I don't know why but I have always thought of Soul Music as a male orientated genre. Great artists like Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Ben E. King, Sam & Dave. But of course there were female artists of equal stature, Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, Patti La Belle, Diana Ross and many more. This revelation came to me with the release of a 3 CD compilation from Strawberry Records called Keep The Fire Burning - Soul Sister Sides 1962-1982. It contains 69 tracks, that is 4 hours of music from the vaults of Warner-owned labels: ATCO, Atlantic, Calla, Cotillion, Elektra, Reprise, Warner Bros. and Whitfield.I was equally surprised by how much great music there is in this collection. Strawberry have done an excellent job. The man who put this all together was David Nathan who co-founded the Soul City record label in 1968, a contributing editor to Blues & Soul magazine in the 1970s, ran the SoulMusic label, and wrote the book The Soulful Divas. So if anyone was going to choose some great female soul, it was going going to be him. He even went to the lengths of writing a 33 page booklet with information on each track included on the CDs.
The music that he included comes from divas like Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Candi Staton, Esther Phillips, Baby Washington, Barbara Lynn, Dionne Warwick, Betty Wright, Betty LaVette, Mary Wells, Tina Turner, LaBelle, Pointer Sisters, Rose Royce, Sister Sledge, and there are more names. As you play the CDs you are taken on a journey from the early days of Soul through its evolution into the dance floor sound of disco.
If you want to immerse yourself in some soul sister sounds you can't let this compilation slip past you.
You can hear some of the songs in: * The Groove Yard visit 232 * The Groove Yard visit 233 * The Groove Yard visit 234
And for a full track listing, and other information, go to the Cherry Red Records website.