Black History Month!

FABLED FUNK!? First release of 3-LP set as envisioned by James Brown? Includes deluxe jacket with rare photos and liner notes by Alan Leeds? Mastered from Brown?s 1971 mixdown reels, unused until nowJames Brown?s magnum opus! Love Power Peace is the sound of the Godfather and his youngblood J.B.?s (including Bootsy and Catfish Collins) electrifying a crazed Parisian audience on March 8, 1971. Sequenced and mixed by Brown himself for a planned triple album, the set was shelved when key band...

Delivering a devastating punch to rock's early '60s doldrums, Bo Diddley Is a Lover bursts at the seams with Bo's uncompromising, rockin' beat. Yep. Industry and the government may have cleaned up fellow '50s rockers like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis and Gene Vincent, but they didn't get to Bo -- a defiant rocker to the core.By the time of the 1961 sessions for this album, Bo had relocated from Chicago to DC, to record at his own home studio. He used his artistic freedom to his complete...

LIVE, DOWN 'N' REALLY DIRTYIt?s the beach party of your dreams. Not one of those with the squeaky-clean suburban kids doing the frug at Malibu like in the movies, oh no. This is Myrtle Beach, filled with dangerous bikers and gang members and hot mamas and escaped convicts and god knows who else (best not to ask), all cruising for kicks. It?s after midnight but the heat still lingers from a blistering day. Except for a small bonfire, the dark is all-enveloping; couples vanish into it and you?d...

Good Lord. Bo Diddley came out with all guns blazing on his floor-rattling romp from 1960, Have Guitar Will Travel. The LP would become a blueprint for SO much great rock 'n' roll that followed: the Stones covered "Mona" in 1965, the Masters Apprentices walloped "Dancing Girl," the Downliners Sect blasted through "Nursery Rhyme," and "Cops and Robbers" even named one of the baddest mid-'60s UK R&B combos ever! Really... Who in the hell wouldn't be inspired by hearing this opus that followed on...

Shake 'em up! R&B from the vaults of King/Federal Records! Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Steve Cropper all have cited Five Royales' guitarist and songwriter Lowman Pauling as a major influence! Tracks like "It Hurts Inside" and "Wonder Where Your Love Has Gone" highlight his taught, stinging style with solos that served as lessons for budding guitarists everywhere. Sundazed is proud to reissue The Five Royales' from 1959-- pressed on audiophile quality vinyl by RTI and sourced...

THE WOODSTOCK LEGEND ON !"Freedom." The very mention of the song conjures images of Richie Havens at Woodstock, fiercely strumming his guitar and lost in an improvisational moment of creation. An intensely engaging performer, Havens honed his craft in the clubs and cafes of Greenwich Village, just over the bridge from his native Brooklyn. Painter, poet and multi-instrumentalist, Havens immersed himself in the Village's beatnik culture just as the nascent folk scene began to develop. Connecting...

THE WOODSTOCK LEGEND ON !"Freedom." The very mention of the song conjures images of Richie Havens at Woodstock, fiercely strumming his guitar and lost in an improvisational moment of creation. An intensely engaging performer, Havens honed his craft in the clubs and cafes of Greenwich Village, just over the bridge from his native Brooklyn. Painter, poet and multi-instrumentalist, Havens immersed himself in the Village's beatnik culture just as the nascent folk scene began to develop. Connecting...

Shake 'em up! R&B from the vaults of King/Federal Records!The embodiment of the blues! A primal architect of the genre?s structure, Hooker?s hypnotic guitar work and commanding vocals influenced everyone who followed, and these tracks?originally released in the late '40s and early '50s as "Texas Slim"--find him at the peak of his playing and singing powers. Pressed at RTI on audiophile vinyl, you?ll hear every moan, gasp and string blast on this definitive edition of John Lee Hooker Sings...

The 1976 beat poetry that inspired the music and namesake of Ice-T and Ice Cube! Reflections is the very explicit beat-jazz birth of gangsta rap. A former pimp turned author, Iceberg Slim wrote Pimp: The Story of My Life, believed by some to be the highest selling book by a black author ever! On Reflections, the Red Holloway Quartet makes the bed, then Slim rhythmically speaks his prose like a bass note beat poet in what became the birth of the bad, dark, none-too-taboo tales of the street...

Raw, raucous R&B gem!The Isley Brothers are one of the most enduring and influential acts in American music, building a prodigious body of innovative, infectious work that's broadened rhythm and blues' creative boundaries while keeping the combo at the forefront for more than half a century. For many listeners, though, there's no beating the Isleys' raw, raucous early work, which combined gospel fervor and roadhouse grit to create rousing, transcendent music.The Isley Brothers' 1962 hit "Twist...

