V/A: Lowriders - Sweet Soul Harmony From the Golden Era [KENT]

Why you'll love it

This Kent LP gathers the best of the label's two This Is Lowrider Soul CDs onto vinyl, pressed in the EU. It mixes Los Angeles favourites with East Coast and Chicago harmony groups, several of them prized by collectors for decades.

This edition

• Compilation
• Pressed in the EU
• Stereo mix

About the album

On a Sunday cruise down Van Nuys Boulevard or through East LA, the car is the star and the soundtrack is sweet soul: slow, aching vocal harmony groups whose 45s were passed hand to hand long after the charts forgot them. Kent, the UK label that has made a craft of soul archaeology, put this one together for exactly that culture.

The Superbs' "It Hurts So Much" is the best-known LA side here, and Lee Williams & The Cymbals' "Please Say It Isn't So" and The Manhattans' "Follow Your Heart" come from the Carnival label, much loved on the scene. Chicago brings The Esquires' "No Doubt About It" and Little Ben & The Cheers' "(I'm Not Ready To) Settle Down," a lowrider must-have. Indianapolis group The Vanguards charted with "Somebody Please," The Exceptions and Melvin Hicks & The Versatiles sat on master tapes until Kent issued them, and Reuben Bell's "It's Not That Easy" now fetches serious money as an original 45.

Fourteen tracks in one unbroken mood. Hydraulics are sold separately, though a few of these songs could probably lift a Chevy on their own.

Also at Kops: more Lowriders on vinyl · browse Classic Soul

Tracklist

Listen

On Kent Soul (cat# KENT 522).