A great lost chapter in the career of Darlene Love – a soul singer who's maybe known best for her early work with Phil Spector in The Crystals – but who ended up with a long legacy in music, which is partly added to by this collection! The core of the set features some mid 60s recordings that Love made as the lead singer in The Blossoms – a great west coast female soul trio, represented here by a number of excellent singles for Reprise Records – including "That's When The Tears Start", "Good Good Lovin", "My Love Come Home", "Lover Boy", "Deep Into My Heart", and "Let Your Love Shine On Me". Those cuts are followed by two solo efforts for Reprise by Darlene – "Too Late To Say You're Sorry" and "If" – then preceded by a few other unusual sessions, including the track "TV Commercials" with guitarist Barney Kessel, and two Lee Hazlewood-related projects on "What Are We Gonna Do In 64" and "3625 Groovy Street", both issued under the name of The Wildcats. The set ends with a few cuts from later years – that time when Darlene was getting attention from a whole new generation – on the tracks "River Deep Mountain High", "He's Sure The Boy I Love", and two versions of "Mr Fix It". CD

Heavy soul by one of the funkiest groups of all time – New Orleans mighty Meters, a group who forever set a new standard with the classic singles featured in this package! The Meters are an instrumental group at their core – with a moody blend of heady basslines, bubbling organ, and scratchy guitar – made famous by their early singles on the Josie label, then taken to new heights as they moved to Warner/Reprise in the 70s, and came up with some even more complicated grooves! And while the group's albums are all great, it's definitely their singles that put the money where their funk is – creating these cool, compact, mostly-instrumental modes that pack a hell of a lot of punch in just a short space. The collection features 40 of these massive numbers – titles that include "Joog", "Sassy Lady", "No More Okey", "Trick Bag", "Mister Moon", "Find Yourself", "Chug Chug Chug (parts 1 & 2)", "The Flower", "Smiling", "Do The Dirt", "Africa", "People Say", "Running Fast (long version)", "Disco Is The Thing Today", "Hey Pocky A Way", "Stretch Your Rubber Band", "This Is My Last Affair", "Chicken Strut", "Sophisticated Cissy", "Cissy Strut", "Here Comes The Meter Man", "Ease Back", "Ann", "Dry Spell", "Little Old Money Maker", "Hey Last Minute", and "The World Is A Little Bit Under The Weather Doodle Oop". LP, Vinyl record album

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20 tracks! CD

Really wonderful work from Paul Williams – an artist known to some as one of the best songwriters of the 70s, but also a great singer on his own, when he got the chance! The set features Paul working with the great Roger Nichols – the A&M Records genius who forged a key instrumental partnership with Williams' words – and the production on the record really captures the raspy, honest charms that make Paul's vocals so great in these early days. Nichols and Artie Butler handle the arrangements – and the cuts here are a great addition to Paul's one Reprise album of the time – as they feature unissued material that really expands on the album's charms. Titles include the mono single mixes of "So Many People", "To Put Up With You", "Someday Man", and "Mornin I'll Be Movin On" – plus session tracks of "The Drifter" and "Someday Man", demos of "So Many People" and "I Know You", and more instrumental tracks too. LP, Vinyl record album

A massive package of funky music – and maybe one that no home should be without – as the set includes all the classic Josie Records and Warner Brothers albums by legendary New Orleans funk group The Meters – plus a fair bit of bonus tracks too! The Josie albums are incredible – a lean, powerful blend of funky drums, bass, guitar, and organ – almost the New Orleans answer to Booker T & The MGs, but with a sound that's far funkier overall – and which continues to bring new ears to the magic of The Meters as the years go by! Their Warner work is a bit fuller – as the group were part of a big wave of Nola talent to get the nod from LA – which means that The Meters were able to add in vocals, experiment with arrangements, use additional instrumentation – yet all without ever losing that core groove that made them so great! This package is the first time all the records have been brought together, and many are presented here in the "expanded edition" versions with bonus tracks – which makes for a whopping 116 titles on 6CDs – bonus tracks, plus the full albums The Meters, Look Ka Py Py, Struttin, Cabbage Alley, Rejuvenation, Fire On The Bayou, Trick Bag, and New Directions – plus some singles too! CD

