During the last weeks an interesting number of challenging and great to listen to soul compilations have been released. Either that, or there have been releases of compilations with soul music on them all the time and only my radar suddenly turned to them. Either way, I some of them are truly great and cool to listen to. You know, soul music has something no other style has, especially the great, organic, danceable kind produced in the Sixties and Seventies (and not the washed down mega-business star slime that poses as R’n’B today but is nothing but radio chowder.) There rarely is a kind of music that blends deep emotionality with extroverted passion and is at the same time so goddamn energizing and melodic. The great soul artists like Otis Redding, Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross and the rest of them, stand undisputed in the eternal hall of fame as great singers and musicians. To some of you it might be unbelievable that yours truly, with all his rage about noise, experimental and extreme music, should like something as obvious and ragingly straight forward as soul music, but to paraphrase a saying: If you don’t like Wilson Pickett, you can kiss my ass.

The first soulful compilation that hit my home this year was a 4CD-series documenting Northern Soul. Now that is an interesting subgenre: a bunch of white, English middle-to-lower class kids gather round speakers in dinghy clubs to listen to seven inches of unknown black artist from across the Atlantic that some disputable characters have imported themselves and then they all go apeshit. Okay, it was no small thing. Actually, it was a really big thing. Like acid raves in the late Eighties but with a lot better music and less stupid people doing synthetic drugs.

This series, cleverly entitled “Northern Soul” focuses each disc on a certain club, as there are “The Twisted Wheel”, “The Blackpool Mecca”, The Wigan Casino” and “The Golden Torch”. There are only a few well known names on these discs – one of them rather surprisingly is Paul Anka! – but they are stocked full with great songs. Judging from this compilation, Northern soul is a very melodic and song oriented sub-genre. On the other hand, the whole thing starts off with a floorburner named “Magic Potion” by Lou Johnson and if you ain’t in soul struttin’ mode by half of it, then you’d probably check back to your soulless minimal electro techno from Cologne or Düsseldorf, because then the odds are that you don’t have soul.

These discs come separately and hold about 25 songs each, so you might as well start and end a party with them. Amongst them you’ll find an early version of “Shake a Tail Feather” by James & Bobby Purify, some early Johnny “Guitar” Watson (which corrected my picture of Watson somewhat, because I only know him from his later, hard-funk cocaine snorting period), a great Little Richard tune “a little bit of somethin (beats a whole lot of nothing)” which makes him for a great singer and player aside the screaming that at first became iconic and then turned towards comic. The last song on disc number four is “Time will pass you by” by Tobi Legend. When that one is over it is time to sit down again, fetch a drink and catch some air.

Some years back Trikont released a great compilation called “Dirty Laundry”, in which they explored the bordercrossing between soul and country music. An interesting case of business- and media-induced segregation, soul is usually considered black music and country as white. The musicians never cared for this definition, and quick examples are Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones or Amy Winehouse on the one side, whereas on the other side it is only Charley Pride that comes to mind easily. Even though a lot of black artists from Ray Charles to Bobby Womack have recorded a lot of country music in their time. I mean, if Al Green’s version of “I’m so lonesome I could cry” is probably the best version of that song, and that is saying something, after all there is a Johnny Cash / Nick Cave – duet version out there.

The listeners slowly got coerced into believing in this separation as well. The “Dirty Laundry” compilation has been set out to correct that picture hopefully, with a lot of songs that blur and fuse the genres of country and soul. Some songs on here fall more into one category, while others are basically country songs played in soul clothings. And now the second part of this compilation has been released. If you liked the first one, you probably already own this one, that is how good it is.

There is Joe Tex singing “King of the Road” (the Roger Miller tune nowadays best known because REM covered it once) and Ike & Tina Turner doing “Don’t believe nothing” (believe it or not, Tina was cool once and despite all of the publicity of abuse Ike did a lot for rock’n’roll) and even Sammy Davis Jr with a song that couldn’t be played anymore nowadays, because it praises the lustfulness and elegance of smoking (“Smoke Smoke Smoke”). The last song belongs to Andre Williams, “excuse me (I got someone to kill)” from the great Bloodshot-Album “Red Dirt”. I definitely wanted Andre Williams to play a show with the Sadies on my wedding, but dreams are one thing, life is another. There is a lot more on here, great songs and some obscure ones as well, but better get a listen yourself.

The best thing about country music is perhaps that it is irony free and able to tell a story of human interest like no other musical genre. Fuse that with the impact and emotionality of soul music and you get an idea of the power the mixture might have. Thank you Trikont. The only thing I don’t like is that the introduction text of the booklet is exactly the same as in volume one. That is kind of cheap, but if it leaves more budget for a third release, then it is okay.

The third and final compilation I want to recommend to you comes from Soul Jazz and deals with Funk. If that isn’t genre-fusing enough for you; I don’t know either. It is also a second release and it is confided to a special time and location as well: “New Orleans Funk” is not so much about straight funk as you might know it, but about the fascinating amalgam of musical styles that was produced in this city in the Sixties and Seventies. New Orleans is hailed as the birthplace of many things musical, like jazz, of fusing Caribbean, African and French influences that finally led to Mac Rebennack aka Dr. John (featured on part 1), The Meters (featured on part 2) and Fats Domino (not featured?). Personally, my first encounter with New Orleans was Willy DeVille a decade ago and the movie “Angel Heart” about two decades ago, but that formed my picture for ever.

Do I have to tell you that compilations on Soul Jazz are great? I mean, really, if you don’t know by now that this is base music archaeology and great fun at the same time how should I ever help you. Interestingly, no matter what the genre is – from postpunk and no wave to soul and fusion jazz via earliest hip hop up to Dubstep – the main musical interest of those Soul Jazz decision makers seems to be syncopation. Makes me wonder if they also do their business in repeating rhythms that slowly shift and change their stress, mix or leave out parts? I hope it works out.

The music on here is all great, though it is somewhat straining to go through three vinyl discs – sort of a Soul Jazz work out for you. Eddy Bo is quite well known, if you have followed Soul Jazz releases, and featured on here several times. The best known names – to me – are The Meters (featured here with the eponymously named Chicken Strut) and Allen Toussaint, which makes for an interesting opposition: the strict funk rhythm machine of The Meters versus the loose and easy style of Toussaint. There are many great discoveries to made on here, like Earl King or Danny White, I get out of breath just naming them. Overall, the music on this one is the most freaky and wild one, despite the country-songs on “Dirty Laundry”, but just listen to the rockin of Danny White’s “The Twitch”, which is almost as out there as “The Fink” (I’ll tell you all about that some other time), and then some that are almost pure funk.

Yeah I know, to the real soul-afficionados amongst you, this selection is probably superficial and trivial, my comments unlectured and not noteworthy and you all want to come up to me to compare the size of your soul record collection to mine. But there is one thing you forget: style. After all, we are talking way cool stylish here, so get out of your closet, forget the lists of rare records and get on the dancefloor. Because, the main thing in more than one way, about soul is, that the ladies like it – and they also like those who know what they like. Got it?