A long time ago now, when I first started this project to look at my entire vinyl collection in alphabetical order, I raved about Atlantic Rhythm and Blues 1947-1974 Volume 6, which covered the incredible releases from Stax/Volt from 1966-1969. I said that when this came out in 1985, Atlantic released nine volumes at once, but the only one I remembered having seen was Volume 6. And I said that if I ever ran across more, I would grab them without hesitation.
Well, I finally got the opportunity, when my local record store Forever Changes got a handful of them in a collection – so I was able to fill in Volumes 1, 2, 3 and 5. I’m just going to list them all together here.
Volume 1 covers 1947-1952, and while that would seem to be the era of more laidback, prosaic R&B, this has some real powerhouse performances by Ruth Brown, Professor Longhair, and Stick McGhee, along with some great Joe Turner numbers.
Volume 2 covers 1952-1955 – nearly all music I’m already well familiar with, but there’s a reason for that. These Atlantic sides are classics. It’s worth noting the effort they put into these covers, as well – although done in a recognizable style for the series, every cover is a different collage.
Volume 3 covers 1955-1958 – an era I tend to think of as a musical dead zone, at least for popular music. Rock ‘n’ roll was happening, true, but it still contained some very hokey elements. But these R&B sides show an inventiveness that would influence the rock to come.
Volume 5 covers 1962-1966 – years when R&B was changing, sure, but not at the explosive pace that rock was changing. There’s hardly an unfamiliar track on this one, because these are stone classics.
Now I still need to fill in volumes 4 and 7 and I’ll be all set.