News: 7 x Cd Box Set - Written In Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos

[Mike]

View full article

[Seano]

Bloody hell, this sounds good. Hope the trailer isn't cherry-picking!

[Britmusicsoulfan]

I am incredibly excited for this release!

[Chalky]

I have heard some of these already and they are quality.  It will certainly be an interesting release from a historical point of view to anyone with an interest in soul music.  I don’t expect them all to be good listening though. I have heard some songwriter demos that are truly awful

[Eddie Hubbard]

Sounds  like a really exciting release 

[Lovemusic]

Disc three, track three: "Its so wonderful-Frederick Knight".

Didn't everyone agree years ago this was Sam Dees singing?

Also surprised to see "Its me-Judy Clay" missing from this comp.

There's two 7" singles for the re-vamped Deep soul label!

Edited June 20, 2023 by Lovemusic

[John Reed]

2 hours ago, Lovemusic said:

Disc three, track three: "Its so wonderful-Frederick Knight".

Didn't everyone agree years ago this was Sam Dees singing?

It was, but I expect that the masters are still incorrectly labeled.

2 hours ago, Lovemusic said:

Also surprised to see "Its me-Judy Clay" missing from this comp.

This was released on the US version of the Soul explosion LP, so probably doesn't warrant inclusion as something unreleased.

Edited June 20, 2023 by John Reed

[Lovemusic]

In that case it would apply to the Frederick Knight as well.

[Missing Link]

There's a Sampler CD of the collection given away with the August 2023 edition of 'Mojo' magazine. Track listing:

1. Eddie Floyd - 634-5789 (Soulsville, USA)
2. William Bell - Slow Train
3. Carla Thomas - Don't Let The Love Light Leave
4. Rufus Thomas - Come On Dance With Me
5. Mack Rice - Respect Yourself
6. Homer Banks - If You're Ready (Come Go With Me)
7. Eddie Floyd - Stay With Me
8. March Wind - Until I Lost You
9. Shirley Brown - I Don't Care Anymore
10. Bettye Crutcher - Too Much Sugar For A Dime
11. Joe Shamwell & Eddie Floyd - Don't You Know That It's All Right
12. Homer Banks - (If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want To Be Right
13. Henderson Thigpen - Woman To Woman
14. Bettye Crutcher - Everybody Is Talking Love
15. Homer Banks - I've Got A Feeling (We'll Be Seeing Each Other Again)

[Ady Croasdell]

They didn’t use the male demo of bc Carla Thomas I’ll Never va Stop Loving You; probably because they don’t know who it is or who wrote it - likely to be the same person 

Edited June 21, 2023 by Ady Croasdell

[Mike]

Box set now released

all tracks are now available to listen on all the usual services such as Spotify Deezer Tidal etc
via

https://found.ee/writtenintheirsoul

 

Spotify embed - log in to listen in full (free service available)

 

[Seano]

On 20/06/2023 at 16:30, Missing Link said:

There's a Sampler CD of the collection given away with the August 2023 edition of 'Mojo' magazine. Track listing:

1. Eddie Floyd - 634-5789 (Soulsville, USA)
2. William Bell - Slow Train
3. Carla Thomas - Don't Let The Love Light Leave
4. Rufus Thomas - Come On Dance With Me
5. Mack Rice - Respect Yourself
6. Homer Banks - If You're Ready (Come Go With Me)
7. Eddie Floyd - Stay With Me
8. March Wind - Until I Lost You
9. Shirley Brown - I Don't Care Anymore
10. Bettye Crutcher - Too Much Sugar For A Dime
11. Joe Shamwell & Eddie Floyd - Don't You Know That It's All Right
12. Homer Banks - (If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want To Be Right
13. Henderson Thigpen - Woman To Woman
14. Bettye Crutcher - Everybody Is Talking Love
15. Homer Banks - I've Got A Feeling (We'll Be Seeing Each Other Again)

Finally got round to buying it, really like it.

[Seano]

I'm immensely grateful that several family members chipped in and got me this box set for my birthday. I've been savouring listening through each of the 7 CDs one by one, mostly with gaps of at least a week.

The whole project is a stunning tour de force. A really impressive combination of sleeve notes and visuals The series of CDs are helpfully grouped as Stax writers with their tracks that did get a release on Stax (1-3), Stax writers with their tracks that got released on other labels (4), and then, perhaps most interesting of all, uncut tracks (5-7).

Deanie Parker and the team who worked with her did a superb job rescuing all of these recordings. This is going to get a lot of re-listening to, and it will be interesting to see if the tracks that stood out first time round remain favourites or how things might change with a few more plays through.