Ace’s Songwriter Series and Black America Sings compilations always promise a good time, but their latest may have outdone them all: a hits and rarities packed tribute to the songs, sound and style of Stevie Wonder. Black America Sings Stevie Wonder, available March 27, collects 20 compositions by the Motown legend from across the pop and soul diaspora. From familiar tracks in less familiar versions to songs he gave others both on and off the label he was part of for more than half a century, there’s quite a bit to appreciate here,…
Try to See Things Their Way: Ace Preps ‘Here, There and Everywhere,’ Third Collection of Beatles Covers Through a Black Lens
As fans prepare for the release of the new Disney+ documentary Beatles ’64, chronicling The Fab Four’s legendary inaugural trip to America, U.K. label Ace Records has an exciting release coming that same weekend, featuring nearly two dozen Black artists paying tribute to a series of songbooks that owed so much to soul music and rhythm and blues traditions. Here, There and Everywhere: Black America Sings Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, available November 29, is the seventh of Ace’s “Black America Sings” releases, which began with a 2011 entry on Bob Dylan and…
Cherry Red Round-Up: SoulMusic Celebrates Randy Crawford, Grapefruit Collects The Complete First Class
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 recently explored a major chapter of her discography on the 3-CD anthology You Might Need Somebody: The Warner Bros. Recordings…
Big Break Big Round-Up: Spotlight on Spyder Turner, Randy Crawford and Enchantment
Today, we’re taking a look at three recent releases from Big Break Records that you just might have missed! Spyder Turner may be best remembered today for a novelty single. His 1967 reworking of Ben E. King’s classic “Stand by Me” found him channeling his inner Rich Little or Sammy Davis, Jr. to impersonate such famous voices as James Brown, Sam Cooke, and Smokey Robinson. Love it or loathe it, Turner’s “Stand by Me” made it all the way to No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. But the West Virginia native…
