Thursday, 4 August 2022

VA [2005] - The Big Bad Bay Area Vol. 1 [Latin Soul Recordings] (Full Album)


The great thing about researching music is that once I've found and played a track, either on Spotify or YouTube, another pops up unsolicited whilst I'm writing that pricks my ears up. One such tune was The Diabolics "I Bet you Never Knew" which led me to this superb 2005 compilation "The Big Bad Bay Area".

The clue is in the label name, Latin Soul Recordings, and the title which almost guarantees that the track list is going to be sweet soul harmony tunes compiled for the lowriders, however there are few tracks towards the end of the compilation which have had spins on Northern Soul dancefloors and the surprise was seeing Rodger Collins, an out and out R&B stomper (that Wilson Pickett later covered and had quite big hit with #7 R&B #15 Hot 100).  It's almost like they got to track 18, which are all sweet soul numbers, and ran out of ideas and filled it with some random tunes.

There's some familiar tunes on it but also a few new ones to these ears. There are one or two errors such as The Emulations mistitled track "Story Of Our Love", which at first I thought may be a cover on The Carstairs flip side to "Really Hurts Me Girl", but should read "Story Of My Life".

There are far too many great tunes to start to list them so I'll let you choose your own but if you want to dive straight into the sweet spot then I'd recommend tracks 14 to 18.

This is a bargain at £7.99 for 24 tracks, especially as you will probably never find the originals on vinyl anytime soon without remortgaging your home!

Annoyingly, neither Spotify nor Amazon link are showing artists, so for a full track listing got to Discogs. P.S. Whilst finding link I noticed that there is a Volume 2, which is also on Spotify,  so will also post at some point!

The Discogs track listing differs from the digital track listing as there are three radio adverts interspersed not included on digital release and three additional tracks have been tagged onto the end (i.e. tracks 22-24), so here's the correct track list for the digital issue.

01 - Jesse James - I Need You Baby
02 - The Fabulous Ballads - God Bless Our Love
03 - The Emulations - These Are The Things
04 - Pacesetters - Don't Love Hurt
05 - California Malibus - I Stand Alone
06 - San Francisco T.K.O.'s - Ooh Baby Baby
07 - Shirley Combs - Why Should We Stop Now
08 - The Page Three - Wait! One Minute Baby
09 - Joe Washington - Look Me In The Eyes
10 - Papa And The Utopians - Cry For Joy
11 - The Master Plan - Only You (Can Touch This Heart Of Mine)
12 - The Fillmotions - Young Girl
13 - The Natural Four - Twelve Mouths Of The Year
14 - Soft Touch - Look Up, Look Down
15 - The Master Plan) - Hey Girl
16 - Diabolics - I Bet You Never Knew
17 - The Ballads - Baby, I'm For Real
18 - Sisters Of The Ghetto - What Made You Change Your Mind
19 - Fuller Bros. - Stranger At My Door
20 - The Natural Four - I Thought You Were Mine
21 - Rodger Collins - She's Looking Good
22 - The Emulations - Move A Little Slower (Good Timing Woman)
23 - Natural Four - Hanging On To A Lie
24 - Rodger Collins - Foxy Girls In Oakland

Click on image below for link to where you can buy from.


Details
Rating: 8.6
Explicit: N
Genre/Style: Sweet Soul
Format: Single
Media: Digital
Label: Latin Soul Recordings
Cat No: None
Date: 01/06/2005
Price: £7.99
Copyright © 2009-2022 SoulStrutter All Rights Reserved

1 comment:

Please note: Anonymous comments may not be posted and will NOT be responded to as we do not know who we are responding to.