{"id":506,"date":"2011-05-09T05:10:54","date_gmt":"2011-05-09T10:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=506"},"modified":"2016-02-02T21:36:47","modified_gmt":"2016-02-02T21:36:47","slug":"album-review-rb-spotlight-60","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/05\/09\/album-review-rb-spotlight-60\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: R&B Spotlight \u201860"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nineteen-sixty might not be the first year that comes to mind when you think of compelling music making the charts. But a new collection from the estimable folks at UK-based label Fantastic Voyage might lead you to give a more careful listen to music from that era. R&B Spotlight \u201960<\/em> is a jam-packed 2cd collection of \u2013 as the set\u2019s subtitle puts it \u2013 \u201c60 Rhythm & Blues Hits from the US Charts of 1960.\u201d<\/p>\n

To start with, it\u2019s simply good value for the money. Sixty songs is a lot of music. And while fans of pop, soul and R&B will recognize many of the artists<\/em> featured within, some of the actual songs<\/em> might not seem familiar. Here\u2019s a partial list of the acts on R&B Spotlight \u201960<\/em>: Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, Johnny Otis, Elmore James, Fats Domino, The <\/strong>Hollywood<\/strong> Argyles, Aaron Neville<\/strong> and Chuck Berry<\/strong>. Simply put, this collection casts a pretty wide stylistic net. Fact is, all of those artists charted (on the R&B charts; less frequently on the pop charts) in 1960.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s interesting is the number of songs on this set that were made famous (or successfully revived) by other, later artists. Jessie Hill<\/strong>\u2019s \u201cOoh Poo Pah Doo\u201d and \u201cBig Boy Pete\u201d were both staples of Paul Revere and the Raiders<\/strong><\/a>\u2019 live set in the first half of the 60s. Bo Diddley<\/strong>\u2019s \u201cRoad Runner\u201d was recorded by a long list of UK acts. Paul McCartney<\/strong> covered Lavern Baker<\/strong>\u2019s \u201cShake a Hand\u201d on his 1999 Run Devil Run<\/em> album. Jimmy Jones<\/strong>\u2019 \u201cHandy Man\u201d was drastically rearranged for a hit version by James Taylor<\/strong> (of all people). And speaking of the softer side of 70s artists, who can forget Jackson Browne<\/strong>\u2019s live cover of Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs<\/strong>\u2019 \u201cStay\u201d? (I\u2019m trying.) And a young quartet from the north of England cut a demo of \u201cBesame Mucho\u201d (done here by The Coasters<\/strong>) in hopes of scoring a record deal with Decca in 1962. (The quartet\u2019s manager Brian Epstein<\/strong> was famously told by Decca\u2019s A&R man Dick Rowe<\/strong> that \u201cguitar groups are on the way out.\u201d)<\/p>\n

As typical of the era, there are a few nutty, near-novelty type songs on the collection. The Coasters\u2019 “What About Us\u201d is a lot of fun, though. The songs cover a lot of styles, and are here in good, consistent sound quality. If you\u2019re a rock fan, these songs might not be in your collection. But they form an important part of the back story, seeing as they exerted a great deal of influence \u2013 in terms of performance, style, delivery and subject matter \u2013 upon later acts. As musical history, R&B Spotlight \u201960<\/em> is a good overview. As plain old entertainment, it works nearly as well. Recommended.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nineteen-sixty might not be the first year that comes to mind when you think of compelling music making the charts. But a new collection from the estimable folks at UK-based […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[810],"class_list":["post-506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","tag-fantastic-voyage","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10243,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions\/10243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}