Various Artists – Eccentric Deep Soul

It’s funny that we commonly look down on collections, compared to works by single artists, and it’s true that they’re often a mess. K-Tel collections are just anything they could get a license to in a particular moment, and you can get stylistic whiplash that makes for unpleasant listening. Movie soundtracks sometimes do much better, but also sometimes do much worse. But these collections that pick a lane – a particular musical style – and then introduce a whole bunch of artists you’d otherwise never have heard of can be absolute gems. And here’s one.

No real surprise here – I found this amazing collection of unknown soul sides right alongside “Eccentric Northern Soul” at Siren Records last year (2023) and, similarly, it has stayed in steady rotation on my turntable.

Again from the unknown-to-me Numero Group, this collects some deeper, less danceable soul cuts than “Essential Northern Soul,” and when I play it as a follow-on to that other record, it definitely changes the mood.

Dig if you will the closing track of side one, Thelma Jones’s “Only Yesterday:”

Or Helene Smith’s cover of “Pain In My Heart:”