Sunday Soul (part 2) - Lost & Found

So lately the tumbleweed have been about the only things shakin' in these parts. What can i say? It's a mixture of being busy with the real non-musical world and the labor of love of writing about music has felt more like a labor than a love. Don't get me wrong, I've been listening to some great stuff lately, and I'm going to start sharing more of it with you this coming week as I work my way out of this funk. That being said, I'm serving up a second helping of Sunday Soul this week to make up for the famine of last week, and oh what a meaty helping it is.

It comes from the always solid BBE Music and is titled Lost & Found: Real R'n'B & Soul. It's the second volume in the Lost & Found series, the first being Lost and Found: Rockabilly and Jump Blues, which came out back in 2007, and like the first was compiled by the dynamic duo of Keb Darge and Paul Weller. Not familiar with the names? Darge is a staple in the BBE diet, having compiled more albums than any other DJ for them. When not assembling masterful collections of gems he spins records in clubs all over the world. Weller started out playing with the English punk band The Jam, then moved on to The Style Council, then a solo career, and still holds a prominent position in the music scene in England. While coming from different floors of the musical spectrum, the two hold a passion for music of all forms as is evinced in the fact they hold enough weight to put together comps of Rockabilly and R&B.

This particular comp is an especially satisfying collection of 28 tracks! The first fifteen were dug up and dusted up by Darge, the last thirteen by Weller. The name of the album gives good indication of what you'll be listening to: nuggets of R&B and soul goodness brought forth from the 50's and 60's. These numbers are examples of the genres in their infancy, and hold an early grittiness and style which reveal the roots of the soul and funk that would later develop in the late 60's and 70's. While a very few of these names might be familiar to an avid collector or listener (Tammi Terrell, Bobby Bland, Jimmy Witherspoon, and The Dells jump out at first glance), the songs offered here are some great tracks that sound just as good as their better remembered counterparts. Although the album's name doesn't hint at it, you'll also find some bluesy numbers snuck in on the second part of the disc in Weller's collection, which you might have guessed when you saw Albert King's name listed.

So without further ado, here are a couple of tasters to get you hooked. The first, They Call Me Big Mama, comes from Big Mama Thornton and Darge's choices in the first half of the album. While her name might not ring any bells, one of her songs just might. It was a little number called Hound Dog. Yeah, that's right, the song that Elvis took for a ride not too much after. This track, They Call Me Big Mama, completely reminds me of Big Joe Turner's Shake, Rattle And Roll. The second, from the second half of the comp and actually closes it out, is bluesman Slim Harpo playing I Got Love If You Want It.

Big Mama Thornton - They Call Me Big Mama : Lost & Found: Real R'n'B & Soul

Slim Harpo - I Got Love If You Want It : Lost & Found: Real R'n'B & Soul

and one from volume 1:

Corky Jones (Buck Owens) - Hot Dog : Lost and Found: Rockabilly and Jump Blues

Visit Keb Darge's website, Paul Weller's website, and BBE Music's website.