The Living Word: New Box Sets Chronicle Wattstax in Full, 50 Years On

One of the greatest music festivals of the ’70s is getting celebrated with an exhaustive array of reissues in 2023: Wattstax, the multi-dimensional Los Angeles celebration of soul, funk, blues and gospel courtesy of Stax Records. A half-century after the premiere of a Golden Globe-nominated documentary on the star-studded 1972 event, Craft Recordings, custodian of the Stax catalogue, will release the most definitive looks at Wattstax, most recently addressed in a 3CD box set in 2003 that took the highlights of both double albums from 1973 and added even more material. Soul’d…

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A Miracle Happened: “A Cellarful of Motown” Returns with Gems from The Temptations, Martha and The Vandellas, Marvin Gaye, Kim Weston, Blinky, and More

The classic Motown vaults are, once again, open.  This Friday, the U.K.’s Caroline label will release the long-anticipated fifth volume of A Cellarful of Motown, the rarities series which last saw a volume in 2010.  But this 2-CD, 43-song collection promises to have been worth the wait as it features previously unreleased and new-to-CD tracks from such household name artists as Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, Martha Reeves and The Vandellas, Gladys Knight and The Pips, and The (Detroit) Spinners as well as cherished favorites including Chuck Jackson, Barbara McNair, Billy Eckstine, Brenda…

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Baby, They’ve Got It! Ace Raids Motown Vaults for “More Motown Girls”

Back in 2013, Ace Records launched its first collection of Motown Girls, spotlighting previously unreleased tracks from the legendary ladies of Motown Records.  A second installment arrived in 2015, and now, we’re finally the recipient of a third volume in the series.  The 24-song anthology Baby I’ve Got It! More Motown Girls boasts 16 previously unreleased tracks, with the remaining eight drawn from the Motown Unreleased compilations (all of which have been digital-only except for the one covering 1966). This exciting new collection kicks off with a true landmark: the very first…

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This Is The Love (I’ve Been Waiting For): Ace Releases “More Motown Girls”

Rarely is the sequel ever the equal – but Ace Records has handily disproved that with Love and Affection: More Motown Girls, a recent trawl through the vaults of Hitsville, USA.  And not only is this follow-up to 2013’s Finders Keepers – Motown Girls the equal of its predecessor, it might be its better.  Whereas that volume featured both previously unreleased music and rarities, every one of the 25 tracks on Love and Affection is never-before-heard (save for five songs culled from last year’s digital-only Motown Unreleased 1964 collection, all of which are new to…

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