The only 10 soul albums you ever need to hear

(apart from all the other ones)

Much of my life up to and including now (but to a lesser extent now now, as in today, because of things like children etc) has been spent buying records. I started buying them as a teenager in the 1990s because that’s what we did back then. There wasn’t an internet to distract you with limited edition trainers/big bouncy bosoms, so weekends were spent either wandering around town smoking fags in various different locations - benches, greasy spoons, fast food restaurants, under bridges, up trees - or hanging around in record shops (Massive Records or Avid Records in Oxford, then later Purple Penguin in Bristol). I’d hear great tunes emanating from the turntable behind the counter then return home with a small stack under my arm to spin on my shitty Alba hi-fi, which came complete with two malfunctioning tape decks, a radio dial that seemed in constant existential agony, and a plastic turntable that just about worked.

I found some outstanding albums during those early days - my first big discovery was a tatty second hand copy of Talking Book by Stevie Wonder, which in turn led me to other soul gems like Black Moses by Isaac Hayes, then Trouble Man by Marvin Gaye. Then brilliant compilations like The Smoocher on Big Cheese Records which opened with Kellee Patterson’s cover version of Barry White’s I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little Bit More which might still be one of my favourite tracks of all time. The Classic Mellow Mastercuts series, the Capitol Rare compilations. The O’Jays, Betty Wright, Jean Carn, Chaka Khan, Al Green, Aretha Franklin, her sisters Carolyn and Erma, all the Marvins, all the Stevies, Donny Hathaway, The Temptations, The Impressions, The Natural Four, Maze, Bobby Womack, Minnie Riperton, Marlena Shaw, Bill Withers, Ike and Tina Turner, and on and on...

I’ve still got all of the records I bought back in those first forays and then some. I’ve even still got my copy of Rebirth Cycle by Mtume, an afrocentric jazz album that I tried to return to Massive Records in 1994 on account of it being ‘too fucking challenging’, only to be told in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t allowed to, not because it was against store policy but because the turtlenecked jazz enthusiast running the place promised me I was making a mistake, urged me to reconsider and insisted that I’d thank him for it one day. I’m not sure we ever quite got there - it’s still the aural equivalent of attempting to eat a whole lemon - but when I last checked it was also fetching around £350 online so I don’t know, should I thank him? Perhaps I should thank him. I might thank him.

This substack entry could easily be a love letter to those old record shops. Weird institutions that meant so much to me over the years, some of which are still just about with us (but a tracing paper version of what they once were), some of which are long gone. When I moved into gainful employment (though how gainful it was can easily be overstated, try writing for a living) every payday would find me schlepping around various haunts in Soho - Reckless Records, Selectadisc, Daddy Kool, JB’s, The Music and Video Exchange - or if I was feeling really flush I’d get the tube and pilgrimage to my mecca at the time, Soul Brother Records in East Putney. Soul music, particularly the 1970s variety, was my thing. I may have been too late for the London Rare Groove scene from the 1980s but I’d caught some of its aftershock that’d filtered through to middle class Oxford, and many of those early finds have provided the soundtrack to the vast majority of my life ever since.

So to this list. One that celebrates a handful of 1970s soul albums that have served me well over the years but that don’t always get the recognition they deserve (in most cases anyway). We all know the classics - What’s Going On, Aretha Now, Songs in the Key of Life etc- but these are the ones sitting slightly south on the radar. All, I suspect, available on your nearest internet...

Leroy Hutson, Hutson (1975)
Curtis Mayfield’s replacement in The Impressions, former roommate of Donny Hathaway, Leroy Hutson’s string of albums from the 1970s - Love Oh Love, The Man, Hutson, Feel the Spirit, Hutson II, Closer to the Source - is about as good a run as you can get. Hutson, his third solo album, also boasts two of the greatest/smoothest soul tracks of all time, All Because of You and Lucky Fellow. I saw him live a few years back and can attest to him being up there with the late great Bill Withers as one of the few who manage to straddle the twin moons of ‘musical genius’ and ‘lovely bloke’.

