Search - Various Artists :: Underground Oldies 1

The amount of research and work...........!

William Blackshear | West Orange, NJ USA | 03/29/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"To get the music on the "Underground Oldies, Vol. 1-10" series onto cd, legally, was a job in itself!!! Long term soul/sweet soul record collectors surely understand! Some of the rarest, hardest to locate (especially in pristine condition), and most expensive music to obtain are long, out of print 45s. A "demarcation line" is crossed when entering the venue of 45 record collecting. True heavies of record collecting are members of that elite club! For the most part, doors to accumulate a large collection of rare 45s, closed so long ago collectors went from being "Dad" to "Grandpappa" status! I.T.P Records is the only company that has legally reissued this amount in volume of rare and ultra-rare soul/sweet soul music compilation cds. The 10 cds in this series contain many very rare and very expensive records on them. Heck, the writer has only seen the ultra rare Four Mints album for sale perhaps twice in the past 5 years, and each time it sold for over $1,000.00! In this series are some of the best ballads off that lp, WOW! Unlike some of the other non-authorized sweet soul compilations "floating" around, Alan Beck and crew went through all the pain-staking work of obtaining legal rights to put the songs from numerous, numerous small, long gone, obscure, "what label?", where, when, how..... onto cd to present availibility worldwide, what a task and what a success!. Failure to obtain legal rights is the reason the other non-authorized series are not obtainable through normal retail channels. Very, very few long term, hard core, soul/sweet soul record collectors can lay claim to possessing in their record collections all the songs on the 10 cds! Even for them, far from being that easy! These cds are LOADED, with rare soul/sweet recordings, and thanks to the efforts of the folks at I.T.P. they are obtainable to enjoy at what amounts to a fraction of the total value of the original records themselves! If one is an old-school soul/swet soul collector, and does not currently possess this great series, get the credit card out now. As a legitimate release, for the type of music it contains, this series is #1!!!"

A very interesting rare oldies CD.

Justo Roteta | Los Angeles, California United States | 06/15/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This CD features 18 soul ballads recorded during the late 1960s and early-'70s by artists who did not amount to much but whose work merits a closer look and reappraisal by "sweet soul" afficionados. It's worth noting that most of these songs were released on small, short-lived labels and are making their CD debut here. The songs by The Pretenders, The Magic Touch, The Entertainers IV, The Four Mints and The Superbs are my favorites but the others are also quite enjoyable. Many thanks to Alan Beck at ITP Records for compiling and issuing this CD."