VARIOUS ARTISTS
Looking For My Baby (Sundazed; 2-CD)
     Although associated with garage, psych and surf Sundazed have been coming into their own as occasional soul specialists with their recent Bell licence. The double CD Looking For My Baby is an all-encompassing ride through the label's classiest '60s soul sides. The Emperors' rhythmic 'Karate' and stab at Don Gardner's 'My Baby Likes To Boogaloo' are amongst a slew of strong mod dance floor contenders, Gladys Knight & The Pips' 'Giving It up' is a slow scorcher that attains the classic status, whilst northern soul smashes come in the form of Lou Johnson's 'Unsatisified', The Emotions' 'Brushfire' and Tobi Legend's 'Time Will Pass You By'. Things get seriously funky with later '60s cuts like Larry Williams And Johnny Watson's 'Can't Find No Substitute For Love', which cunningly merges Motown Bubblegum pop with the duo's wild, raw performance. However, album highlight has to be Aaron Neville's intoxicatingly thoughtful 'She's On My Mind': a 1969 disc clearly influenced by Brian Wilson and Californian soft pop arrangements.
     50 cuts of soul treasures straight from the vaults... just as it says on the cover. Superb! A great compilation of a great label!
www.sundazed.com
Jon 'Mojo' Mills

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Straight To Watts: The Central Avenue Scene 1951-54 Volume 1 (Ace Records; CD)
     Ex-Swing trumpet-player Jake Porter retired to Los Angeles in 1950, after a decade on the road, and started his own label; Combo Records, which is today renowned even in R&B circles for just two releases - Gene & Eunice's 'Ko Ko Mo' (#6 1955) and Chuck Higgins' non-charting, but anthemic, 1952 honker 'Pachuko Hop'. Nonetheless the label lasted for more than two hundred single issues and a handful of EPs and LPs, and this CD makes available some of the best from the first four years of the label's existence together with a handful of previously unissued masters. For those in any doubt, the style here is tough West Coast jump blues; R&B in the truest and most original sense of that over-abused term: post-swing, pre-rock 'n' roll, urban black music. 
     Ace issued several LPs compiled from recordings licenced from Porter in the 1980s, but since buying the label outright following Porter's death in 1993, they have mainly concentrated on Combo's wealth of Doo Wop recordings. It is therefore hugely pleasing to be able to say that they have finally kicked off their systematic release of the real Combo Records story in tremendous style. Roll on volume 2...
www.acerecords.co.uk
Dave Penny