Alice Clark, Alice Clark (1972)
It took me weeks to get beyond the first two tracks, Jimmy Webb’s I Keep it Hid (almost as good as Glen Campbell’s Wichita Lineman, another Jimmy Webb classic), and her version of Petula Clark’s Looking at Life. I just kept going back and back, playing the two openers. The whole album, thankfully, is equally soulful, but bittersweet too because the world never caught up with it. It flopped on release and Alice Clark never recorded anything ever again - failure has never sounded so beautiful.

Milton Wright, Spaced (1977)
Brother of the brilliant Betty Wright, Spaced was the second of two great soul records Milton recorded in the mid-70s, the first being Friends and Buddies which features his most popular track Keep it Up, but there’s something about this record that hits the spot for me - it’s a little more ramshackle, the sound of someone figuring it out as they go along - and I particularly like the sweet sentiment of his love song All I Know is I Have You (“and that’s better than a lot of things”). After failing to set the music world ablaze, Milton disappeared from showbiz to become a judge at the Boston Municipal Court.

Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson, Bridges (1977)
I had the curious pleasure of watching Gil Scott-Heron perform live in the mid-1990s and he was the perfect blend of mumbling strung-out poet and musical force of nature. Of the numerous albums he made with his great collaborator Brian Jackson - Winter in America being another big hitter in these parts - this (though not as lauded as some) is the one. Check out We Almost Lost Detroit.

Gwen McCrae, Melody of Life (1979)
Quite possibly my favourite singer of all time. 90% of Me is You, incredible. Let’s Straighten it Out, so so good. Funky Sensation, sensational (and funky). Yet none of those tracks are on this album... but you know what is? All This Love That I’m Givin’ (oh man, tune!), and my favourite Gwen McCrae track of all time, the mellow “two-stepper” I Can Only Think of You.

Shuggie Otis, Inspiration, Information (1974)
There’s no other record like this, soulful, bluesy, psychedelic, futuristic with it’s use of drum machines, and with practically every instrument on the album (with the exception of the odd horn) played by Shuggie himself, making him a kind of proto-Prince. A true labour of love, it took him three years to make, then he was unceremoniously dropped by his record label when it came out to a whimper. But to listen now it’s scandalous he’s not up there with the best of them.

The Rance Allen Group, Say My Friend (1977)
Produced by the Mizell Brothers who made exceptional jazz funk (my other passion) with artists like Donald Byrd, Bobbi Humphrey, Gary Bartz, and Johnny Hammond - but here they’re more devoted to harnessing the soulful power of gospel. Lead singer Rance (Allen) went on to become a Pentecostal Bishop, though he surely can’t have come any closer to divinity than on the standout track, Peace of Mind.

The Isley Brothers, Brother, Brother, Brother (1972)
Whenever people talk about great soul singers you hear all the usual names: Aretha, Otis, Marvin blah blah. But two greats that rarely get their dues from where I’m sitting - Aaron Neville (also an early adopter of the now-ubiquitous popstar face-tattoo), and Ron Isley from The Isley Brothers. The title track here was penned by Carole King and apparently intended as a follow up/homage to What’s Going On.

Curtis Mayfield, Roots (1971)
You could go for practically any Curtis Mayfield album, particularly from the stretch in the first half of the 1970s when he was on fire every time. But Roots, his second solo album, encapsulates everything he was about - tuneful activism done brilliantly. Keep On Keeping On, We Got to Have Peace, these are tracks just as pertinent now as they were then.

Laura Nyro, Gonna Take a Miracle (1971)
The greatest blue-eyed soul record ever made and that includes Dusty in Memphis. Though, granted, much of it here is down to the presence of Labelle (just a few years away from their smash hit Lady Marmalade) who pose as backing singers but are clearly so much more than that, taking on R&B standards from the 50s and 60s (Nowhere to Run being my favourite) and upgrading them to something really special.

Thoughts? Feelings? I’d love to hear your recommendations too. Feel very free to leave a comment just down there somewhere.