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RUM 2011045LP
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"Released in August 1961, Mary Wells' debut album was the very first LP on the legendary Motown label. To hear Mary Wells' rich-throated belting of the lyrics on 'Bye Bye Baby' is a reminder of the even greater artistic career that might have been had Motown mogul Barry Gordy and producer Smokey Robinson not opted to soften and commercialize Wells sound. The raw power in Wells' voice is evident much more so than on her later and better-known hits. While the song is entirely secular and romantic in its R&B riffs, Wells' gospel choir training is amply evident. It's more reminiscent of the type of recordings for which Aretha Franklin would later become known than of the smooth pop sound prominent on most of Wells' other hits. Not only an incredibly underrated R&B album, filled with a quantity of killer dancefloor-fillers, but an important insight into an artist and her record company both taking their first steps toward what would be the eventual enduring legacy of each."
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RUM 2011046LP
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"The very first album by one the greatest and most influential singers in the fields of soul and R&B came out in 1961 on the Motown label and sees Marvin singing, playing drums, and piano on an album of mainly rearranged jazz and pop standards, inspired by his passion for Nat King Cole and Ray Charles. Though this is not Gaye with a fully developed style, and it is hardly the innovative legend of Let's Get It On or What's Going On this is still top notch jazzy-soul that reveals traces of what would soon become a legend. The studio musicians come up with nice arrangements of the material, sometimes even with hints of the punch they would bring to his later, chart-topping material. Though a little before Marvin got his 'groove on,' this is still the first of four albums of jazz covers he recorded and an important look at the early days of the Motown-sound."
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RUM 2011044LP
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"Formed in 1961 when Dennis Wilson, the only Beach Boy to regularly visit the beach, asked his brother Brian to write a song about the sport of surfing. The Beach Boys reached number 75 in national charts with their first single (the resultant song 'Surfin'') and were immediately signed to a major label. Though many debut albums in the early '60s were mainly built around a few smash-hits, the Beach Boys' 1962 full length debut on Capitol (featuring such hits as 'Surfin' Safari,' '409' and their version of the Eddie Cochran classic 'Summertime Blues') remains one of the greatest first steps in American pop culture, and a mandatory chapter in the history of rock and roll."
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RUM 2011047LP
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"Born in Kenner, Louisiana and growing up in the suburbs of New Orleans, Lloyd Price knew massive success very early when Art Rupe of Specialty Records visited New Orleans searching for new talents and heard his 'Lawdy Miss Clawdy' and wanted to record it. Price had no band back then, so Rupe hired Dave Bartholomew and his band (which included Fats Domino on piano) to back Price up in the session. The resulting single was a total chart-smasher and it took a long long time for poor Lloyd to equal such an achievement. In 1954 he was drafted and ended up in Korea, when he returned not only did he find that he had been replaced by Little Richard, but his precious chaffeur, Larry Williams, had also become a Specialty recording artist. But between 1957 and 1959, first under his own KRC records and then after he signed to ABC-Paramount, Price recorded a series of national hits most of which ended up on his astonishing 1959 debut album."
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RUM 2011048LP
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"Perhaps no babysitter in history got a bigger break than Eva Narcissus Boyd, who babysat for songwriters Carole King and Gerry Goffin. It was early 1962 when they were inspired by a dance Little Eva was doing around the house and wrote a song called 'The Locomotion.' Originally meant for Dee Dee Sharp, returning home one day Carole and Gerry found their babysitter singing it. They liked what they heard, so they rushed her into the studio, with King doing the backing vocals. Little Eva was only sixteen when 'The Locomotion' hit number one. Her salary as the Goffins' babysitter was $35 dollars a week. Her earnings from 'The Locomotion' were reported to be around thirty thousand dollars. She appeared on television shows and in numerous magazines. She performed live in the U.S. and did several tours of England. Remembered by most as a one hit wonder Little Eva was more than that and her debut album on the Dimension label reveals one of the funniest yet talented artists of the 'girl groups' era. Also features her second chart smasher 'Keep Your Hands Off My Baby,' later covered on stage by the Beatles."
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RUM 2011043LP
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"Well-known for her trademark legs, throaty voice, and boundless stage energy, Tina Turner was one of the sexiest and most popular international performers of the 20th century. Ike Turner, a well established seminal figure in the early years of rock & roll as both a performer and talent scout, met her one night in St. Louis while he was performing with his 'Kings Of Rhythm': she just grabbed the microphone and sang a B.B. King song, impressing Ike so immediately and overwhelmingly that he asked her to perform regularly with them. The rest is history: Ike's slick managing skills and songwriting, along with Tina's intensely energetic lead voice, three back-up 'Ikettes' and a technically airtight eight-piece band produced a combination of country blues, rock and roll, ghetto rhythm and gospel passion that created a legend lasting 50 years. 'It's Gonna Work Out Fine, ' 'I Pity the Fool, ' 'I Idolize You, and 'Tra La La La La.' are just some of the R&B gems included in their 1960 astonishing debut album."
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RUM 2011041LP
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"The debut album by Diana Ross' Supremes originally came out in late 1962, right after Motown's boss Berry Gordy signed them and changed their name (the group was previously referred to as 'The Primettes') and immediately before Barbara Martin left the band (which cost her being cut from the legendary '3 on the barstools' cover, and the loss of any royalties from the album). Mainly a collection of their early singles, Meet The Supremes features pure soul gems like 'I Want A Guy', 'Buttered Popcorn', '(He's) Seventeen' and many more little classics recorded by this quartet of seventeen year-olds who, although still far from the international star status they would soon achieve, helped pave the road to the definition of the classic 'Motown Sound'."
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RUM 2011042LP
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"The Marvelettes' debut album from 1961 was the sixth release on Motown and the first big success for the company after the Miracles. Released too early to picture four African American schoolmates on the cover (which did not become customary before late 1962), Please Mr. Postman was released on the wave of the popular success of the album's title track, the first Motown number-one single and one of the first recorded by an all girl group. Despite their early success, the group was eclipsed in popularity by long-term opponents the Supremes, with whom they shared an intense rivalry that caused the girls' mental breakdowns and illnesses of all kinds, until their definitive disbanding. The Marvelettes were Motown's first successful girl group as well as the most underrated: while the Supremes and the Vandellas have been in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame since the late 80's, the Marvelettes' nomination for induction arrived in 2012."
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RUM 2011037LP
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"Originally released in 1956 on the Imperial label and collecting both old and new chart-smashers, most of which were co-written with Dave Bartolomew, This Is Fats Domino explains the legendary role Antoine Domino had, and still has, in New Orleans' popular culture. 'Blueberry Hill,' 'Rockin' and Reeling,' 'The Fat Man's Hop...' this is the soundtrack to a trip to Bourbon Street. 'Fats won't ever grow like a weed or be as tall as a building,' they used to say in New Orleans, 'but he's as strong as the Mississippi and he'll be around just as long.'"
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RUM 2011034LP
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"One of the last remaining links to the heyday of R&B and funk, 'Mr. Rhythm' is a pure living legend of black music. He not only produced and wrote songs for folks like Ike Turner, Parliament/Funkadelic, Edwin Starr, and Stevie Wonder, and worked at seminal labels like Chess, Motown, and Fortune Records, but he also wrote and sang an enormous number of his own songs, cult classics like 'Jail Bait,' 'Greasy Chicken,' and 'Bacon Fat'. This release focuses on the earliest -- and dirtiest -- years of his five-decade-long career, compiling all of his singles from 1957-1958 for the legendary Fortune Records label."
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