Detroit was a Jazz city in the 1950s, but with the dawn of the the Sixties, the sound the city wanted was Soul Music. You can't ignore the influence that Berry Gordy Jr had on the city's music. He built the largest Black American owned company in the world with his Motown Empire. But there was so much more to the music of the Motor City. There were hundreds of little labels who produced music just as good as that of the major labels, but for one reason or another (Usually a lack of promotion and money) they failed to become hits. This book tries to redress that balance, by focusing on the smaller labels and the artists who made great records, but never got the hits. Stuffed full to the brim with Label Listings and Artist Discographies, this is a book for the serious Detroit afficianado.

Philadelphia, The City Of Brotherly Love. A tale of two decades really as far as Soul Music goes, the 1960's and the 1970's.The 1960's were dominated by two companies really, Parkway, and Cameo who released literally hundreds of singles. Not all were Soul, in fact they also defined the pop siound in the the States at the time, but a lot were. Patially in the back ground though was the Jamie / Guyden group. Not only did they also release hundreds of singles, but they also distributed what must at one stage have been nearly 100 other smaller Philadelphia labels. This was of course the key to getting national sales. It was easy enough to get sales in Philadelphia if you had a great record. All the Mom & Pop One Stops would be selling it. But to break out of the city and get national exposure and sales you had to have a whole distribution network, and that was way beyond the resources of most smaller labels. That's where Jamie/Guyden came in. They had the network, and could distribute your records all over the country for you, for a fee of course !By the mid Sixties though two other names were coming to the fore. Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. As label owners and writers and producers.By the early Seventies they made it big time. They created music that became known world wide as 'The Philly Sound'. I don't need to go into details here about the groups and artists that had huge hits and became household names of Philadelphia International Records, if you've bought this book, you'll know them anyway. Suffice to say, it created an identity for Philadelphia in the Seventies that rivalled that Motown and Detroit in the Sixties.As usual, the book contains discographies for artists from Philadelphia, and those not born there, but who recorded a significant part of their career in the city.As usual, I'm sure that somewhere in nearly 300 pages, I'll have made a mistake, either a typo, or missed something out. What I am confident about is that these are the most accurate and complete discographies of labels and artists that you will find anywhere.

The Southern States were a rich vein of Soul music, from the major labels, to the little ones with only a couple of releases. This book pulls together the label listings and artist discographies that made that distinctive sound.

New York, from the swooping sounds of Doo Wop, and the grittier sounds of R & B, the Big Apple had it all. And as the 1960's dawned a certain style was developing in New York. Some of the best songwriters and arrangers in the world lived and worked in the city. This coupled with some truly gifted singers created what has become known as the Big City Soul Sound. Suave, sophisticated and Soulful, it's a style that is still revered today by all aficionardo's of quality Soul music. The big players in the city were the Atlantic / Atco group, closely followed by the Scepter / Wand group. There were also the smaller labels, and the artists that didn't make more than one record. The book pulls it all together in a feast of discographical information.

Chicago, the Windy City. Another city with its own sound. Back in the Sixties you could spot which city records were made in by the sound. The writing, production, and arrangements, and of course the musicians, all contributed to that sound. Of course it was partly because the same people in each city tended to play on records for lots of labels, and the same guys in each city owned lots of little independent labels as well. So this book is about that distinctive Chicago sound.For many years the dominate group of labels in Chicago were those owned by the Chess Brothers. From early Blues through R & B, to the heyday of the labels in the Sixties. But as with all the other cities, whilst Chess / Cadet / Argo were the main players, there were lots of other, equally as good, labels, and Okeh ran them a close second, producing some wonderful Soul music.

With informative biographies, essays, and "music maps, " this book is the ultimate guide to the best recordings in rhythm and blues. 20 charts.

Arranged in sixteen musical categories, provides entries for twenty thousand releases from four thousand artists, and includes a history of each musical genre.