BACKBEATS: I GET MY GROOVE and LOVE & JEALOUSY

The lat­est wave of Backbeats com­pi­la­tions fea­tures two entries that devote them­selves to the world of “south­ern soul” music, I Get My Groove and Love & Jealousy.  As you might expect, each draws exten­sively from the famil­iar Hi Records label and includes a few famil­iar names like Ann Peebles and Al Green.  However, nei­ther is a mere hits col­lec­tion — both include mate­r­ial from less-familiar labels like Ronn, Paula and Crazy Cajun and they dig deeply into these labels’ cat­a­logs for the kind of over­looked gems that hard­core soul fans crave.

But first, a word or two about south­ern soul itself.  This style of R&B music has a lot of sim­i­lar­i­ties to its more cos­mopoli­tan cousin from the big city: there are big emo­tions, a notice­able groove to drive the melody for­ward and often traces of orches­tra­tion to color the sound.  However, south­ern soul records are unlike big-city soul in that they make no attempt to stand on cer­e­mony or blunt their inher­ent funk­i­ness.  Indeed, these records aren’t afraid to show their rough edges: the mixes are often com­pressed, the vocals never hide their gospel-tinged grit and the lyrics’ take on famil­iar sub­jects of love and heart­break are often dis­arm­ingly direct.

I Get My Groove offers an effec­tive sam­pling of south­ern soul’s dif­fer­ent moods.  On the brighter end of the spec­trum, Syl Johnson’s “We Did It” brings an anthemic uptempo groove to the love song with its stomp­ing beat and surg­ing orches­tra­tion while Oscar Perry’s “Let Me Grow Old With You” is a gen­uinely mov­ing bal­lad that wins the lis­tener over with its mix of heart­felt lyrics and a melody that builds to stir­ring heights.

On the more down­beat part of the spec­trum, “What Have You Done With My Heart” by the Imported Moods sells its heart­bro­ken nar­ra­tive in a plain­tive, gen­tle style over a seduc­tively lop­ing beat and Ann Peebles’ “I Didn’t Take Your Man” lays out the other woman’s side of the story in a cold-blooded (yet funky) style, com­plete with an omi­nous spo­ken intro.

As the title indi­cates, Love & Jealousy goes for the most intense rushes on either end of roman­tic scale.  The joy­ful highs of love in bloom are given strong rep­re­sen­ta­tion by Syl Johnson’s “Could I Be Falling In Love,” which off­sets churchy organ with soar­ing strings to cre­ate a plush back­drop for his soul­ful croon (lis­ten for the tran­scen­dent high he hits on the cho­rus).  Another gem in this area is “Back In Love Again” by the Patterson Twins, which makes a new love affair sound like spir­i­tual salvation.

However, even more time on Love & Jealousy is devoted to the sad stuff, cov­er­ing every­thing from soul-crushing heart­break to the inner tor­ment felt by the cheaters who make heart­break pos­si­ble.  One of the best heart­break tunes is “Tumbling Down,” which cap­tures the rue­ful tone of a player cut down by a failed romance with its descending-note cho­rus.  Elsewhere, the dark side of south­ern soul is nailed by “Take Time To Know The Truth,” a chilly clas­sic where the sweet soul back­ing off­sets a para­noid nar­ra­tive where jeal­ous peo­ple are wait­ing to trick a lover into giv­ing up his good thing.

However, the real hid­den gem here is “I Love Her” by Willie Walker: the vocal­ist knows he is break­ing up some­one else’s love affair to get the woman he wants but he’s dri­ven by an over­pow­er­ing need even he doesn’t under­stand.  Walker’s strident-then-pleading tone cap­tures the song’s des­per­a­tion per­fectly — and it’s likely to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

If there’s a prob­lem to be pointed out with these sets, it is that the pro­duc­ers have included a few tracks of from the 1980’s or later along­side the mostly 1960’s and 1970’s tunes.  Though the song­writ­ing and per­for­mances on these tracks are cut from the same cloth as the other tunes, the pro­duc­tion style has a block­ier, more elec­tronic sound that is really dis­tract­ing when mixed in with the vin­tage stuff.  These tracks can be pro­grammed out or skipped past by the lis­tener but they prob­a­bly should have been left off.

However, such com­plaints are minor when you con­sider how much rare, high-quality south­ern soul is cap­tured on these discs.  Both I Get My Groove and Love & Jealousy are win­ners for any­one inter­ested in this down-home cor­ner of the soul spectrum.