Top 20 r&b/soul albums - Making a list (1 Viewer)

[Paul.S]

Marvin: Thx for getting back re the compilations.

Rich: I've added Anthology as the The Temptations title for the list.

David: Ugh! How could I forget Chiiiiic?! I'm a huge fan. I've dropped The Chronic and added either the terrif Dance, Dance, Dance Atlantic & Atco Remasters Series compilation, Risque or C'est Chic to the list instead.

My only issue with the early 80s Jarreau I have--Jarreau, High Crime and Breakin' Away--is sound quality. All three of those albums are in need of remastering. Very thin sounding mixes. But mos def keeping a spot for him on the list. I like Nile Rodger's production of L Is For Lover but don't think that album is as definitive/essential as some of its predecessors.

Incidentally, I've heard very good things about Tenderness. Do you have it? All I Got is on SACD, too . . .

-p

 

[David Coleman]

Paul concerning CHIC please don't overlook their compilation (sorry can't remember the name of it, not at home) that lists there lesser know songs like:

TAVERN ON THE GREEN
SOUP FOR ONE
REBELS ARE WE
STAGE FRIGHT

... and a host of other's when CHIC was really doing some experimentation with time changes and other musical challenges.

 

[David Coleman]

I have TENDERNESS but admit it's not a big listen to me? I guess cause he did so many remakes of several of his classics that didn't match the originals and the new songs weren't all that inspiring. However he and Kathleen Battle doing MY FAVORITE THINGS is definitely a highlight!!

As for L IS FOR LOVER with the exception of SAYS, ACROSS THE MIDNIGHT SKY and TELL ME WHAT I GOTTA DO for me you can toss the rest of it!

I definitely wouldn't count it as seminal Al Jarreau.

I always thought it really strange that Al chose Nile to do an album like L IS FOR LOVER after all the work he'd done with Jay Graydon? At this time Nile was producing rock acts like Madonna, Duran, Duran and David Bowie so he was a curious choice to produce Al??

However Nile did redeem himself producing the excellent Philip Bailey album INSIDE OUT!

While at it let me give a shout out for my favorite male singer Will Downing and one of my all-time favorites and certainly a seminal album

A DREAM FULFILLED

if not in your collection certainly needs to be there!

 

[Rachael B]

Paul, DIRTY MIND was Prince's breakout album and well demoes everything he can do.

You simply must get The Meters. They're proably the most copied group ever. They play on the two Dr. John albums I listed. Cissy Strut is the prototype of the Allman Brother's sound.

MORE SWEET SOUL by Arthur Conley is a must. Duane Allman is on it too.

Clarence Carter is one I forgot, get the Collectables double album CD. It has Patches and C.C. Blues & Weekend Love and Duane Allman on ROAD OF LOVE

The best Otis Redding is the 3 CD set. It's got the B-sides and Christmas songs and everything.

You got to include the real Bar-Kays, the ones killed in the plane crash! Not the replacment group!!!!

Maggot Brain by Funkadelic is roots funk and more rock sounding but should not be missed.

Red Hot Chili Peppers second album with George Clinton producing is a funk masterpiece. See: YERTLE THE TURTLE and HOLLYWOOD AFRICA which is a Meters/Neville Brothers song taken to a whole nother level!

Gotta go, I'll check in later. By then, maybe, just maybe, I'll remember everything I've forgotten????

 

[Paul.S]

David:

Glad you can parse stuff that you don't like from what you do on L Is For Lover--I largely agree with your choices, but still dig most of the rest of that record, especially since James Farber's recording sounds so damn fine. I understand where you're coming from re Al's choice of Nile, but given his background clearly Nile's r & b credentials/chops couldn't be questioned, regardless of his having done a record for Duran Duran that same year. This was 2 years after Like A Virgin and the guy was huge. I'm sure Al was happy at the time to broaden his aud.

Since you're at work I grabbed some links:

Dance Dance Dance: The Best Of Chic (1991)

The Best Of Chic, Volume 2 (1992)

The Very Best Of Chic (2000)

I have the first, want the second and the third doesn't have anything on it that the first two don't cover plus more. The first includes "Chic Cheer" so I'm thinkin' that's the one for the list . . .

-p

 

[David Coleman]

Yes Paul vol 2 is the one to get!!!

 

[Paul.S]

With the addition of Chic, I've dropped Cheryl Lynn and left that spot tentatively, exclusively for a Barry White title.

Rachael: David Okamoto, in the article I mentioned in my first post, mentions a 3-CD Otis Redding set called The Otis Redding Story. Is this the same release you're referring to?

-p

 

[Paul.S]

But David, if only Volume 2 is included, you don't get seminal Chic smashes like "Le Freak" and "Good Times."

Of the four songs you mentioned, "Soup For One" is on Dance x 3 and the other three are on Vol. 2. But would you really rank, say, "Tavern" higher than "Dance Dance Dance," "Good Times" and "I Want Your Love." Maybe you mis-typed, but if not I'd disagree . . .

-p

 

[David Coleman]

No... it's just that TAVERN is one of 2 (3) instrumentals of there's so I mention it so it doesn't get lost. SAVOIR FAIRE is the instrumental most may know of. My favorite of the three you mentioned is I WANT YOU LOVE which is the song which made me a CHIC fan.

 

[Stu Rosen]

You'd have to include:

1. Ray Charles - The Birth of Soul (3 CD set of his best Atlantic sides)

2. Aretha Franklin - where to start? You can't go wrong with I Never Loved a Man, or Lady Soul, but I have a weakness for Spirit in the Dark - great, underrated album.

3. Dreams to Remember - a great 2-CD set of the best of Otis Redding (R&B is particularly well-represented in best-ofs, but if you want real, honest albums, you can go with Otis Blue).

4. Home in My Heart - the best of Solomon Burke (the best pure soul singer, according to Jerry Wexler).

5. Best of the Spinners - the late, great Philippe Wynne, ladies and gentlemen.

6. Star Time - 4 CDs of James Brown. Either this or Live at the Apollo.

7. The Complete Stax-Volt Singles, Vol. 1 - grittier, nastier than Motown (not that I don't love Motown, but this is the real deal).

8. Let's Get it On - Marvin Gaye - if only for the little-aired and rhapsodic "Keep Getting it On" - if you ever wished a favorite song faded out forever, this is for you.

9. The Heart and Soul of Al Green - 4 CDs of his best, and virtually no filler.

10. Stevie Wonder - Innervisions - It's amazing that someone who could produce something like this could spend the last 28 years (since Songs in the Key of Life) producing almost nothing that comes close to it.

You could do worse than picking each and every one of these up. Enjoy.

 

[Mark Murphy]

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.

 

[Jon_Are]

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

 

[Rachael B]

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.

 

[David Coleman]

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!!

 

[Zen Butler]

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)

 

[David Coleman]

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!

 

[Paul.S]

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

 

[Paul.S]

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

 

[Stu Rosen]

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.

 

[Rachael B]

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