"MERCURY SOUL DIAMONDS"

Pick a wide variety of  un-reissued soul 45’s that fell through the cracks when originally issued on a nationally distributed label, program them imaginatively as a hip vinyl DJ would do, provide informative liner notes written by someone who knows this stuff inside out and can tell us about the earlier and later singles by the artists as well as the careers and styles of their producers, and pretty much let the music speak for itself, which it does.The material on offer here runs, I’d guess, from about 1965-1973, with most coming from the 60’s. Going back to the 1940’s, Mercury always featured Black artists in any number of styles, so their venture into Soul in the 1960’s should come as no surprise. They had great success with Jerry Butler and Gene Chandler, they had an entire label (Blue Rock) devoted to soul, and even their Smash subsidiary featured an occasional soul 45 here and there…AND Mercury continued to be a major soul label well into the late 1970’s, although my own tastes tend to lean toward pre-1974 material. Unlike Decca, Mercury truly DID know what it was doing in this genre of music, and using the logic of  “release 100 45’s and you are more likely to get five or ten hits than if you release 10 45’s,” this MERCURY SOUL DIAMONDS album presents a ladle full of rich Soul 45’s from the deep pot of stew which is the “other” 90 % of Mercury soul singles, the non-hits.

Headquartered in Chicago, Mercury was tuned into that city’s rich soul tradition, but wisely  they also licensed in material from all over and had relationships with producers in many other soul-rich cities, so you get material here from Memphis, Georgia, Texas, New York, Washington DC, and Nashville, as well as the Windy City, and also there is a wide variety of styles represented here: little-known singles from well-known producers such as Bobby Robinson and Huey Meaux sit alongside Sun recording artist Junior Parker, who was recording in Memphis with producer Bowlegs Miller, and into that mix we add the uptown production style of Jerry Ragavoy working with vocalist Carl Hall…and Margie Hendrix who came out of the Ray Charles orbit, James Crawford who came out of the James Brown orbit, and Billy Young who was actually produced by Otis Redding himself. Also, some artists moved to Mercury after success on other labels: Joe Tex came from Dial to Mercury, and William Bell from Stax to Mercury (Bell’s albums on Mercury are well worth picking up…you could get them quite cheap at one time). Even Dee Dee Warwick, whom sister Dionne has referred to as “the REAL singer in the family” and who sounds great on ANY label, is here. Don’t hesitate in scoring a copy of MERCURY SOUL DIAMONDS as soon as possible. It’s available from Crystal Ball Records in North America and from various European soul suppliers…

INFO

https://kendrasteinereditions.wordpress.com/2014/05/14/mercury-soul-diamonds-buried-treasure-cdr-france/

trax:

1. Stop And Think It Over - James "Sugar Boy" Crawford 2. If I Had Your Love - Little Junior Parker 3. I'm Leaving (This Old Town) - Jimmy Norman 4. In My Heart - Peaches 5. Tried So Hard To Please Her - The Knight Brothers 6. My Everything You Are - The Mark IV 7. Baby - Margie Hendrix 8. Someone To Love Tonight - Ricky Lewis 9. Ain't Going Back To That - Carl Stewart 10. Laid Back And Easy - Obrey Wilson 11. I'm Gonna Be A Winner - Willie Charles Gray 12. Don't Make Me Get Another Man - Gloria Bouschell 13. Don't Blame Me - Willie Hightower 14. Come Back Home - The Checkers 15. Nothing's Too Much (Nothing's Too Good) - Billy Young 16. What's Come Over You - Carl Hall 17. I Wake Up Crying - William Bell 18. When Love Slips Away - Dee Dee Warwick 19. Let's Go Somewhere And Talk - Joe Tex 20. I Can't Stand It - Theola Kilgore

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