Wednesday, December 10, 2008

The Soul Finders - Sweet Soul Music


The Soul Finders' Sweet Soul Music provides many ways for me to redeem myself as a blogger. First of all: I've stated earlier that I think funk and soul has plenty of business under the umbrella of Rock & Roll, I just haven't really posted much to that effect, mostly because there are 400 incredible blogs already posting all the rare stuff. Well I haven't seen this anywhere aside from a small mention at Funky16Corners. His opinions seem pretty mixed and I might agree, but it's worth a listen.

Most (all?) tracks are covers and with some variation on music styles ranging from straight soul to organ-fueled R&B. I guess that's not many but at times it sounds like different bands playing each song, especially when it comes to the vocal tracks. Which leads me to redemption point #2: on this blog I've had a habit of scoffing off vocal tracks in favor of instrumentals. Other way around here. All four vocal tracks are excellent, sweetly sung and well-played, more energetic than the instrumentals. The instrumentals are good, sure, but I'd do just as well listening to Bill Blacks Combo or Booker T and the MGs.

From doing a little research it seems that the arranger and band members come from a reasonable pedigree, but to be honest most of what I've read is a little past my level of savvy. As funky16corners points out, this is NOT related to Eddy Bo at all. For a while I thought it was local to New Orleans but I don't know where I got that. Maybe I was just going on the arrangers name that ends in "eaux" and the fact that I found it in some tiny pocket of the west bank, nestled among much less exciting records.

The cover may not look great in that picture and the record is hardly silent but it's certainly clean enough to enjoy. You'll just be aware that it's vinyl, that's all.

So here it is

Side A:

  1. Sweet Soul Music (vocal)
  2. Respect
  3. Dead End Street
  4. Tomorrow Night (vocal)
  5. Passion Flower

Side B:

  1. The Happening
  2. Why Don't You Do Right (vocal)
  3. Soul American
  4. Raindrops
  5. Oh How I Need You Joe

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi, I've been looking all around for this ... Any chance of a reupload ?

Many many thanks and all the best,

K