Back catalogue: 50s/60s

Review: The fourth edition in Original Gravity's Down In The Basement series, which gathers instrumental soul and swing cuts onto worthy 7" slabs, resounding the fervent 1960s decadal gap in which mod reigned supreme. With juleps flowing and kneecaps knocking, Abramo & Nestor bring newfangled electric pianistic swing with 'Dig It!', while a twinned "hit it!" injunction is heard from Floyd James & The GTs on the reissued 'Work That Thang'; James' voice is tubed and speed-delayed to terrific effect, achieving a sprung intonation. Curtis Baker brassifies the bonanza with the lively 'Fried Fish 'n' Collard Greens', while The Native Yinzer's exiting excitation 'The Hip Strip' quilts our ears with a mnemic, down-feathery Hammond-breaks bit.

Review: Accomplished keyboard player Hank Jacobs enjoyed much renown on the American West Coast live music circuit at the height of the soul era, having already scored a recorded instrumental hit with 'So Far Away' in 1964. His subsequent gigs as a session musician might've proven him capacious only for life in showbiz as a sideman, but this possibility would be firmly and permanently negated by 'Elijah Rockin' With Soul'. The record emerged by lucky chance from a recording session with arranger Arthur Wright, and Jacobs afterwards went on to make four further releases on Alton Scott's Call Me label at Wright's behest. Now, spanning two favourite Jacobs 'sides with different regional appeals, this new one from Kent Soul hears 'Elijah' as the A track - a precocious future compliment for the Northern soul scene - and 'East Side', an instru *mental* recording with a walloping full-colour sound, more propitious to the LA scene.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition***


If you use the online network-cum-existential-need-to-know community Reddit, then it won't surprise you to learn there's a vast and almost unfathomably broad sub group dedicated to The Beatles. Within this, at least a handful of people have posed the question: "if the Beatles had done an MTV Unplugged concert in approx 1968 what stripped down classics might be in the resulting brilliant Unplugged Album?" Forgive the grammar - we took the speculative quandary verbatim from an internet that long-since descended into a linguistic void. Nevertheless, those stumped by this query will be delighted to know that such a record does exist for us to use as a touchstone. Albeit without the MTV bit. And what tracks made the cut? Well, 'Why My Guitar Gently Weeps', 'Revolution', 'Julia', 'Cry Baby Cry', and 'The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill', among others.