Anthony Nicholson works some real magic here with the vocals of Jaidene Veda – giving the singer a soaring, cascading groove that's completely wonderful all the way through – that always-uplifting vibe that we love in Nicholson's music! The "heart of gold" reprise has Jaidene up front a bit more in the mix – nicely placed between the other two takes, so that the whole thing is like a shifting suite of soul! 12-inch, Vinyl record

4 discs of Sinatra's finest from his Reprise years! 81 tracks including "Let's Fall In Love", "You'd Be So Easy To Love", "The Last Dance", "It Started All Over Again", "You're Nobody Til Somebody Loves You", "Come Rain Or Come Shine", "I Get A Kick Out Of You", "I Have Dreamed", "Luck Be A Lady", "Here's To The Losers", "My Kind Of Town", "The Best Is Yet To Come", "Fly Me To The Moon", "Moonlight Serenade", "Street Of Dreams", "Strangers In The Night", "All Or Nothing At All", "How Insensitive", "All I Need Is The Girl", "My Way", "A Man Alone", 'What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life?", "Just As Though You Were Here", "Nancy", "My Shining Hour", "A Long Night", "Mack The Knife" and loads more! CD

The full recordings of a surprisingly wonderful match – the vocals of Frank Sinatra and the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim! The first half of the CD features the full album Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim – a beautiful little album that shows a whole new side of Sinatra! Frank's a bit late on the bossa game – but the record's a wonderfully gentle batch of bossa nova tunes, performed with musical and occasional vocal accompaniment by Jobim, and larger orchestral backings by Claus Ogerman. Far more than a gimmicky fake bossa album – this is a wonderful set of tracks that show that Sinatra could still hit a gentle ballad without going as over the top as he did on some of his other Reprise work. Jobim's talent is very respected – and the record is a true blending of musical styles, in a way that does justice to both artists equally. Titles include "Change Partners", "Dindi", "Meditation", "How Insensitive", and "I Concentrate On You". Next is material from side one of Sinatra & Company – a 1969 album that reunited Frank and Jobim! Arrangements are by Deodato, and the tracks have the floating easy groove of Sinatra's album with Jobim from earlier years – and there's some great numbers like "Drinking Water", "Don't Ever Go Away", "One Note Samba", and "This Happy Madness" that feature English language versions of bossa favorites. CD also features "Off Key" and "Bonita", also cut at the 1969 sessions! CD

An amazing dip into the archives of Joni Mitchell – one that features the Reprise Records label in the title, but which features all unissued material recorded at the same time as her bigger classics for Reprise! There's a wonderful blend of material here – some live tracks, some demo cuts, and some really unusual recordings that even include a few apartment tracks – all brought together in a lovely box that includes archival photos, ephemera, and a 40 page booklet of notes! The set features a 22 track Live At Carnegie Hall set from 1969, a 23 track BBC In Concert recording from 1970 (with duets with James Taylor), and a 23 track Live At Le Hibou Coffee House in 1968 – plus material from sessions for Song To A Seagull, Clouds, Blue, and Ladies Of The Canyon. There's also 4 songs and an interview from the Dick Cavett Show, 3 tracks for BBC Top Gear with the backing of John Cameron, material recorded at Jane Lurie's apartment and at Mitchell's own home, and even more live cuts too. 122 tracks in all – and a fantastic look at Joni Mitchell during her key creative years! CD

