Soul stirring rocksteady and deeply moving melodies from unfailingly great singer Slim Smith and the Uniques – just a beautiful compilation of late 60s material that's provides ample evidence for those of us that contend that Slim Smith and the Uniques are among the greatest and most soulful combos in the history of reggae vocals! Includes nice early production by Bunny Striker Lee throughout – and backing musicians including Lynn Taitt & The Jets and Bobby Aitken & The Carib Beats. Nice steady rockers and lover's tunes, with sweet harmony vocals. 14 tracks on the LP version: "Give Me A Love", "You Lied To Me", "People Rock Steady", "Facts Of Life", "This Feeling", "Trying Hard To Find A Home", "You Don't Care (You'll Want Me Back)", "I'm Lost", "Love & Devotion", "Where Do I Turn" and more. LP, Vinyl record album

... 7-inch, Vinyl record

... 7-inch, Vinyl record

The hippest side of the late 60s Latin Soul years – work from a number of tiny little New York labels – all of which are a good deal rarer than some of the bigger indies of the time! The collection here is totally great, and totally fresh – filled with numbers that were not even hits back in the day, and which are almost the Latin counterpart to funky 45s! Most work is from the Speed and Ghetto labels, with a few more bits thrown into the mix as well – and tunes are both vocal and instrumental numbers, all put together with a heck of a lot of Spanish Harlem soul! Titles include "Heavy Together" by The Real Thing, "Hot Buns" by Willy Baby, "Spanish Maiden" by Tony Middleton with Chuito & The Latin Uniques, "Oye Tomasito" by Joe Pappy & His Combo, "Fishin With Sid" by Dave Cortez & The Moon People, "Shake It Don't Break It" by Pijuan, "Sweet Soul Music" by Milton Zapata, "The Four Corners" by Frankie Nieves, and "African Guajira" by Orquesta Olivieri. LP, Vinyl record album

Includes 24 tracks from the Bluejays, Belltones, Original Red Caps, Johnny & Joe, the Quintones, Ann Ford, the Uniques, Starlites, Ascots, Eddie Williams, and the Five Royals. CD

Music from The Nobletones, The Plurals, John Lester, The Mello-Queens, The Uniques, Gene Day, The Nobletones, Lee Richards, John Lester, The Mello-Queens, the Blenders, Arthur Johnson, and more - 30 songs in all. CD

Music from G-Clefs, Majestics, Syndicates, Love Notes, Del-Tones, Delphonics, Uniques, Syndicates, Estelles, C-Quins, and more - 25 songs in all. CD

Music from The Sultans, The Uniques, Paul Perryman, The Rebels, Jimmy McCracklin And His Blues Blasters, Chuck Edwards, Elmore Morris with Arnett Cobb And His Mobb, Scotty Mann And The Masters, Bea Booker, Miss LaVell, and more. CD

29 songs from Joe Smith & the Valentines, the Rainbows, the Lovenotes, the Estelles, the Sophomores, the Supremes, the Uniques, the Stompers, Jody & the Shades, the Dreamtimers, and more. CD

One of the deepest-digging entries in the Super Funk series so far – a blistering batch of underground singles that serve up some of the roughest funk of their generation! We'll be honest in saying that we'd only heard a few of the tracks here before – and our hats are off to BGP for taking this already-great series and making it go even deeper – far past familiar funk classics that usually get showcased on the label, and much more into the realm of the crate-digging underground, or the ebay-rarity stratosphere! A handful of cuts here are previously unreleased – never even issued on wax back in the day – and the rest are all pretty darn hard to find too, and all plenty darn great from a musical perspective. The package features a whopping 21 tracks in all – including a rare 1970 funky remake of "Twine Time" by Alvin Cash, plus "Home Brew" by Miles Grayson, "Just Sitting" by Smithstonian, "Can't Get Enough" by 87th Off Broadway, "Hi Off Life" by Eternal Flames, "Give Me Another Chance" by The Uniques, "Hold On" by Lorenzo Holden, "Free The Soul Man" by La May & Company, "Little Boy Blue" by The Phillips Brothers, "You'd Be Good For Me" by Jeanette Jones, "Who Done It? Who Drained The Pool?" by Big Daddy Green, "Low Rider (Deuce & A Quarter)" by Smokey Wilson, "Can't Buy Soul" by Hebrew Rogers, "Shake A Leg" by Jackie Wilson, "Face To Face" by The Explosions, and "Turn Around & Go" by Lee Bernard. LP, Vinyl record album

