In today's Cherry Red Round-Up: titles from the SoulMusic, Grapefruit, and Cherry Pop labels! Throughout a recording career spanning, roughly, 1972-2008, Randy Crawford refused to be pigeonholed. Gifted with a versatile, expressive voice, Randy straddled the worlds of jazz and soul while dipping her toes into funk, pop, dance, and rock; her collaborators include George Benson, Al Jarreau, Steve Hackett, Rick Springfield, David Sanborn, and Joe Sample and The Crusaders. SoulMusic Records
Cherry Red's long-running RPM imprint announced earlier this year that 2020 would be its final year of operations - but that hasn't kept RPM from going out with a bang. One of the final titles to arrive from the imprint, Right Back Where We Started From, is a joyous 3-CD celebration of Female Pop and Soul in Seventies Britain. The title is drawn from Maxine Nightingale's irresistibly bouncy 1975 single, a top ten entry in the United Kingdom and a top five in the States. Not every track on
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! James Taylor, The Warner Bros. Albums 1970-1976 (Warner/Rhino) CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Rhino has a newly remastered box, supervised by Peter Asher, of James Taylor's six studio albums for the label including Sweet Baby James (1970), Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon (1971), One Man Dog (1972), Walking Man (1974), Gorilla (1975); and In the Pocket (1976). Available on CD,