Search - Various Artists :: The Last Soul Company: Malaco, A Thirty Year Retrospective

Jackson, Mississippi's Malaco Records has been the very model of an indie concern sticking to its roots--in this case, Southern soul and blues--while staying current enough to occasionally break its discs into the mainstream. In the '70s, this strategy made for smashes as diverse as King Floyd's "Groove Me," Jean Knight's "Mr. Big Stuff," Dorothy Moore's "Misty Blue," and Anita Ward's "Ring My Bell." By the mid-'80s, Malaco had scored big with Z.Z. Hill's barely updated cheating ballads and had revitalized the career of Bobby "Blue" Bland with the classic Members Only. (The company performed a similar feat a decade later with Johnnie Taylor's Good Love!) Some '80s and '90s cuts suffer from cheesy production, but this six-CD box set does a great job of tracing Malaco's many triumphs. --Rickey Wright