Various: Eccentric Soul: The Saadia Label (green & blue splatter)LP

After the fall of the Deep City label, Rocketeers bandleader Frank Williams set up shop under the name of his twin daughters Saadia and Giwada and got to work reinventing the Miami Sound. Tracked between 1968-1970, this LP gathers 15 of Saadia’s funkiest and deeply soulful moments, featuring Pearl Dowell, Joey Gilmore, Little Beaver, Frank Williams’ Rocketeers, Robert Moore, Brother Williams, and Sam Baker. Your next sample, first dance, workout jam or closing credits is buried in here somewhere.

On March 1, 2004, Numero issued the first volume of our long-running Eccentric Soul series. The Capsoul Label was our first foray into the world of regional soul music, and over the next twenty years we issued nearly two dozen volumes, documenting such far ranging locales as Wichita, Kansas, San Antonia, Texas, and Norfolk, Virginia, and labels named Deep City, Twinight, and Way Out. These parallel soul universes were filled with endless replication: the Berry Gordy phenotype, the James Brown archetype, the Temptations chromosome, copied and mimicked and mutated into a thousand forms. When a true hit made its big splash, Eccentric Soul was that very last ripple.

To commemorate two decades of Eccentric Soul, Numero is issuing eight new volumes. As we began in Ohio with Capsoul, we’ll do so again with Tony March’s Youngstown-based Tammy concern. We’ll head back to Miami and finally deal with Frank Williams’ wildly collectable Saadia imprint. Abe Epstein’s San Antonio powerhouse Cobra gets the treatment, as does Lenny LaCour’s Magic Touch, and Mel Alexander’s sprawling Consolidated Productions (with each of these getting a sequel in 2025!). Even Howard Neale’s micro-indie Shoestring has been dissected and highlighted for the stunning work he was able to achieve from his Alton, Illinois, basement. A wildly deep collection of recordings made at Sauk City, Wisconsin’s Cuca will finally see a vinyl pressing, as will The Tragar & Note Labels, and a boil down of our Omnibus 45x45 box set for those that missed out on that now-$1500 doorstop.