In the flurry of wheeling and dealing this last week, we almost forgot to mention that we finished two great records.
Shirley Ann Lee: Songs of Light (NPH44003)
In the works since we acquired Felton Williams’ Double U Sound tape vault and began working on Local Customs: Downriver Revival, Toldeo, Ohio’s Shirley Ann Lee finally gets to step out on her own. A polite church going lady, Shirley cut a series of no-budget records for Williams’ Revival imprint and her own Shirleo record label in the late ’60s and ’70s. Rocking a decidedly out of date style, her 45s sank without a trace. By the mid-’70s Shirley ann Lee had ceased recording altogether. Collected here is the bulk of her Revival sides, plus demos, rehearsals, and a few snippets from the Shirley Ann Lee Radio Hour (never issued).
Track list:
Side A
1. Introduction
2. All I Have To Depend On
3. I Shall Not Be Moved
4. Stop Look & Listen
5. You Better Run
6. There’s A Light
7. Everything Gonna Be Alright
8. You’ve Been So Good To Me
9. Blessed Quietness
Side B
1. Intermission
2. How Can I Lose
3. Time
4. Stay On Your Knees
5. Someday
6. Get Back
7. Walk Through The Valley
8. Please Accept My Prayer
9. I’ve Got To Make It
Songs Of Light will be available on LP only (cut in glorious mono) on February 28th 2012.
Born out of a few masters that turned up in our Boddie haul, we’re pleased to be issuing I Travel Alone, the complete recordings of Lou Ragland between 1967-1978. Packaged as three CDs replicating his albums Hot Chocolate and Understand Each Other, plus an unreleased live album cut at the Agora Ballroom in 1973, or four LPs that cover the aforementioned three plus an album of singles, I Travel Alone is Ragland’s first career spanning overview.
Track list:
CD 1
Lou Ragland “I Travel Alone”
Lou Ragland “Big Wheel”
Volcanic Eruption “Red Robin”
Volcanic Eruption “I’ve Got Something Going For Me”
Hot Chocolate “Good For The Gander”
Hot Chocolate “We Had True Love” (45 version)
Hot Chocolate “Ain’t That A Groove”
Hot Chocolate “So Dam Funky”
Hot Chocolate “Sexy Moods Of Your Mind”
Hot Chocolate “Messin’ With Sly”
Hot Chocolate “We Had True Love”
Hot Chocolate “What You Want To Do”
Hot Chocolate “What Should I Do”
Lou Ragland & Hot Chocolate “I Can’t Take It”
Lou Ragland & Hot Chocolate “What The Doctor Prescribed”
CD 2
Lou Ragland “Since You Said You’d Be Mine”
Lou Ragland “Didn’t Mean to Leave You”
Wildfire “Tend To Your Business”
Lou Ragland “Understand Each Other”
Lou Ragland “What Happened To The Feeling”
Lou Ragland “Since You Said You’d Be Mine”
Lou Ragland “Just For Being You (Lovin’ You)”
Lou Ragland “What Should I Do?”
Lou Ragland “It’s Got To Change”
Lou Ragland “The Next World”
Lou Ragland “Understand Each Other” (Instrumental)
Live from Agency
Hot Chocolate “The World Is A Ghetto”
Hot Chocolate “Could It Be I’m Falling In Love”
Hot Chocolate “Understand Each Other”
Hot Chocolate “It Ain’t My Fault”
Hot Chocolate “Until I Met You”
Hot Chocolate “Spend My Life Loving You”
Hot Chocolate “Brother Louie”
Hot Chocolate “Good For The Gander”
Filed under: A Light On The Southside, Revival | Tags: NPR Music, Oliver Wang, Soul-Sides
Oliver Wang just gave us a two’fer review by giving us mad props on both Local Customs: Downriver Revival & a thoughtful look into Light: On The South Side. Here’s a link to his reivew, Shining A Light On Chicago’s South Side Soul.
There’s a great article by Hobey Echlin from Detroit’s Metro Times on Felton Williams and the Double-U Sound studio featured in last week’s paper. You can read it here.
Filed under: Revival, Smart's Palace | Tags: Downriver Revival, Smart's Palace
We’re so totally immersed in three upcoming projects that we almost forgot that we’ve got two releases hitting the streets today. You can find the new Eccentric Soul: Smart’s Palace and the LP/DVD of Local Customs: Downriver Revival at your nearest record store for your listening and viewing pleasure.
We got a great review for Local Customs: Downriver Revival from Patrick Sisson today in Pitchfork. We’re loving his comments on the DVD, “…that includes a 30-minute documentary and an interactive sound vault with over 200 extra tracks, arranged by individual boxes of tape. It not only makes most bonus DVDs look like cheap wastes of plastic and time, it lets listeners virtually walk into the lost basement studio in Ecorse, Mich., and view some of the people and places that seeped into Double U’s reels of tape.”
Filed under: Revival
Considering we spent almost three years working on this release, we’ve got to say we’re very pleased with the great reviews we’ve been getting on Downriver Revival. Here’s Soul-Sides piece, Now Paging Numero.
The Local Customs: Downriver Revival LPs have arrived and they’re looking tight! We added an extra page inside, chock full of images from Felton’s seemingly endless array of photo albums, and the DVD is also included for your viewing and listening pleasure. You can purchase the LP here. Hey vinyl subscribers: we’re getting everything ready to start shipping these out to you asap and we thank you for your patience.
Oliver Wang gave Local Customs: Downriver Revival a great review on NPR’s All Things Considered this evening. You can listen to it here.
Filed under: Revival
Above is the view from Sonotheque’s DJ booth where we were camped out spinning 45′s all night. Thanks to everyone who made it out and we hope to do something like this again for Eccentric Soul: Smart’s Palace somewhere in May.
After our successful Downriver Revival event in Brooklyn earlier this month, we are going ahead and doing the same thing on our home turf at Sonotheque next Tuesday night March 3rd at 9pm. The event will showcase a screening of the 30 minute documentary on the making of Downriver Revival, we will be playing music from the Double-U Sound vault that includes gospel, group soul, garage-punk, northern, jazz, and funk, and we’ll be hiding out behind the tinted glass spinning some rare cuts from the Numero archive for your listening pleasure into the midnight hour.
