stay On It". LP, Vinyl record album

... LP, Vinyl record album

An obscure UK group, and one who blend together hard rock modes with some slightly more sensitive moments – all with production and arrangements from John Weathers, in his years before more progressive sounds with Gentle Giant! The music here is a lot more down to earth, and plenty earthy too – and showcases that post-psych, post-blues rock use of guitar turned up to 11 – a quality that also comes through in the vocals of Gareth Mortimer, who sometimes sounds as if he's processed a bit to blow out the speakers with the guitars! Titles include "Eagle Song", "Where The Snow Lies Forever", "Odd Song", "Don't Want", "Mystic Mountain", and "Prelude To A Blind Man". Features the bonus track "Freedom Train (alternate)". CD

... LP, Vinyl record album

Ernestine works her way through a set of bluesy tunes with a spot of jazz – with backing by Ernie Wilkins orchestra, with players that include "Hank Jones, Tate Houston, Yusef Lateef, Ernie Royal, and Clark Terry. Titles include "My Kinda Love", "See See Rider", "All My Life", "Mound Bayou", "I'll Never Be The Same", and "Black Moonlight". Nice stuff, in the manner of her other albums on Mercury from the time! CD

... LP, Vinyl record album

... CD

... LP, Vinyl record album

The Bar-Kays definitely groove as one on this tight little set – with amazing choppy guitar, bumping basslines, and brassy horns – all wrapped up with some wonderfully warm production! The group have come a long way from their fuzzier funk roots by this time, but they're still sounding great – thanks to a matured outlook on their music, one that has them fitting nicely alongside some of their Mercury ensemble funk contemporaries – but in ways that still make them stand out from the pack! Titles include "Body Fever", "As One", "Say It Through Love", "Open Your Heart", "Deliver Us", and "Take The Time To Love Somebody". LP, Vinyl record album

... LP, Vinyl record album

... LP, Vinyl record album

An early collaboration between Count Basie and Norman Granz – and a real cooker too! Granz shows some great foresight here – grabbing Basie at a time when his group was just getting its groove back, and really learning how to hit a more modern sound! The set includes some great tenor sax work from Eddie Lockjaw Davis and Paul Quinichette –and titles include "Sure Thing", "Jive At Five", "Every Tub", and "New Basie Blues". In a great David Stone Martin cover too! LP, Vinyl record album

... LP, Vinyl record album

One of the unsung geniuses of the early soul era! From today's perspective, lots of folks don't know what to make of Brook Benton. Was he a pop singer? Was he an R&B vocalist? Was he a mellow crooner with a voice like velvet? Truth is, he was all of those things – and as you'll hear on this incredible 32 track compilation, his work during the early days is some of the most complicated of his generation. Working often with arranger Belford Hendricks at Mercury, Brook drew together strands of R&B, jazz, early soul, and even a bit of country – to forge a sound that could be totally hard rocking one minute, sweet and lovely the next. The tracks on this set are a great mix of hits and rarities that perfectly demonstrate that fact – and titles include "You're For Me", "A Million Miles From Nowhere", "Hotel Happiness", "It's Just A Matter Of Time", "A New Love", "Hit Record", "Another Cup Of Coffee", "Fools Rush In", "My True Confession", "When I Grow Too Old To Dream", "Revenge", "The Intoxicated Rat", and "Lingering On". CD

Early early work by Paul Bley – years before he picked up the synthesizer, and years before he became the moody modernist he was in the 70s! The album's a relatively straight batch of tracks, but does have a touch of modernism – an early example of the sharp sounds that Bley would fully forge in alter years. The lineup is nice, too – with either Percy Heath or Peter Ind on bass, both players who clearly feel Bley's intentions – and Al Levitt on drums. Tracks are mostly standards, but they're done by Bley in a way that's fresh and sprightly – and titles include "My Heart", "Topsy", "I Want To Be Happy", "Autumn Breeze", and "My Old Flame". CD

... CD

Titles include "Livin' On Prayer", "Wanted Dead Or Alive", "You Give Love A Bad Name", "I'd Die For You", and more! LP, Vinyl record album

... CD