Review: Long-lost Tidewater soul classic 'An Extraordinary Dream' gets a welcome reissue here by Symphonical with input from the last surviving band member Larry Gray. This timeless love song was recorded in 1969 at Charlie McClendon Studios and was the first of two singles by Gray and his group, The Soul Seekers, which was made up of five Huntington High alumni who helped shape the region's musical scene. Led by Gray who was fresh from five years at Stax Records with Otis Redding, the group backed numerous touring acts and this single was produced under Wilson Harrell's Check Productions. It's a lovably forlorn and low-slung soul sound with heavy-hearted melodies, horns and aching vocals.
The Spinners - "Dont Let The Green Grass Fool You"
Syl Johnson - "Black Balloons"
Peggy Scott & Jo Jo Benson - "Soulshake"
Richie Havens - "I Can't Make It Anymore"
The Exits - "You Got To Have Money"
The Joneses - "Pull My String (Turn Me On)"
The Dells - "Run For Cover"
O.C. Smith - "On Easy Street"
The Radiants - "It Ain't No Big Thing"
Billy Stewart - "Summertime"
Brother To Brother - "In The Bottle"
Baby Huey - "Hard Times"
Johnny Williams - "Maggie"
Joe Simon - "When"
James Carr - "Pouring Water On A Drowning Man"
Roscoe Robinson - "That's Enough"
Blackrock - "Blackrock Yeah Yeah"
American Gypsy - "Golden Ring"
Jon Lucien - "Search For The Inner Self"
The Mist - "Life Walked Out"
Betty Davis - "In The Meantime"
Darrell Banks - "Beautiful Feeling"
Review: Paul Weller is perhaps one of the best non-soul musicians to ask to compile a rare soul compilation. Rather than documenting soul music as it proliferated in the 1960s, Ace Records' soul aim was to capture a genre, fashion and style as one man saw it in retrospect, in light of his involvement in the mod revival of the mid 1970s. Weller would later go onto form and front The Jam, but in late 1974, shortly before his involvement in the punk movement, he was about none of that business at all. Punk partly grew on febrile tissues of mod, which was in turn an offshoot of 60s soul; and it is true that we may hear a foetal form of the sound in the brasher cuts on this record, be it Billy Stewart's 'Summertime' or James Carr's 'Pouring Water'. Also clock Brother To Brother's 'In The Bottle', a super-early drum machine blues gem perfect for the house heads.
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