VARIOUS ARTISTS
STEPPIN STONE

The third volume of our successful series digging into the Memphis production powerhouse Sounds Of Memphis and its XL label. Our earlier volumes threw light on the studio’s incredible southern soul legacy and the strength of music that was laid down. The third volume digs deeper and is made up of mainly unreleased masters but all of unerringly high quality. The discoveries are incredible, with the front ranking being two numbers by Willie Walker. Despite being recorded as demos they are as good as any single that ever made it to vinyl. Equally, recordings by Willie Bollinger, the awesome Otis Wheat and Art Jerry Miller are fantastic. All artists with a very low profile but on the aural evidence they deserved to be much better known. We feature two more cuts from George Jackson, including a brilliant alternate vocal to ‘How Can I Get Next To You’ and the previously unheard ‘Love Trying To Come’. We also have two wonderful pieces by producer Dan Greer, whose voice is the height of soulfulness, plus work from the Minits, whose recordings at Sounds Of Memphis never fail to impress. We take the story into the 80s with a couple of recordings from Tekelia and Erma Shaw, showing that Sounds Of Memphis continued to produce soulful gems into that decade.