TRUE SOUL: Deep Sounds from the Left of Stax, Vol. 1 & 2

Favorite reissues I've heard all year. Seriously cannot stop playing these. Until now I'd only heard Thomas East's "Funky Music" but basically this whole label/collection is solid gold. Except maybe the Beatles "Come Together" instrumental cover version.

Vol. 1 out on June 21, Vol. 2 in July sometime—don't sleep on these!

VARIOUS – TRUE SOUL, DEEP SOUNDS FROM THE LEFT OF STAX, VOL. 1

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Buy it here.

Over thirteen years in the making, this anthology – presented over the course of two volumes of CD/DVDs and one four-LP box set – seeks to establish True Soul’s rightful place within America’s funk and soul pantheon.

As much as this anthology is about the adventurous, always-funky and oh-so-rare recordings that True Soul made possible, it is also about True Soul label owner Lee Anthony. His is a true American “up-from-the-bootstraps” story, one in which a frontiersman’s entrepreneurial spirit and vision remains undeterred as he sets up black-owned businesses in a post-Jim Crow South.

True Soul’s story intertwines with the renowned Sam Philips – an early mentor and patron – and Memphis’s Al Bell and Willie Mitchell – with whom Anthony collaborated as he cultivated Little Rock’s funk and soul scene under the shadows of Stax and Hi Records. The Gap Band’s genesis is but one sub-plot, as Anthony’s recordings of a stranded funk ensemble make their way to Leon Russell and lead to the formation of one of the decades’ best-known showbands.

This comprehensive anthology not only carries the rare distributed funk and soul 45s that led the likes of renowned collectors DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist to Lee Anthony’s door in search of Anthony’s fabled “treasure chest” but also includes previously unreleased boogie, disco and party rap recorded in True Soul’s early-80’s twilight.

CD/DVD. 2011. NA 5079. (This anthology will be presented in two volumes of 56-page full-color, hardcover book/CD/DVDs and in a deluxe 4xLP vinyl box set.)

The True Soul Review band has played out around town here twice in the last year with more to come and they are fire! Very excited for this. Kinda wondering about the tracklist for this first volume, especially the absence of Johnny & Delores's "Sockin Soul," which I take to be pretty damn definitive. Maybe saving for Vol 2?

numero, strut, soundway, soul jazz, now again, etc etc ... i'm feeling a bit of reissue fatigue here ...

Feel you, Vahid, but as a Little Rocker this one feels especially nice, so I'm biased.

Kinda wondering about the tracklist for this first volume, especially the absence of Johnny & Delores's "Sockin Soul," which I take to be pretty damn definitive. Maybe saving for Vol 2?

Can confirm that this track isn't on Vol. 2, either, sadly.