It’s been a good year for Spanish based boutique soul label, SOUL4REAL. They’ve kept collectors/connoisseurs happy with a slew of mighty fine singles and a magnificent long player, ‘Win Or Lose’ which delivered a dozen gems from artists of the stature of Bobby Bland, Marvin Gaye and David Ruffin. Now as 2023 draws to a cold and wet close, the Soul4Real team have decided to cheer us up with another quality long player that matches the quality and consistency of that previous ‘Win Or Lose’.
The album opens with some proper, old fashioned Southern soul – James and Bobby Purify’s ‘My Adorable One’ and ends with an equally soulful ‘The Wind’ from a certain Aretha Franklin. In between you can enjoy music from more big/cult names – people like Arthur Alexander, Gladys Knight and the Pips, the Isley Brothers, Walter Jackson, Shirley Brown, Johnnie Taylor, the Soul Children, Maxine Brown and Gil Scot Heron. The least known artists on the album are the Dream Machine who deliver a lovely harmony ballad, ‘All My Love’ which was first released in 1981 as the B side to their RCA single, ‘Shakedown. Though the group aren’t that well known, their contribution here isn’t overshadowed by the bigger names.
There is so much quality soul here that’s it’s hard to know where to start. So, alphabetically let’s go with Arthur Alexander’s ‘I Need You Baby’. Originally released on Monument in 1965, we’ve seen it on Discogs for £250! But as we say long and often, quality can’t be properly quantified by cost. This is just classic soul… plain and simple. Classic soul? Well so too are the Isley Brother’s ‘Here We Go Again’, Johnnie Taylor’s ‘You’re The Best In The World’, dear Gladys’ ‘More, More, More’ and all the other included cuts we haven’t yet mentioned!
Cutting to the chase, this ‘Soul Prescription’ delivers proper soul music. You know, many people say that proper soul music can’t be defined in words. Here, let the music do the talking for you; this long player is an aural definition of soul and its home label couldn’t be more aptly named – SOUL4REAL! Soul for real for sure!
This album’s up for pre-orderON WEDNESDAY 22nd NOVEMBER (with album delivery on 7th DECEMBER) learn more @ https://soul4real.es/
(BB) 5/5
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