A wonderful package – four full albums by one of the most unique groups of their time! First up is These Things Too – the first Reprise album from Pearls Before Swine – a bit more straight ahead and folksy than their work for ESP – but in a really great way, one that lets you hear the best of Tom Rapp's amazing songs and vocals! The album follows in a tradition that includes Tim Buckley, Tim Hardin, Leonard Cohen, and Fred Neil – but it's also got a really unique style that's the unique province of Tom Rapp – the main force behind the group, and the voice on all of the tunes. Rapp's vision was quite unique for the time – not nearly as revolutionary or personally preoccupied – more sad at the fading world, and granted with a unique ability to paint any subject in shades of blue. Titles include "Wizard Of Is", "Frog In The Window", "Footnote", "Look Into Her Eyes", "These Things Too", and "Mon Amour". Use Of Ashes is an incredibly beautiful album from Pearls Before Swine – one that uses light orchestrations to create a baroquely folksy sort of feel – easily elevating the album past previous efforts, into classic territory we'd rank with the best from Nick Drake or Leonard Cohen! The whole album's great – with fragile and haunting songs from Tom Rapp, all supported by sparsely arranged instrumentation that includes harpsichord, flute, oboe, cello, and dobro. Genius throughout – and a clear inspiration for music still being made 30 years later – with classic tracks that include "The Jeweler", "Rocket Man", "Song About A Rose", "The Old Man", "When The War Began", and "From The Movie Of The Same Name". Next is Beautiful Lies You Could Live In – one of the most perfectly formed albums ever recorded by Tom Rapp's enigmatic group Pearls Before Swine – a record that does an incredible job of skirting between Rapp's earthy sense of the planet's passing, and his ambitions for larger forums of expression. The core group is lightly folksy – with strong use of acoustic guitar that goes far beyond any folk rock cliches – plus some additional arrangements that feature contributions from the team of Bob Dorough and Stu Scharf, who seem to have a habit of appearing on under-discovered gems like this one, and making them sound all that more hip! The whole thing's great – filled with beautiful songs that should have been as over-recorded as the best by Tim Hardin or Leonard Cohen – with titles that are even better, too! Tracks include "Snow Queen", "A Life", "Butterflies", "Simple Things", "Freedom", "She's Gone", and "Island Lady". Last up is City Of Gold – a return to folksier forms for Tom Rapp and Pearls Before Swine – working here in territory that's very different than some of the baroque light arrangements used on previous records. Rapp's emerging as a more confident singer/songwriter – recording in an almost Dylan-like setting, but with more of the irony of Leonard Cohen, and as always, working in a timeless idiom that's still beginning to be understood more than 30 years after its inception. Beautiful work throughout – as earthy as it is majestic – and with titles that include "My Father", "The Man", "Once Upon A Time", "City Of Gold", "Nancy", and "Wedding". CD

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Three full albums from Atlantic Starr – with lots of bonus tracks too! All In The Name Of Love has Atlantic Star at the height of their catchy commercial fame – bouncing along with rhythms that crossover nicely to the mainstream, yet still keep a bit of their previous funky edge intact! The groove here is almost in the style that Atlantic Starr inspired in so many other younger groups in the earlier part of the 80s – although it's also a bit more polished too. Most instrumentation is electric, and tunes are mostly written by the team of David and Wayne Lewis – both of whom sing on the record. Barbara Weathers also handles female vocals, and titles include "Once Lover At A Time", "Let The Sun In", "My Mistake", "I'm In Love", "Always", "Don't Take Me For Granted", and a version of Sam Dees' "All In The Name Of Love". We're Moving Up is one of the last in a long run of 80s hits from Atlantic Starr – a group who were already moving up the soul charts before the release of the album! The set continues their move into commercial territory started a few records before, but it also shakes loose of some of the colder sounds of 80s soul – and picks up a somewhat warmer vibe on the keyboards and rhythms. Porscha Martin sings female vocals with the group, and titles include "Under Your Spell", "Love Ain't Fair", "Woman's Touch", "We're Movin Up", "My Sugar", "You Deserve The Best", and "Don't Start The Fire". Love Crazy is a set that's got a nice change in groove from Atlantic Starr – a sound that's still got a lot of their best elements intact, but which also seems to bring on some of the best elements that were being introduced by the British scene too! Rhythms at points are maybe more in the Soul II Soul or Lisa Stansfield modes – which makes for some great tunes that really reinvigorate the group and update them for a new jack generation, while still holding onto the charms of the past. A few moments get more in a mellow quiet storm sound – all with the balance that made earlier Atlantic Starr albums classics – on titles that include "Love Crazy", "Hold On", "Masterpiece", "Girl Your Love's So Fine", "I Can't Wait", "If You Knew What's Good For You", and "Come Lover". 3CD package features all albums in tiny LP-styled jackets – with bonus tracks that include "One Lover At A Time (ext)", "Always (edit)", "Let The Sun Shine IN (ext rmx)", "All In The Name Of Love (single)", "My First Love (ext)", "Bring It Back Home Again (Joe Smooth ext mix)", "My First Love (7" edit)", and "Bring It Back Home Again (Joe Smooth underground mix)". CD

