A lotta lotta fun...
Just Barry | Colorado | 12/29/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Okay, before we get to the music check out the album cover - those are mods. And the thirty songs on Sock It to Em Soul do a wonderful job of placing 60s Soul into the context of what the Brits loved about American music - it was muscular, organic and, obviously soulful.
There are plenty of household names on this comp and they do not disappoint from Aretha's "Save Me" to Sam and Dave's "Don't Turn Your Heater On." And we all know the Drifters from oldies radio, but "Baby What I Mean" is such a sweet, soulful pop tune it's a revelation. But those are just the primers.
The artists I was not familiar with prior to picking up Sock It to Em Soul are the ones who really make this set. Miriam Makeba's "Pata Pata" and William Bell's "Never Like This Before" have such playful, soul swing, you can't help but shake your hips even if you're playing you headphones at your cube at work. The best songs, though, Ben E. King's "Cry No More," Willie Tee's "Walkin' Up A One Way Street" and Mary Well's "Dear Lover" are so sad and uplifting at the same time that they make the perfect getting ready to go out - or inviting friends back for a night cap, you can't go wrong.
I mean, when JJ Jackson belts "we're gonna party for free for days" on "Sho 'Nuff" who wouldn't want to join him?"
You won't sit down
Laurence Upton | Wilts, UK | 01/17/2006
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Subtitled "60's club soul classics from the vaults of Atlantic, Atco, Loma, Reprise, Stax and Warner Bros Records 1963-1968", this 30-track collection gathers a sure-fire selection of tried and tested floor fillers, annotated by Richard Searling, who had a hand in the compilation. Well-known standards are mingled with harder to find obscurities that have found favour in the clubs, dance halls, discos and youth clubs long after their original shelf-life might have been supposed to be over. If you are over-familiar with tracks by Aretha Franklin or Booker T., you are still likely to be delighted by the post-Motown Mary Wells ballad or the Ramsey Lewis-like Googie Rene Combo instrumental.
The album is topped and tailed with the 1966 James Bond-inspired Sock It To 'Em JB, closing with Part 2, which formed the original flipside and was an instrumental version of the song treated electronically with reverb and echo and so forth; possibly the forerunner of the reggae dub versions and dance remixes of a decade later.
Much of the music inbetween was recorded at the Stax Studios in Memphis or the Atlantic Studios in New York, but some of it was made in Nashville, New Orleans, Detroit, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Chicago, often using the top studio house bands. 18 of the 30 tracks are in mono. 78.50 minutes of top quality soul of all genres. You won't sit down."
Track Listings (30) - Disc #1