Various Artists - Eccentric Soul: The Deep City Label
Though the music on Chicago label Numero Group's latest excavation of neglected soul music is of generally high quality, there are moments when the conception is a bit thin. What makes the collection fascinating is the chance it affords listeners to hear the earliest efforts of performers such
Darondo - Let My People Go
Darondo is this season's hip soul man rediscovery, and one that unlike, say, Shuggie Otis, lives up to the hype. In the early '70s, it's said, this local legend cruised around his San Francisco neighborhood in a white, vanity-plated Rolls Royce, purchased with money
K.D. Lang - Reintarnation
When K.D. Lang's country-punk act landed her a major-label contract in the late 1980s, it's safe to say the country music establishment never quite got the joke. "Our music was not well received in Nashville," Lang says in the Reintarnation liner
David Ruffin - The Great David Ruffin: The Motown Solo Albums, Vol. 1 / Eddie Kendricks - Keep On Truckin': The Motown Solo Albums, Vol. 1
No vocal group has ever had or is ever likely to have two lead vocalists any better than the Temptations of 1964-68. Most of their leads went to David Ruffin -- he's the one beaming, pleading and sobbing on "My Girl", "Ain't Too
Bob Feldman: 1949 to 2006
The world of roots music lost one of its most ardent supporters on January 11 when Red House Records president Bob Feldman died at his home in St. Paul, Minnesota. Though Feldman had been battling health problems for some time, none of his ailments were believed to be life-threatening,
Barry Steven Cowsill: 1954 to 2005
On January 7, Susan Cowsill opened her monthly Carrollton Station show with Lucinda Williams' "Drunken Angel", dedicated to her brother Barry. He had remained in his longtime home New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina bore down on the city, and he left messages on Susan's voice