An excellent 2CD primer of material collected during the dawn of the reggae age by the Trojan label on their 8 volume Tighten Up series. Bringing together some of the finest rocksteady & reggae cuts produced by Duke Reid, Leslie Kong, Scratch Perry & Joe Gibbs, the original compilations went a long way towards widening the appeal of the then poorly distributed Jamaican soul singles. The 52 songs spread out over these 2 CDs read like the playlist from a top selector's sound system, including The Untouchables' "Tighten Up", Val Bennett's "Spanish Harlem", The Uniques' "Watch This Sound", Clancy Eccles "Fatty Fatty" and "Rod Of Correction", The Upsetters' "Return Of Django", Niney's "Blood & Fire", Bob Andy's "You Don't Know", The Wailers' "Duppy Conqueror" & Johnny Clarke's "None Shall Escape The Judgement". CD

The title says it all – as the set's a collection of rare group soul recordings from Chicago, either unreleased recordings by obscure groups, or a few alternate takes of more famous numbers (but we use that term loosely here, as the cuts are all pretty darn rare!) Obviously, the fidelity's not in the 24-bit remaster mode – since lots of these come from rare tapes or acetates – but the set's a wonderful treasure if you're into harmony soul, especially of the Chicago sort! Titles include "Dear Lord" by The Vondells, "I Love That Guy" by The Shel-Raes, "Too Late" by Henry Ford & The Gifts, "Meet Me Halway" by The Condors, "Can't Take It" by The Sheppards, "Everyday Of The Week" by The Springers, "You Ain't Right" by The Nobles, "Darling Don't" by The Medallionaires, "Mtyllt" by The Dream Kings, "Restless Nights" by The Uniques, and "Boy Meets Girl" by The Delprados. CD

A sublime meeting of three incredibly well-matched players – all artists who worked together in various formations back in the 60s, but waited another 30 years to record here as a trio! There's an airiness that really uniques all the artists in the trio – a sense of space and grace that's always heard in the piano of Don Friedman and guitar of Atilla Zoller, and which re-emerges wonderfully here in the alto of Konitz – recorded with a crispness and focus that is sometimes missing in other later sessions. The notes hang in space here beautifully – never too academic, but always with the sense of tone and timing that was probably first inspired by Lee's work of the 50s, in recordings that featured guitarist Billy Bauer, who always was clearly an inspiration to the sound of Attilla Zoller. But the actual formation here is more in the mode of the Hans Koller school, as he interpreted some of Konitz ideas in the German scene of the 50s and 60s – and the recording echoes with a sense of perfection that takes us back to some of the Koller/Zoller collaborations for MPS. Titles include "Images", "Thingin", "Joy For Joy", "Opus D'Amour", "Cloisterbells", and "Suite For 3". CD

A great collection of soulful rocksteady gems – and one that really hints at its approach with the use of "cover" in the title! Many of the tunes here are reworkings of American soul tracks – most not major hits, which makes them even cooler cover versions – and shows just how deep a love of soul music influenced the Jamaican scene in the 60s! Tracks are from a variety of classic labels – Trojan, Doctor Bird, Treasure Isle, and others – and titles include "Just A Mirage" by The Uniques, "If I Didn't Love You" by Eric Monty Morris, "Whatcha Gonna Do" by The Techniques, "Something You've Got" by Lee Perry, "Trying To Reach My Goal" by Alton Ellis, "Charade" by Roland Alphonso, and even a surprising take on "Je T'Aime Moi Non Plus" by Harry J All Stars! LP, Vinyl record album