Vinyl Pressed at R.T.I.Growing up in Pittsburgh, Chuck Jackson witnessed first-hand the rise of the city's vibrant doo wop scene. Joining local heroes the Del Vikings, his smooth, commanding voice took the lead on their 1957 single "Willette." Going solo in 1959, Jackson was spotted by producer/Wand Records A&R man Luther Dixon while opening for Jackie Wilson at the Apollo Theater. With Dixon, Jackson co-wrote his first hit, "I Don't Want to Cry." The track featured a lavish band arrangement,...

Vinyl Pressed at R.T.I.In the original liner notes for Chuck Jackson on Tour (1964), Bob King describes Jackson "a man with pent up talent." Consequently, this LP is the sound of that talent erupting all over the stage of the famed Apollo Theater, the same venue where Jackson had been discovered a few years earlier. Jackson leads the airtight band through raw, sweat-soaked versions of his hits "I Wake Up Crying" and "Any Day Now," giving the audience their money's worth and more. He also...

Pressed at R.T.I. on Vinyl! One of the Three Kings of blues guitar along with B.B. and Albert, Texas-born Freddy (Freddie) King influenced everyone from Eric Clapton and Peter Green in the UK to Jerry Garcia and Stevie Ray Vaughan in the States. But even his staying up all night playing poker with Grand Funk wasn't enough to prevent his seminal King/Federal albums from staying out of print on vinyl for decades - until Sundazed came to the rescue.The reissue campaign that began with...

All-instrumental LP from the guitarist idolized by Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Stevie Ray Vaughan and many others. Vinyl Pressed at R.T.I.Freddie King's second all-instrumental album, Freddy King Gives You a Bonanza of Instrumentals, originally released in 1965 on King Records' Federal subsidiary, continued the artist's winning streak, with such memorable King originals as "Manhole," "Freeway 75," "Low Tide" and "Funnybone." The 12-song LP demonstrates once again why King was one of his...

Shake 'em up! R&B from the vaults of King/Federal Records!The lascivious pen of Henry "Hank" Ballard was responsible for many risque odes, including The Midnighters' "Work With Me Annie," "Sexy Ways," and "Get It," major R&B hits of the early '50s all included on 1956's Their Greatest Hits! The FCC banned several of the band's songs from airplay, which only made them that much more desirable for the growing teenage market, and this Sundazed edition--pressed on audiophile vinyl at RTI--is the...

A vault?s worth of solid gold treasures! Nearly all the cuts included here are legendary, high-dollar 45s, presented in their original?and danceable!?mono mixes. The sound of thousands of dollars? worth of revered R&B, from Sundazed! The legendary Florence Greenberg was one of very few women who envisioned, launched and ran a hugely-successful record company. She liked to say that she was ?a white woman in a black business who couldn?t carry a tune!? But, she sure knew talent: talented...

Otis Redding's first live release was recorded in March 1967, on the now-legendary Stax/Volt tour of Europe, on which Otis and company demonstrated that soul is a universal language. Backed by the erstwhile Stax studio combo Booker T. and the MGs and the Memphis Horns, the Big O rises to the historic occasion, delivering incendiary, emotion-charged readings of such iconic tunes as "Respect," "I Can't Turn You Loose," "I've Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now)," "Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)"...

Vinyl Pressed at R.T.I. An arresting, singular chanteuse, Lula Reed beat out 50 other contestants in an audition for Sonny Thompson's band at the Toledo Auditorium. Following her victory, 22-year old Reed trekked down to Cincinnati with future husband Thompson to record for Syd Nathan's King Records. These sessions yielded two Billboard Top Ten R&B singles, "Let's Call It a Day" (#7) and "I'll Drown in My Tears" (#5). These songs plus ten more smokin' sides are collected on Blue and Moody...

vinyl TWIST AND GROOVE WITH THE SHIRELLES AND KING CURTIS!In 1962, the twist was EVERYWHERE. Artists from Joey Dee to Frank Sinatra (?!) were all chasing the craze, feverishly recording twist-able platters to meet the dance floor demand. Saxophone great King Curtis didn?t sleep on the trend, scoring a major hit with ?Soul Twist? along with several other twist-themed singles. Thus, it was only natural that he should team up with the country?s #1 girl group, The Shirelles, themselves in the...

Cymbals has finally landed… and brought a 2nd saucer with it!Originally recorded for the Impulse! jazz label in ’73, Cymbals makes its first legitimate release on vinyl, paired with a second LP of unheard material from the same sessions. Hear Ra’s Baroque soundscapes, electrolytic clusters and dithering Moogs catalyze images of monoliths, space stations, computers malfunctioning and galaxies imploding on pristine red and green vinyl with liner notes by known Ra-fficianado Brother Cleve! Making...

JOHN LEE HOOKER, ALBERT KING, JOHNNY ?GUITAR? WATSON and more on Vinyl Pressed at R.T.I. Selected from the crown jewels of the rich King-Federal-DeLuxe discography, King Strings features rocking, socking guitar instrumentals from the Cincinnati-based family of labels cut between 1949 and 1962, programmed for power! Fashioned as a vintage King LP from the era and containing a killer line-up of the biggest talents the stable of labels offered, this is the historic various artists collection that...