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Wild, weird, and a little bit creepy – but face it, the show was kind of creepy too! Includes arrangements by Jimmy Haskell and Jack Nitzsche. Tracks include "Hippy's Cha Cha Hips", "Pie In The Face", "Soupy Sez", "Pookie, King Of The Jungle", "My Baby's Got A Crush On Frankenstein", "Hill Billy Ding Dong Choo Choo", and his Christmas single "Santa Claus Is Surfin' To Town". CD

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This one's on Warner Brothers, but don't let the "major label" tag scare you away – because it's actually a wealth of obscure and rare soul singles! The set pulls together uptempo 60s soul numbers from Warner and related labels – including some of the smaller imprints that were essentially working as independent labels in the 60s, digging through the best of the underground scene in hopes of turning up a new chart star. And while those chart-bound experiments didn't always yield great sales, they sure led to a heck of a lot of great music – wonderful soul tunes handled with incredible polish and professionalism! This 24 track set is a great dip into the wealth of lost recordings handled by labels like this, and include some lesser-known tracks by bigger artists recording in odd settings, plus plenty of work by obscure singers and groups who should have been huge. Titles include "You Hit Me" by Alice Clark, "Since You Said You'd Be Mine" by Lou Ragland, "Sufferin City" by Johnny Copeland, "I Love Her So Much It Hurts Me" by David & Ruben, "Think It Over" by The Harvey Averne Dozen, "Satisfied" by Ben Aikin, "I Remember The Feeling" by Barbara Lewis, "Go For Yourself" by Larry Laster, "How Can You Say That Ain't Love" by The Patterson Singers, "Get Ready" by Ella Fitzgerald, "My Heart Needs A Break" by Linda Jones, "Twilight Zone" by The Astors, "That's When The Tears Start" by The Blossoms, and "I'm Gonna Run Away From You" by Tami Lynn. CD

The third great installment in the After Hours series – one of the best collections of Northern Soul we've heard in years! The genius of the set is that it moves past the smaller indie labels – and really gets at some of the treasures that have been hidden in the catalogs of the major labels from the 60s – tunes that are great, but which were often eclipsed by the bigger hits of the time, and not pushed nearly as heavily as the work might have been, had it come out on a smaller label. As with previous volumes, the set's overflowing with gems from the depths of the Atlantic and Warner catalogs – a total of 29 numbers that includes a wide range of folks that you might never have guessed recorded for the companies – plus other singles by familiar names, represented here by some of their more obscure numbers! The groove is hard upbeat soul all the way through – and titles include "Last Minute Miracle" by Linda Jones, "Mean It Baby" by Carl Hall, "Happiest Girl In The World" by Plus 4, "My Love Is Getting Stronger" by Cliff Nobles, "I Want It Back" by The Voice Box, "Hang My Head & Cry" by The Big Guys, "We Need To Be Loved" by Teen Turbans, "Tell Me Why" by Life, "Contact" by Three Degrees, "Frantic Escape" by Innocent Bystanders, "West 4th Street" by Valerie & Bobby Capers, and "Call On Me" by The Dynells. CD

Buddy may have departed the planet by the time of this record, but the great Norman Petty is still handling production – which gives this instrumental set something of a Holly-like feel! LP, Vinyl record album

