Following its recent albums collection for disco-dance band Skyy, Cherry Red’s Robinsongs imprint has turned its attention to another Salsoul Records group: Instant Funk. The 5-CD box, out now, chronicles Instant Funk from 1976’s Get Down with the Philly Jump through 1983’s Kinky plus a selection of bonus tracks for the first three albums. The Instant Funk story is intertwined with that of Bunny Sigler. The singer-songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist was a mainstay at Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff’s Philadelphia International Records where he recorded three solo albums. The third, 1976’s My…
Life Is A Dance: BBR Reissues Chaka Khan, Silver Convention, Instant Funk
Chaka Khan announced her solo freedom with “I’m Every Woman,” the euphoric opening track on 1978’s Chaka. At 25 years old, Khan was already a veteran of the funk-rock band Rufus with whom she had recorded landmark hits like “Tell Me Something Good” and “Sweet Thing,” but Chaka took her passionate style in a new, mainstream R&B direction. The Warner Bros. album, produced by the legendarily versatile Arif Mardin (Dusty Springfield, Bette Midler, The Bee Gees), placed Khan’s powerful voice front and center with the support of the cream of New York’s…
Do The (Salsoul) Hustle: Big Break Celebrates Salsoul Records Legacy with Four Reissues
By 1975, Philadelphia soul had become too big even for the City of Brotherly Love. In the first half of the decade, Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff had, along with the third member of their Mighty Three, Thom Bell, reinvented the sound of soul music. The Pennsylvania city had become synonymous with sweeping strings, punchy horns and the hi-hat cymbal of drummer Earl Young, offering up music that could be dramatic, sweet and funky, sometimes all within the same three-minute song! Bell had long kept a foot outside the Philadelphia International Records…
Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention
September 25, 2026