Various Artists - Soul Hits of the 70's [Rebound] (CD)

All Music Guide

In addition to being the compilation producer, Howard Smiley is credited for "Album Design Concept" on this budget album, but it's hard to see what the album concept is, beyond that indicated in the title. Sure enough, here are a bunch of soul hits of the 1970s, recordings originally released on the De-Lite, Mercury, MGM, Motown, Polydor, Tamla, and 20th Century labels, the catalogs of which were controlled by PolyGram as of 1997. Every track made the RB Top 20, with three hitting number one and three going gold. All also were crossover successes, reaching the pop Top 20. Some choices are obvious: Lou Rawls spent only a short time on MGM Records, and "A Natural Man" was his only Top 40 hit for the label; Jerry Butler's "Ain't Misunderstanding Mellow" (which is usually co-credited to Brenda Lee Eager) was his biggest pop hit of the '70s; Johnny Bristol's "Hang on in There Baby" was his biggest hit. With other artists -- Barry White, Eddie Kendricks, Kool and the Gang, Michael Jackson -...- the chosen song was one of many '70s hits. The album demonstrates that the PolyGram vaults contain a large collection of the most important soul music of the decade, from Motown to the hits of James Brown, and this compilation provides only a sampling of it. - William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide Read more Less