Top 20 r&b/soul albums - Making a list

The Chronic is definitely a hip hop classic that produced alot of hits. In my opinion, 2001 is a better overall album from beginning to end. Doggystyle, again, is a hip hop classic and in the same mold as The Chronic. I like it, occasionally listen to it, but I stand behind 2001 as being Dre's best work as a solo artist/producer. Straight Outta Compton is a tad better because of what it meant to the genre.




I guess you are late to the Mary J. Blige party seeing as she debuted in 1992. Family Affair is a decent single, produced by Dr. Dre, but is by no means indicative of her best work. Grab a copy of her second album, My Life, before No More Drama and then tell me what you think. Its one of my all time favorites and from that album alone she earned her reputation. It may or may not be one of the Twenty best all time R&B albums but it probably the best R&B album of the 1990's.

Since you've stretched your R&B definition a bit to include rap and funk, ya gotta dip your toe in the reggae waters with the great Bob Marley. The compilation Legend should do it for you.

Jon

Paul, The Otis Redding 3 CD set is THE STORY, si! That set gets you beaucoups of stuff.

I like the southern R & B artists over the Motown stuff. The Motown stuff all sounds the same till Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye broke out of the corporate mode and did their own thangs. That's when both of them got intresting. There was way more musicanship in the south.

The guys I like are the ones who floated back and forth between Memphis and Muscle Shoals. In that group you have Wilson Pickett, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, the original Bar-Kays, Otis Redding, Duane Allman, David Hood, Don Nix, Mar-Keys, Memphis Horns, Arthur Conley, King Curtis, Johnny Rivers, Rufus Taylor, and I'm forgetting more than I remember. Boz Scaggs made his first solo album at Muscle Shoals. Aretha recorded with those guyz. Duane Allman would of been in the mix for longer were it not for his fateful crash. I Know that for a fact, first hand. He loved working at the Shoals.

I knew Duane and he loved playing soul music and he was well paid for it. He supported the band with his studio work in 1969 and 1970. He got called to Muscle Shoals every week. He couldn't always accept. His best song from all those sessions is proably, this is easy, ROAD OF LOVE, for Clarence Carter. LOAN ME A DIME with Boz Scaggs is a close second in my book. He liked Arthur Conley alot. He dug covering The Beatles with Arthur. The band was starvin' without his handouts. He was the money man. They didn't make any money on those first two albums for Atco. Those were like you owe us albums for the label. Duane got $250 an hour and in 1969 spending power, well, that was juicy! He worked as many hours as he wanted for all practcal purposes. He bought all the Cycles, paid for the Chalets in Gatlinburg, bought a farm in west Knox County and put a party trailer on it. They jamed out there with all the locals. They adopted Knoxville as their second home. Duane brought home the bacon.

Duane's inspiration was The Meters. If the Meters had a new record, Duane just got it. He and everybody else was studyin' every thing about the Meters. The Stones hired The Meters to play their parties. They'd send their private jet to New Orleans to pick 'em up. They paid The Meters $50,000 for playin' a party. Later The Meters morph'ed into The Neville Brothers. The Meters are as David Letterman used to say, " the key guys".

The Bar-Kays would of become a super group had they lived. They were on their way. The 2 best Bar-Kay albums I have are THE BEST OF THE BAR-KAYS on Stax/Volt CD (SCD-8542-2). It has SON OF SHAFT, COPY CAT, HUMPIN', HOLY GHOST, and DON'T STOP DANCING (TO THE MUSIC) Pt's 1 & 2. Actually, a few of the tracks on this one are by the replacement group.

The real winner is the two LP's BLACK ROCK/GOTTA GROOVE on one CD Stax/Volt (SCD-88018-2). This is the sh-ee-it! Don't Stop Dancing is here too, plus all kinds of covers. They do DANCE TO THE MUSIC better Sly Stone ever could. They play The Beatles. Their originals are 1st rate too. IMO, the Bar-Kays would'a been bigger than Booker T. if only they'd lived. They were way better players.