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An incredible record – and quite possibly our favorite Beach Boys album ever! Sunflower is the kind of record that's easy to pass by when you're first getting into the group, but later on – after digging for gems on records like Wild Honey or Friends, you'll come back to it as a totally solid record, filled with loads of excellent little songs like "Slip On Through", "This Whole World", "Cool, Cool Water", "Tears In The Morning", and "Add Some Music To Your Day". The whole thing holds together better than any other post-Smile album we can think of – and it's an endless treat that we're always coming back to! LP, Vinyl record album

More pop piano than some of Eddie's more hard-hitting sides – but still a set that was recorded with a small group and a relatively strong Latin feel. Eddie's piano is backed by only bass, drums, and conga – and titles include "Panchita", "Mr Lucky", "Our Day Will Come", "Moon River", "Days Of Wine & Roses", and "Baby Elephant Walk". LP, Vinyl record album

Recorded live in San Francisco in 1994. CD

Warmly-crafted work from Jimmy Cliff – a mid 70s set that has the singer emerging way past the Kingston scene, to a role where he feels much more like a global soul superstar overall! Make no mistake, there's definitely plenty of reggae on the album – but the record also marks that moment when the music was really reaching out to much bigger audiences, thanks to talents as great as Jimmy – able to take the best well-crafted grooves of Jamaica, mix them with a bit of Cali sunshine, and come up with cuts that sparkle here – like "I'm Gonna Live I'm Gonna Love", "Who Feels It, Knows It", "Remake The World", "Hypocrites", "Wahjahka Man", "The News", "Look At The Mountains", "You're The Only One", and the seminal "No Woman No Cry". LP, Vinyl record album

Titles include "Chloe", "Yellow Roses", "Smack Dab In The Middle", "The Bourgeois Blues", "I Got Mine", and "He'll Have To Go". CD

Tracks include "Bye Bye Blackbird", "Too Close For Comfort", "Can't We Be Friends", "Blame It On My Youth", "My Romance", and "Thou Swell". CD

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A huge collection of work from one of the most enigmatic groups of the 60s – all of their classic albums for Reprise, plus rare material too! First up is the self-titled Electric Prunes set, in stereo and mono - an early moment of genius from The Electric Prunes – and exactly the kind of record that shows why they were a cut above their contemporaries, and why Warner really backed them strongly right from the start! There's a depth here that rivals some of the group's Sunset Strip contemporaries – and although David Axelrod's not working with them on the record, there's still lots of dark corners and sharp edges – really thoughtful sounds that are spun out wonderfully on fuzzy guitars and organ, with some nicely subtle drums in the rear. Tracks include "I Has Too Much To Dream (Last Night)", "Try Me On For Size", "Get Me To the World On Time", "About A Quarter To Nine", and "Luvin". Next are mono and stereo presentations of Underground – a record that has the Electric Prunes are arranging themselves, and have production from Dave Hassinger. The tracks are shorter than on some of their Axelrod albums, but they're also showing a sophistication that makes the material really compelling – mixing together psyche and garage roots into a sophisticated document that points at the tremendous growth that was going on around them in the rock world. Tracks include "The Great Banana Hoax", "Wind Up Toys", "Dr. Do-Good", "Hideaway", and "Capt. Glory". Next are stereo and mono versions of Mass In F Minor – a beautifully baroque batch of tracks, written and arranged for the Electric Prunes by the great David Axelrod – a really groundbreaking mix of modes that had quite an impact back in the late 60s! The record shows Axelrod's perpetual fascination with the spiritual – mixed with that great modern style of funk that he was forging at Capitol during the late 60s. The record's not really preachy, nor is it proggy. It's more of a complex blueprint of rock, jazz, funk, and touches of soul – all hung together on the same sort of "mass" structure that Axelrod would later use with Cannonball and on his own. Titles include "Kyrie Eleison", "Gloria", "Benedictus", and "Sanctus". Release Of An Oath is the second album done by David Axelrod for The Electric Prunes – and arguably the best! The album's a bit unusual, in that none of the original Prunes were actually working on the session – and instead, Axlerod's almost fully at the helm – putting together the set in a way that's quite similar to his own solo albums over at Capitol! As with those, there's a bold, spacious sort of instrumentation here – richly orchestral, but also quite funky at times – punctuated by great drums from Earl Palmer, bass from Carol Kaye, keyboards from Don Randi, and guitar from Howard Roberts – who's really tripping out nicely here! The work uses the Jewish Kol Nidre mass as its conceptual locus – but really takes off with plenty of tripped-out Axelrod flourishes that make the whole thing a fair bit more psychedelic than anything you'd ever hear in temple. Titles include "Holy Are You", "The Adoration", "Our Father, Our King", "Kol Nidre", and "General Confessional". On Just Good Old Rock & Roll, The Electric Prunes get back to basics – as you might guess from the title – shaking off some of the larger, more ambitious modes of their albums with David Axelrod, yet still retaining a nicely trippy sound overall! The lineup of the group has shifted a bit – hence their billing as "the new improved" Electric Prunes – but although things are stripped-down and simple, there's still some amazing music on the record – a blend of guitar, flute, organ, and vocals that flows along wonderfully with some unusual sounds that we wouldn't expect! And while there's certainly a bit of "good old rock and roll" going on here on a few more straightforward songs, it's not like the album's Let It Be or anything like that – because the group are really more just getting back to the garagey psych of their roots, but doing it a bit better than before! Titles include "Sell", "14 Year Old Funk", "Love Grows", "Giant Sunhorse", "Silver Passion Mine", "Sing To Me", "Tracks", and "Finders Keepers Losers Weepers". CD then features two more CDs – CD5 is shadows, with 19 rare tracks, including singles and even a radio spot – and CD6 features their famous live set from 1967, recorded in Stockholm – plus four demo recordings by Jim & The Lords. CD

