Stop! My Soul boxes need more love

Listening to a a mix/radio show on Mixcloud the other day this a jumped out. I thought: I've got this. A dive into the Soul boxes confirmed the thought.

This is such a great record. I've definitely had this in the collection for at least twelve years now, probably longer. My immediate thought was that it would have been one of my earlier ebay purchases, but then in the back of mind something is telling me this may have been a real world purchase that went back quite a long time. Whatever, it has languished in the boxes unplayed for far too long. As have so many others. Why do I keep pursuing more records when I have so many great ones like this already?

Playing it again after so long on my system – and really listening - I was struck by the real quality of the musicianship behind Howard Tate's great vocal. It sent me onto Google to do a bit of research . Howard had a run of consistently solid singles released on Verve in latter half of the 60s, and I have a few of these. They were produced by Jerry Ragavoy who used a number of New York session musicians including Paul Griffin, Chuck Rainey, Richard Tee, Eric Gale and Herb Lovell. Some familiar names to me there – Rainey, Tee, Gale at least – those names must adorn the back sleeves of a significant number of jazz-funk albums in my collection, as well as some in other genres too. All those albums would have been recorded in the 70s and into the 80s, when these guys were really go to session musicians. And that would have been when I first became aware of them; I hadn't previously explored their careers to understand they went back further. Now this has me wondering how many other singles in my collection they are playing on.

I did know the basics of Howard Tate's life story, very much one of ups and downs, but it was good to get a refresher here.

The bass guitar was one instrument which leapt out of the speakers at me when I played this single, so that was most probably Chuck Rainey playing. I've learned something today.

This little episode has also taught me my Soul boxes need more love. I don't need a reason to do that but of course there is a simple one staring me in the face anyway – dig 'em out and share 'em here. After all, it's not as if I don't have the time. Could I be organised and dedicated enough to do that? Hmmm.

Howard Tate – Stop 1967