The people at Fantasy made these two Bar-Kays CD's sound as right as the format allows. They're hot! Everybody should wish for these gems on a possible round of Fantasy SA-CD releases! SA-CD's of this stuff, hot dam, I sweat thinkin 'bout it alone!

I saw The Mar-Keys about 1972. Jim Haslam, that's become super rich wih Pilot Oil and all it's truck stops, well, he hired them for a party. They were really good. They played his backyard, next to his swimming pool and there must of been 500 people there...? Ever hear Rocky Top made into R & B? That's the one and only time I ever have... Play to the crowd!

Motown was the big radio hit place and more people have heard that stuff. It's good but you don't get the musicanship you get wih the southern music.

Somebody suggested Heatwave and you just can't leave them out. They're nowhere as good as AWB but they're the next best thing out of England back then.

Southern R & B is the real deal. Memphis-Muscle Shoals-New Orleans is the axis of excellence, IMO.

Hey Rachael I have to agree with you on Souther R&B.

When I visited Memphis last year one of my greatest joys was visiting the STAX MUSUEUM OF AMERICAN SOUL MUSIC. What a humbling yet reverant experience!! To be in the home of where such important music was created.

With BOOKER T & THE MG'S being the house band and having musicians such as Isaac Hayes and others made STAX musically important!! Even looking beyond STAX you have such artists as HI Records with Ann Peebles and Al Green along with Willie Mitchell as a producer and THE MEMPHIS HORNS one of the most legendary horn sections of all times!

I concur with you about MOTOWN. As much as it is an imprint of American culture it was really "pop" music coming from a black perspective. I find Southern R&B to be much more fullfilling.

On the HEATWAVE I suggested them. Now one of the interesting things about them in their original incarnation HEATWAVE was a true international band! You had the Wilder brother's who were from Dayton Ohio in the US. Rod Temperton (main songwriter) from England along with Eric Johns the guitarist while you had the bassist Mario Mantese from Spain and the drummer Ernest (Bilbo)Berger from Czechoslovakia.

All and all some good choices here!!

Marvin Gaye-What's Going On? (first and foremost)
Ohio Players-Skin Tight
Prince-Dirty Mind
The Roots-Things Fall Apart
Lauryn Hill-The Miseducation of...(newer, I know but perfect)
The Delfonics-1st album
Sade-Love Deluxe
Marvin Gaye-What's Going On?
Al Green-Get's Next to You
Curtis Mayfield-Superfly
Sylistics-Debut
Sly and the Family Stone-Stand! (fuggeddaboutit, brilliant)

sorry for any duplicates.....Trust me, tons have been left out(Stevie WOnder, The O-Jays, Spinners, and especially James Brown, for which I only have like 3 Best of's....so didn't include him)

If you don't have any of the individual James Brown's then it's imperative that you get STAR TIME which is his career retrospective!!

Simply the best box set in my collection!

Stu: Thx for your contribution, counselor. Am trying to keep a lid on the number of sets/compilations on the list in excess of 2 CDs for the sake of cost control. Thx for the mention of Solomon Burke. Is the Stax-Volt compilation you mentioned 1 disc or multiple CDs?

Mark: Thx for dropping back in on the hip hop tip. Duly noted re MJB.

Jon: Thx for reggae mention, mon. Have heard much good things re Legend.

Zen: Thx for your post. Another mention of Dirty Mind, Ohio Players (too bad it is prolly only a compilation that has "Skin Tight" and "Fire"?); the Stylistics, Delfonics and Curtis Mayfield--nice.

Rachael: Thx again for your time and interesting contributions. More cross talk later. I definitely feel you on Southern r&b. I'm particularly interested in representing it on the list/reconciling it with a Motown presence. To wit, what do you think are the top/best/most representative 3 albums of the Southern r & b school?

Also, what 3 albums would you drop from the list as it stands now (and be sure to go back and peep it again as I'm frequently tweaking it) in favor of better representation of the Southern r & b school?

All: Wanted to re-pose my question regarding anyone having come across a feature in a music review magazine in recent years listing top r&b/soul albums . . . ??

