I love discovering music I somehow missed along the way.  I recently picked up a Silver Fox label compilation released by Sundazed (check the Sundazed website for My Goodness, Yes!) and stumbled upon this gem and a whole host of brilliant tracks from the small Nashville imprint.  “You Got To Pay The Price” started out as an instrumental written and performed by Al Kent in 1967.  The version here was cut by Gloria in 1969, but Al went and cut another vocal version with The Supremes  (post Diana Ross) in 1970. The song really didn’t see any chart action, but that gives us all the more reason to discover and enjoy this long lost gem from Ms. Taylor.

Recommended by: Gregg Ogorzelec

“Ring all the bells, sing and tell the people that be everywhere, that the flower has come.”  It’s the first line of the chorus from this beautiful song and a declaration of the arrival of Minnie Riperton onto the musical scene back in 1970.  After singing backup for a number of Chess artists in the ‘60s and singing with the funky rock-soul group Rotary Connection, Minnie debuted her first album Come To My Garden to deaf ears.  At the time it barely registered but now is considered her finest work by many critics and fans alike. The album introduces her soft jazz-pop ballads, lush orchestration, and five octave vocal range that in a few years would make her famous.  After her monstrous success with “Lovin’ You” in 1975, she revealed to the world that she was battling breast cancer (one of the first artists to go public with her diagnosis) and passed away from the disease on this day back in 1979.

Recommended by: Gregg Ogorzelec

There’s a reason last year’s documentary on Emitt Rhodes was called “One Man Beatles.”  His Dunhill albums were written, sung, played and produced completely by Rhodes in his folks’ garage.  Initial pressings of his incredible, eponymous debut even had “Recorded At Home” etched into the inner groove of the LP – a fact kept secret initially, as the record business didn’t think “homemade” recordings belonged in stores.  Sadly prophetic, that cover shows Emitt in the ruins of a burned out building.  His story became another of a genius devoured and destroyed by the music industry.  Something you’d hope would never happen to someone who made music this fantastic.  If you’re a fan of perfect pop and aren’t familiar with Rhodes, do yourself a favor an introduce yourself.  You’ll be glad you did.

Recommended by: Lee Lodyga

Electronic music didn’t always mean The Chemical Brothers or Massive Attack. In the late ’60s/early ’70s, pioneers like Robert Moog applied their technical wizardry to keyboards, and pop has never been the same. A decade later, the synthesizer’s omnipresence on New Wave novelties and MOR ballads had given it a bad name, but when the original Moog and ARP units weren’t being forced to ape organs or string sections, they had their own distinctive and appealing sound. The gleefully bizarre “E.V.A.” offers a glimpse at what an imaginative composer could wring from these instruments. From early adopter Jean Jacques Perrey’s 1970 album Moog Indigo, the song mixes spacey blips, bleeps and swoops with echoing chimes and chants for a funky good time. It’s no wonder DJs still love it 40 years later.

Recommended by: John Hagelston

Before there was a “mash-up” movement in music.  Jimi Hendrix mashed up against himself to produce more runaway hybrids then a Prius factory.  Rock, funk, and molten blues moving as one.  “Power of Soul” (usually erroneously listed as “Power to Love”) is the finest example from the Band of Gypsies.  Straight fire. From its burning bluesy guitar intro, to the hypnotic funked-out Billy Cox  bass licks, to Jimi¹s screaming, mid-song solo, “Power of  Soul” will make you bang your head, pump a black fist, and grab your nuts‹all at the same time.

Recommended by: Michael Datcher

Chicago saxophonist Harris is best known for his 1961 crossover hit “Exodus,” his ’70s collaborations with pianist Les McCann (“Compared to What”) and the raw raps he put down on The Reason Why I’m Talkin’ S—t (1976). Here, though, he stretches out on a slab of sulphuric funk-jazz that riffs in the vein of “Green Onions” or the innumerable covers of Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Help Me” cut by Brit bands of the ’60s. Piano, guitar, drums and bass (the latter played by the MGs’ Duck Dunn) provide kindling for a slo-burn jam that Harris, on amplified sax, and trumpeter Ira Sullivan crash and splash through for seven-plus minutes. So ceaseless is the track’s big fat groove, it could be a loop. When it feels this good, why stop?

Recommended by: Gene Sculatti

Steven Demetre Georgiou is a man of many names and professions, but he is probably best known by his musical stage name Cat Stevens.  “Miles From Nowhere” is a contemplative number about Cat’s life so far, as well as the journey that lies ahead of him.  An appropriate song from a man who would eventually leave his music carrer behind to devote himself to educational and philanthropic causes in the Muslim community. This track is off his triple platinum album Tea For The Tillerman, released a few years before his unexpected hiatus from music.

Recommended by: Matt Engelman

Originally made famous by the fictional band The Archies, “Sugar Sugar” was a hit that defined the bubblegum pop genre.  A number of musicians including Bob Marley and Tom Jones would eventually cover this tune, but Wilson Pickett was the first to put his own spin on the track, recording his own take just a few months after The Archie’s version was released.  Pickett’s passionately raw rendition transformed this poptastic diddy into a soulful R&B gem.

Recommended by: Steve Woolard

The Doors happily threw a velvet and leather monkey wrench into the hippie machine that ran on liquid sunshine, peace, love, and understanding. Jim Morrison’s vocals and Ray Manzarek’s sideshow organ had no precedent in pop music, and their sinister vibe provided a chilling and much-needed touch of darkness to the hippie daze most kids were living in. The Doors were always disturbing, but never more so than on the down and dirty Morrison Hotel, with “The Spy” being the album’s most threatening moment. When Morrison growls, “I know your deepest secret fear,” the world stops and you can hear the breathing of the night creatures that wait in the shadows, just beyond the reach of your trembling vision.

