Rare Groove Vol. 2

Released

The second in an excellent pair of late ‘80s rare groove compilations from Morgan Khan’s Street Sounds label doesn’t miss once with every track a stone-cold dance floor killer that somehow had been lost over time. Ranging across a few different styles of 70s black music, influential producer Patrick Adams appears under his Cloud One pseudonym with a superb slice of psychedelic disco, and there’s a pair of frantic disco/funk instrumentals from St. Louis sax don Oliver Sain that are in nice contrast to Eddie Harris’s low tempo swagger-funk and the grinding chug of Wilson Pickett’s forgotten “Get Me Back On Time, Engine No. 9.” Fred Wesley makes an appearance with one of his stripped back P-Funk instrumentals, and Latin producer and multi-instrumentalist Coke Escovedo’s simply gorgeous “I Wouldn’t Change A Thing,” a near-perfect blend of soulful vocals, strong singing, neat production and irresistibly in-the-pocket beats, completes a short but strong compilation.

Harold Heath