-p

Jon et al.: Two artful dodges -

Turns out my guy's already got Legend.

Also, I found a copy of the IMO outstanding 2001 2-disc Commodores' Anthology at Costco (for only $12.99, natch). Remastered, good liner notes and a good-for-a-2-disc-set song selection. Unlike the 1995 Motown Anthology Series release according to Amazon reviewer comments, the 2001 release includes the original album cuts of the songs not radio edits. This is a real issue for me WRT compilations: I want the original, full-length album versions of the songs. For instance, you miss half of Lionel's delicious preachin' at the beginning of the radio edit of "Just To Be Close To You."

So I got that for him and am gonna thereby "resolve" my EW&F "versus" Commodores top 20 dilemma.

-p

Stax/Volt is 9 CDs and, to tell the truth, it's probably for the hard-core collector. There are many other choices on the list I'd probably go for before that one.

Paul, I think ya'all should search out compilation albums, mostly. Shotgun effect...

Changed the Sam Cooke candidate album from The Man and His Music to the hybrid SACD of Portrait Of A Legend, 1951-1964.

-p

Paul, for 3 southern R & B albums...just 3...hmnnn, Arthur Conley's MORE SWEET SOUL, Otis Redding's...well pick an album, and The Meters' STUTTIN'.

Other stuff you need, The Bar-Kay's 2-fer' CD, BLACK ROCK/GOTTA GROVE & somethin' by Wilson Pickett & Booker T. and the M.G.'s...

Hvae you gotten something to represent the "Philadelphia Sound"? Best of the O.J.'s maybe?

R&B/Soul was primarily a singles medium through the 60s, and is arguably still that way now, which is why most of the best ways to hear the music are via compilations. That being said, the following artists contributed greatly to the development of album-oriented R&B.

Issac Hayes
Curtis Mayfield
Marvin Gaye
Stevie Wonder
Eddie Kendricks
Temptations
Isley Brothers
O'Jays

Their late 60s and/or 1970s albums are designed to work as albums rather than collections of hits plus filler.

Regards,

Bump for hopeful further comments. -p

Did you have a chance to check out My Life?

I'm horrible when it comes to knowledge of R&B/Soul, but Smokey Robinson (with or without the Miracles, though I tend to prefer with) tends to come to mind when I think of it. A lot of the early Motown stuff sort of paved the way I think.
Now classic rock I could help you there.

Mark: Apologies for delay in responding. I haven't gripped My Life yet, but I've added it to my lengthy Amazon Music/CDs Wish List. I'm frequently swinging through my lists and clickety click clicking on a half dozen or so used Marketplace copies of 'older' CDs for about $6-$8 each and will be sure to get MJB in an order soon. I'm kinda on a hi rez kick right now tho . . .

-p

Any one have any comments on the Ray Charles Genius Loves Company SA-CD?

-p

It's a good Sack-Dee and sonically quite nice. When it first came out, when I got it, it was mistakenly (?) put in tall DVD-A style Super Jewels. Last time I saw a copy they'd gone short.

It's a nice album but not an all-time great, seemingly, for your project. It seems like an orignal album by Ray would more like it...?

It's hard to make suggestions here when I could easily suggest 50 different artists that seem worthy...

The Meters, The Temptations, Joe Tex, Bar-Kays, Otis Redding with or without Tammy Terell, James Brown, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, Dr. John, Aretha, Sam & Dave, Rufus Thomas, Arthur Conley, Labelle, Supremes, Stevie, Wilson Pickett, Clarence Carter, ect. on and on, there's alot of good one-hit wonders along the way too...

I stille think you should find some diverse sampler albums to throw in your mix to hit more artists...

Yes, I agree an original album would be more appropriate. The post was partly designed to bump my thread and hopefully gather some additional attention.

