R&B: From Doo Wop to Hip Hop
CBS Records (now Sony Music) didn't make a concerted effort to woo the black pop marketplace until the early '70s, so its catalog of R&B; and soul was fairly thin until the advent ofSlyand thePhilly Sound. But that's not to say its labels--particularlyOKeh--didn't release some true classics of the genre pre-Family Stone. Just because the corporate powers that be allowed great protorockers such as theTreniersandRoy Hamiltonto be largely ghettoized in the '50s is no excuse to miss them now. Or that you shouldn't hear balladeerWalter Jackson's towering, elegant, grateful-to-bursting "My Ship Is Comin' In" (1967) due to the company's lousy promotion of the disc at the time. Despite whatever sins are to be atoned for (including Sony's ego-tripping seriesSoundtrack to a Century, this set's raison d'être,From Doo-Wop to Hip Hopdoes tickle one's historic imagination by bringing together raucous touchstones such as "I Put a Spell on You" (in its slightly snipped version) and "Bring the Noise" and smooth ones such as "Me and Mrs. Jones" and "Pony."--Rickey Wright