The Ones With All
The Big City 70s Soul
The ninth volume in the Backbeats series is Windy City Soul - The Smooth 70s Soul Of Chicago. Allmusic's Thom Jurek calls this one "essential listening for any soul music fan" and HERC can't disagree as Chicago Soul seems to be an amalgam of both sophisticated East Coast soul and the bluesy and gospel-influenced soul of the South. It has a gritty rawness that its neighbor to the North (Motown) seemed intent on grinding and polishing off.
But then Motown is not the only source of Soul Music in Detroit. Volume 13 in the Backbeats series is Motor City Soul - 70s Soul From Detroit. Although the album exists in Spotify's database, only three of the tracks are playable in the US so the playlist doesn't even last nine minutes. Compiler Ian Dewhirst mined the vaults of Invictus and its subsidiary, Hot Wax. (A second Invictus label, Music Merchant, apparently did not yield any tracks worthy of inclusion). The labels had been established by former Motown hit makers (Brian) Holland/(Lamont) Dozier/(Edward) Holland. They later established the monogrammed label HDH to reissue their Invictus and Hot Wax material in the Eighties and Nineties.
For the sixteenth volume in the Backbeats series, compiler Ian Dewhirst filled Soul Time - 60s and 70s Big City Soul Anthems with tracks from labels such as Brunswick, Hi and 20th Century Fox. An interesting side note on a couple of tracks from this one: Earl, from Bob & Earl ("Harlem Shuffle"), has a second song on the album under the name Jackie Lee ("The Duck").
Backbeats returns to the Invictus catalog once again with Volume 41: Detroit Gold - 70s Soul Grooves From The Motor City. This time around, Jaffa is the compiler and he goes a little deeper, favoring multiple tracks for several artists. Only five of his finds are available on Spotify, so it's another brief playlist.
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