Several of the artists you mention are already on the list . . . and although I'm still resisting hits compilations per my introductory comments, I think you (and Ken, in his post #43) make a good point about the genre being singles driven in the 60s. So I welcome recommendations on outstanding compilations, with the caveats I've mentioned before about wanting the album versions of songs (unless of course it was the radio edit that was the most popular) and wanting good liner notes . . .

-p

I'm a big fan of early 70's funk and soul and I've enjoyed looking through this thread.

I would suggest trying a few best-ofs to get your feet wet, but personally I prefer original albums.

My personal picks:

The Meters. Without a doubt my favorite. All of it's great stuff and their anthology is a nice set. Personally I prefer Rejuvenation, Cabbage Alley and Fire on the Bayou but the earlier stuff is great as well. Enough has been said already about them so I'll move on.

Curtis Mayfield. I was reading through this thread astonished that nobody even mentioned Curtis until I got to Zen's post. Definitely go for a good comp of his solo work. Make sure it includes "So In Love", one of the best romantic soul songs I've ever known. The Very Best of Curtis Mayfield is a good bet. Right now, I like Curtis, Roots, Superfly (of course!) and Back to the World. But I mean to get me some more soon.

Stevie Wonder is a no-brainer. At The Close Of A Century is a great box set (if you toss the fourth disc). It includes almost all of Innervisions and most of Songs in the Key of Life as well as all some great stuff from his early "Little Stevie Wonder" career. If that's too much, I'd go for Innervisions.

The Isley Brothers. You need that. It's Your Thing (the 3-disc set) is a great comp (yeah you said two disc limit but the Isleys deserve three). I'm in the process of acquiring more Isleys, so I'd recommend 3+3, Brother, Brother, Brother, Live it Up, The Heat is On, Harvest For The World...I could go on...Personally I prefer when the younger Isleys joined the original three. Ernie's guitar is electrifying.

Also, Sly and The Family Stone. It took me a while to get to listen to anything besides their overplayed big hits, so I just got on board recently. And I'd been totally missing out. Fresh and There's a Riot Going On are excellent. Unfortunately, these two CDs are seriously overdue for remastering. Maybe the big tribute to Sly and the Family Stone on the Grammys this year will change that. For the first time in like ever, I'm going to watch the Grammys, if only to see if the rumors that the reclusive Sly Stone himself showing up are true. Make sure if you get a comp, they include songs from those two albums. Most comps sell these two short.

The Temptations' Motown comp Gold from last year is a good set, but it contains some of those forgettable 80's and 90's tracks. Still, the good stuff is great. I was just reading about another comp, Psychadelic Soul (2-disc) that features the period from 1968 to 1973 when they and Norman Whitfield were cranking out their funkiest stuff. God, I'm spending too much money lately...But I f'in need it.

Another one I need is from Southern R&B legend Johnnie Taylor. I haven't seen him mentioned here, but I had a bunch of great mp3s downloaded of his and now I'm picking up more stuff at the record store. Yeah, yeah, his biggest hit was "Disco Lady" (not a bad song, actually, for a disco song), but the meat of the stuff I like is from his years at Stax (late 60's/early 70's), when he was known as the "Philosopher of Soul". This week, I want to pick up Chronicle: The 20 Greatest Hits which was released in 1977, before he went to Columbia and started into disco.

It's weird. I love funk. Hate disco.

Also not mentioned so far: Tower of Power. I have 3 of the big Bay Area funk group's albums right now from the early 70's, Tower of Power (self-titled, featuring "What is Hip" and "So Very Far to Go"), Back to Oakland and Urban Renewal. All three feature Lenny Williams who lasted as the lead vocalist for only these three albums. I highly recommend all three. You can see their influence on such artists as Average White Band and later funk bands of the 70's.

I loved reading everybody else's posts as well. You can't go wrong with James Brown, Ohio Players, The O'Jays, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Otis Redding, Booker T and the MG's, early Prince, etcetera, etcetera...

Another thing I really like are the funk comps, Metro's Superfly Soul series in particular. There's three of these inexpensive two-disc sets available now, featuring some real cool less-overplayed grooves from big artists like Ike & Tina Turner, Curtis Mayfield, Maceo Parker, Richard "Groove" Holmes and Bobby Womack as well as a bunch of soul-jazz instrumental funky tracks that keep the head bobbin' along.

