Loving You, Loving Me

This was South Carolina’s Anne Sexton’s first album. It’s a well-balanced mix of raw-edged, down-home funk like “You’re Losing Me” — just over two minutes of high-intensity JB-style funk with a steamroller of a vocal from Sexton — 4/4 high octane organ-soul like “I Still Love You,” and the gloriously horn-laden “You’ve Been Gone Too Long,” both of which were big on the UK Northern Soul scene, and a smattering of bluesy ballads. Sexton had that slight hoarseness to her voice, there was a little huskiness to it that really shone on deep torch songs like “Come Back Home” and the romantic title track. Anne Sexton’s voice was able to deliver both soft vulnerability and gritty forthrightness, the perfect combination of light and dark that characterises the very best soul music, and Loving You, Loving Me is a straight-up, pure-bred, Southern soul classic album.