A new album from Darrius Willrich released on 26 Dec 2020. I found a link to a
site where he
teaches jazz piano
which states that he's been a singer/songwriter for 3 decades. He's
released at least 4 other albums between 1999 and now: 'Darrius' 1999,
'Love Will Visit' 2006, 'Can't Get Enough' 2008 and 'Get Down To Loving' 2018.
On a first listen the
album is pretty good all through with a couple of other standout tracks in addition to the title track 'Stay With Me Here', 'You're So Good'
and
'Easy To Forget'.
We haven't had a new UK Soul chart since 21 Dec 2020 which is why i'm posting a lot of new releases at the moment.
Hot off the press, released 8 Jan 2021 from the album 'Magic 8ball' is Where U Goin' Tonight? by Mac Ayres. Other 'worthy' tracks on the album (for me) are 'Never Let Me Go' and 'Almost Home'
Whilt in a Lowrider mood here's a new release on 20 Dec 2020 from an artist I've been following for the last few years who's previously recorded many covers of Lowrider classics. I did a post on her last year here. These both sound like a new tracks (or at last I din't recognise them as covers). I thought, perhaps, that Can't Wait To See You may have been the Arthur Adams track from 1969 but it's not.
As an aside, this is an issue I have with digital releases as they give very little info - not even the composers in this case so I can't check for sure whether these are new songs or not. As well as with the obvious potential loss of tracks, unless you are rigourous with your back up strategy. I've had several hard drives crash over the years and with the best will in the world not everything was backed up. I had a 4Tb hard drive full of downloads crash on me last year, I managed to retrieve a lot of files but not all! So take my advice, from bad experience, and make sure you back up your music regularlly as it always happens when you are least prepared, and it takes forever to try and salvage stuff and a sickening feeling when you don't know what you've lost that you can't recover!
A new compilation was released 15 Dec 2020 which includes 15 rare soul recordings - mainly sweet soul harmony Lowrider tunes.
The Amazon listing is pretty useless as it doesn't list the artist names for 8 of the 15 tracks, so I've listed them all here with links to the original 45s on Discogs with approx current values for the originals.
I've not been able to find it on CD or vinyl, so assume that it must be digital only (at present), although Vols. 1 & 2 were/are avilable on CD?
I've calulated that this CD contains approx £7,000 worth of 45s even 'IF' you could find the originals to buy! Values are based on the highest sale price on Discogs - but these are not always a reliable guide.
14 - Equasions [197?] - 01 - It's So Hard to Say So Long [Pac Sounds #5001]
£400-£450
This must be a pretty rare record as it's not listed in the usual places but I found a few (10) listed on Popsike. It's on San Antonio, TX label Pac Sounds and the prices are all over the place, probably owing to condition, but the highest two sold for between $510-$566. It was included on Soulful Thangs Vol. 7 compilation billed as Equasions (which is the correct spelling of the group's name as it appears on the Pac Sounds 45 even though on the compilation it is Equations). It was reissued on Killer Funk 010 in 2010 as a B side retitled as The Equations - Don't Add, Just Subtract (Correct Answer Edit). It was also released by Vee Gees on Jump Off in 1973 written by Wayman ('Slack') Johnson & Leroy Williams