Anyways, Paul, I don't know if any of this helped at all, but I certainly enjoyed writing it. Whittled away a lot of time on a slow work day.

Here's a top ten, in chronological order, but without any "best of" collections, just actual albums:

James Brown, LIVE AT THE APOLLO [1962]

Booker T & The MG's, GREEN ONIONS [1962]

Sam Cooke, LIVE AT THE HARLEM SQUARE CLUB [1963]

Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, GOING TO A GO-GO [1965]

Otis Redding, OTIS BLUE [1966]

Wilson Pickett, THE EXCITING WILSON PICKETT [1966]

Aretha Franklin, I NEVER LOVED A MAN [1967]

Sly & The Family Stone, THERE'S A RIOT GOIN' ON [1971]

Marvin Gaye, WHAT'S GOIN' ON [1971]

Stevie Wonder, INNERVISIONS [1973]

Mark and Michael:

Thank you both for your terrific contributions!

Indeed, we were remiss with no mention of Curtis Mayfield.

Two mentions of There's A Riot Goin' On . . .

Re: Top 20 r&b/soul albums - Making a list

Bump!

Re: Top 20 r&b/soul albums - Making a list

What about Donny Hathaway's Everything Is Everything? I don't think I'm seeing any Bill Withers here, which is a shame.

Re: Top 20 r&b/soul albums - Making a list

You must have Stevie Wonder - Sogs in the key of life. The best soul double album ever!

Re: Top 20 r&b/soul albums - Making a list

Greg: Thanks for the Donny Hathaway mention. Any specific Bill Withers album you'd recommend?

Neil: Right on. SItKOL has been in the mix since my first post.

Okay, ya'll.  After an absence here borne of everything from remodel recovery, to focus on an ongoing Mahler cycle, to further attempts to whittle away my DVD-A and SA-CD Wish List, to ongoing sales of my DVDs as I transition to Blu-ray, I'm back.

I think I've got a fairly good handle on a putative top 20 r&b/soul albums thanks to so many folks herein.  Even moreso now than when I began, this project is as much about broadening my own personal awareness and appreciations as it is compling the list for my partner.  After re-reading the entire thread and being impressed by and thankful for all over again the wonderful contributions, I've added TOWER OF POWER, THERE'S A RIOT GOIN' ON, Mayfield's BACK TO THE WORLD, The Meters' STRUTTIN', the double album of the Bar-Kays' BLACK ROCK / GOTTA GROOVE, Solomon Burke's HOME IN YOUR HEART and Philip Bailey's INSIDE OUT to my 430+ title-strong Amazon CD Wish List.  (I use those Lists as a way to track all the stuff I want!)

But everything from a recent (tardy) purchase of the DualDisc (the OOP SA-CD was more coin than I wanted to spend) of Miles Davis' KIND OF BLUE, to being almost through my Netflix rental of Volume 1 of Naxos' JAZZ ICONS DVD set, to reading a recent Wynton Marsalis interview in which he posits that the blues is the aesthetic headwaters for all American music have me wanting to broaden the scope of the discussion to include seminal blues and jazz albums (in addition to the hip hop, rap and reggae that have been briefly mentioned herein already).

So, I welcome a new round of comments, suggestions and discussion with that in mind.  To kick start things, some comments on previous posts:


Rachael:  Any comments on what the differences may be between these two different double-album releases of these same two albums?  One is an import:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Dpopular&field-keywords=black+rock+gotta+groove



Mark M.:  Finally bought a copy and I have given it a few background spins.  I will give it a dedicated listen soon.


Mark S.:  Did you note that what you had been hoping for happened in 2007?  A remastered TaRGO:  http://www.amazon.com/Theres-Riot-Goin-Family-Stone/dp/B000MTFG1W/ref=reg_hu-wl_item-added

Paul
Edited by Paul.S - 10/30/09 at 11:35am