A darkly beautiful album from Duke Ellington – one that really lives up to the promise of its title! The mode here is almost more "afro" than "bossa" – as Ellington's working in the fuller, richer styles used in some of his more exotic 60s suites – and less in the light and breezy mode than you'd expect from the bossa nova generation. But the approach is a great one – one that complicates the rhythms even further than some of Duke's other work from the time – and which shows that he was more than willing to move past the easy cliches that were part of the Ellington hit sound at the time, but which were so wonderfully cast off for newer modes as the 60s moved on. Titles include "Bonga", "Afro Bossa", "Tigress", "Absinthe", "Sempre Amore", "Eight Veil" and "Puple Gazelle". CD

Titles include "Sympathy For The Devil", "Hard Rain's Gonna Fall", "Piece Of My Heart", "These Foolish Things", and "Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever". CD

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Really incredible work from the early version of Fleetwood Mac – a set that has them moving past the straighter blues of their roots, but not yet in the smooth territory of later 70s fame – music that's awash in the mindblowing guitar work of Peter Green! The pacing and song structure is great – very fresh, and another example of the way that the group and their contemporaries used blues rock as this surprisingly strong springboard to quickly move into new and inventive territory of their own! LP, Vinyl record album

Some of the most tuneful work we've ever heard from The Fugs – tracks that almost border on pop-psych at times, but still get nicely tripped out at other moments! Side one has the trio almost touching territory of other Reprise rock from the times – slightly psychedelic, slightly country, slightly Sunshine at points – and side two is a bit more of a hippy dippy freakout, with a huge number of shorter tunes that flow sweetly into one another! Some of these actually have a great sound art sort of feel, and a fw even get slightly funky too – all with a new sense of tightness that arguably gives the group a lot more power than before! Titles include "Johnny Pissoff Meets The Red Angel", "Burial Waltz", "Crystal Liaison", "Wide Wide River", "Marijuana", "We're Both Dead Now, Alice", "Life Is Strange", "The National Haiku Contest", "The Divine Toe", "Leprechaun", and "Grope Need (Part I)". CD