UK soul entrepreneur GARY VAN DEN BUSSCHE is a mighty busy man. Gary’s been in the soul business for over 40 years – for 28 of those he ran his own soul club nights and DJ’d at the renowned Tramp nightspot. A few years back he created the must read DISCO SOUL GOLD (DSG) blog/website which soon spawned DSG RECORDS, a label that’s sourced and released plenty of classy modern soul in its relatively short life span. If all that’s not enough Gary is currently hosting his own show on Starpoint Radio. He broadcasts in the weekday (Monday- Thursday) mid morning spot (11 – 1).
Now most soul stations feature charts of some sort and this gave Gary the idea for a new album…. a compilation that collected together all the big soul chart riders from the year and with impeccable timing as the year end beckons (yes, it’s November), Gary’s DSG Records have just released the very album – ‘THE UK SOUL CHART ALBUM’.
Avid soul radio listeners will know most of the tunes and collectors will have many of them but it’s kind of satisfying to have all the year’s big ones in one place. The set is a 19 tracker and features stuff like Regina Troupe’s ‘Friday Night’, the Nigel Lowis mix of Kenny Thomas’ ‘Your Love’ , Al Lindsey’s Cotton Candy’ , Tilly Grace’s ‘Chill’ and Sir Wick’s ‘I Love You’. If that’s not enough to satisfy, then to remind of what a great soul singer he was, there’s Ali Woodson’s ‘You Gotta Believe That’
Gary says that he sees the album in the same way that we would have once collected the Motown Chartbusters or Top of the Pops (non-original artists) albums back in the day. Well ‘THE UK SOUL CHART ALBUM’ is a million times better than those tacky Chartbusters and as for the Motown comparison, well, you can make up your own minds but the new music does represent where we are now in terms of commercial soul in the same way as those Motown sets did in the 70s and 80s.
‘THE UK SOUL CHART ALBUM’ is available now but be warned…. the CD will only have one limited edition pressing only!
