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REEL 78003CD
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"A rare classic of 1980s soul music. Soul vocalist Bettye LaVette first caught the eye of the music world with her 2005 album I've Got My Own Hell To Raise, which was wildly acclaimed, and was a 'Best-Of-The-Year' pick for innumerable publications. Despite this, LaVette had already been recording as far back as the age of 16, and her earliest singles date all the way back to the early 1960s. From 1962 to 1978 she was strictly a singles artist, cutting potent and high-energy soul, disco, and neo-funk tracks for Atlantic, Epic, and West End Records among others, before landing at Motown in the 1980s. It was during this time that LaVette recorded her full-length debut, 1982's Tell Me A Lie. The Steve Buckingham-produced album was teeming with Southern soul flair across ten solid tracks of Motown greatness that stood firmly in contrast to the electronic, synth-heavy style that R&B espoused at the time. Tell Me A Lie was only a lukewarm commercial success, in spite of the heavy promotion Motown rolled out, but it was highly acclaimed critically, and is oft heralded as an unsung classic of '80s soul. From her ripping, funk-inflected version of 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine', to the proto-Pointer Sisters joint 'I Like It Like That', to the title track, which would later render a Billboard Country Songs hit for Janie Fricke."
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REEL 78001CD
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"A classic album from an unsung heroine of soul. Kim Tolliver is a name that has been unfairly lost to the annals of music history. For much of the 1960s she became renowned among R&B music circles for her dramatic, Southern-fried ballads, and emotionally heavy renditions of classic blues and soul songs, as well as for her songwriting prowess, having penned numerous singles for fellow soul singer Margie Joseph. From 1967 all the way to 1981 she cut single after single for Northern Soul treasure trove labels like Castro Records, Rojac Records, Tay-Ster, and many more, but throughout her long and illustrious career only ever recorded two studio full-lengths. Her first studio album, 1971's Passing Clouds (Released under the moniker Kimberley Briggs) passed by with little fanfare, but it was 1973's Come And Get Me I'm Ready that made her a name in deep soul. Though the album was also commercially unsuccessful, it reached great critical acclaim for its complex melodies, solid arrangements, and premium grade soul songwriting from Tolliver, and her then husband Fred Briggs, a fellow singer/songwriter. The album drew heavily from the classic Memphis sound, with big brass, and high-energy balladeering, all made cohesive by Tolliver's commanding vocal presence. Though Tolliver would eventually leave the music business, and eventually succumb to Alzheimer's in 2007, her unsung legacy remains in choice cuts like 'The Other Side Of Town', 'The Way He Used To', and her own take on Gwen McCrae's 'I'm Losing The Feeling'."
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