Musings is taking a bit of an R&B battering at the moment but I promise this is the last of the music focused meanderings that have been so prevalent recently. I shall have to call this month the November abomination and a direct result of the recent CD restructuring calamity.
This is indeed another of the CD collections that reared its lovely head at the time of the aforementioned CD reorganisation and although it was released on the Kent label (the UK reissue label, not the American label started in 1958 by the Bihari Brothers), it is in fact an excellent compilation containing 26 fantastic Chess and Checker recordings from the 60s. Chess is hardly under-represented on this site and you will find a brief Chess history in the Labels section and an anthology recommendation in the Twenty To Try section of the Rag’s R&B Primer. However, this particular compilation is a smaller sampling and a lesser known mix of the great musical sound produced by Chicago record producers and recording artists. There is a little overlap with the 2CD anthology called “Chess Soul – A Decade Of Chicago’s Finest“, which I believed I described as containing “track after track of stellar performances” in Twenty To Try (still stand by it as a great primer collection), but in the main this collection is culled from the full range of the Chess family of labels – Chess, Checker, Argo and Cadet etc. – and with the best sound quality available.
Chicago Radio Soul embraces styles and performers from bluesman Little Milton to Northern Soul favourite Tony ‘The Entertainer’ Clarke, vocal group The Radiants to emotive soul diva Denise La Salle, gospel fuelled soul singer Mitty Collier to ex-Soul Stirrer James Phelps. In almost all cases, the focus is on less established tracks by these excellent artists, with only Fontella Bass’ ‘Rescue Me‘ troubling the actual pop charts.
The set includes informative liner notes by Robert Pruter, author of the book Chicago Soul, which is itself an important addition to the legacy of black popular music and a must read for anyone remotely interested in the history of the music business in Chicago. This CD very much puts the case for Chess being far more than the Blues label for which they are usually fêted. Incidentally, I would normally have given the track listing for this particular release, but I’ve run out of things to say to generate the appropriate entry length and 26 tracks is therefore simply too many for the format of this post – and you know me, the aesthetic is everything!!
Not Just The Blues indeed 🎷🎤🎺🎸😆