Album: Various artists

Country Got Soul vol 2, CASUAL

The original volume of Country Got Soul was by common consent last year's best compilation, simply by bringing lots of little-known musical gems to wider public attention. This second instalment is no less thorough and engrossing, marshalling another 15 tracks culled from the brief but glorious early Seventies mingling of country, soul, R&B and swampy funk in southern studios such as Lyn-Lou and American in Memphis, Combine and Sun in Nashville, and particularly Fame and its successor Muscle Shoals in the Alabama township of that name, an area whose heritage is chronicled here in Donnie Fritts's "Muscle Shoals". "There must be somethin' in the water down there to make 'em play like that," he sings, marvelling at the greasy fatback funk grooves created by these good ol' white boys with black'n'blues hearts for records such as Larry Jon Wilson's evocative "Ohoopee River Bottomland", Bobbie Gentry's "Fancy", and Travis Wammack's slinky "Easy Evil". Hard-luck stories predominate here, as do smoky baritone drawls from the likes of Wilson, Tony Joe White, Shirl Milete and Eddie Hinton, whose hoarse croak of a voice was admired by Otis Redding, securing him the honour, shared with Dr John, of being the blackest white man in America. A superb collection, entirely free of filler.