Recommended by: J Poet

Unfortunately, the unseemly cult that has grown around the Grateful Dead prevents a lot of people from appreciating their actual music, and lyricist Robert Hunter’s association with this unjustly maligned band has perhaps cost him the respect he might otherwise have received. A published poet, who has also translated the works of Rainer Maria Rilke, Hunter excels in fatalistic story-songs steeped in the mythical West. He often pays tribute to the Great American Loser, as in this spectral ballad in which a man on his deathbed resigns himself to the indifference of the world to his fate. “See here how every day leads up to this day/and it’s just like any other day that’s ever been,” sings Jerry Garcia, in a frail, haunted vocal. There are two types of music lover: those who openly admit to liking the Grateful Dead, and those who pretend that they don’t.

Recommended by: John Tottenham

Psychedelic leviathan “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” was two years and three LPs back by the time Iron Butterfly released Metamorphosis, their first foray into a new decade. The band was a little new as well, having shed both its flower-power threads and wunderkind guitarist Erik Braunn. Indeed, the 1970 album was credited to the Butterfly trio (keyboardist/vocalist Doug Ingle, drummer Ron Bushy, and bassist Lee Dorman) and two recent additions, Mike Pinera and Larry “Rhino” Reinhardt, whose dual six-string prowess helped shape a thicker, darker sound. “Soldier In Our Town,” however, is the intimate nucleus of Ingle and Bushy (that’s engineer Bill Cooper on bass) in a contemplative mood. The former later described the track as “about the female side trying to get us to look at the options and a lady trying to steer us clear of violent resolution.” A commendable message, to be sure, but there’s nothing peaceful in Ingle’s anguished roar.

Recommended by: Cory Frye

James Taylor certainly saved the best for last. After figuring out ten flawless tracks for Sweet Baby James, his stunning Warner Bros. debut, the tall, lanky singer-songwriter was struggling to come up with the album’s closer. His solution: feature the fragments of a few pieces he was still working on. The resulting tune, “Suite For 20 G,” starts off with a folk-rockin’, baroque pop vibe, featuring some sparkling piano arpeggios courtesy of Carole King before segueing into a full-blown soul review, thanks to Jack Bielan’s righteously funky horn arrangement and Danny Kortchmar’s stinging Stax-Volt guitar licks. The song’s strange yet clever title refers to the balance of record company cash ($20,000) awaiting Taylor once he finished the album.

Recommended by: Rick Petreycik

Donny Hathaway’s name will probably always be topped on the ’70s soul marquee by those other legends such as Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, and Al Green. He achieved his greatest commercial success with duet partner Roberta Flack, but recorded only three proper studio albums prior to his apparent suicide in 1979. After working as an arranger and pianist for other artists, including Mayfield’s Impressions, Hathaway released his debut solo album, Everything Is Everything, in 1970. This, the opening track, is one of his finest, showcasing everything that makes him one of the decade’s hidden treasures: earthy grooves, gospelly backup, and most of all, that voice! And for arrangement nerds, go ahead and stack its horn swells up against anything happening at the top of that marquee. Bah-nah-nah-naaah-nah-nah-naaaaah!

Recommended by: John Srebalus

Seminal as Bo Diddley’s original version of “Who Do You Love” was—it’s without question one of his crowning moments on wax—the late rock ’n’ roll pioneer just may have been bested by Ronnie Hawkins’ thundering explosion of a 1963 cover for Roulette Records. Flying under the radar, Ronnie constructed a rock ’n’ roll juggernaut up in Canada with his blazing young combo, The Hawks. Their bandstand-honed thrust was topped off by the scalding lead guitar of Robbie Robertson, for whom “Who Do You Love” was something of a coming-out party; his barbed-wire solo is every bit as bombastic as the Tarzan-like whoops and yells of his supremely extroverted boss. Hawkins, an Arkansas rockabilly wildman who carved out a unique north-of-the-border niche, challenged big bad Bo on his own turf, and more than held his own.

Recommended by: Bill Dahl

Gordon Lightfoot knew exactly what he was doing when he subtitled this beautiful acoustic piece “Song For Stephen Foster.” Bringing to mind antebellum mansions, Southern belles in hoop skirts and pink parasols, and courtly gentlemen dressed in frock coats and riding boots, “Your Love’s Return” re-creates the genteel world of the Old South that Foster so loved and so often wrote about. With its delicate acoustic guitars and breathtaking string quartet accompaniment, “Your Love’s Return” would fit squarely and oh-so-politely on the soundtrack to Gone With The Wind—you can almost see Scarlett O’Hara sitting demurely on a cast iron bench under a magnolia tree, listening to the steeple bells signal Rhett Butler’s impending arrival on the riverboat. Leave it to a Canadian to create such strong American imagery.

Recommended by: William De Young

Imagine, if you will, awakening at approximately 2:57 a.m. in a Midtown Manhattan high-rise. Not one to toss and turn, you shuffle into the den, pull back the drapes, and behold the sight of flurries quietly cascading against a backlit concrete jungle. You click the stereo on low, hoping to find something matching the moment. Perhaps “Sometimes In Winter” by Blood, Sweat & Tears or Debussy’s “Snowflakes Are Dancing.” Instead, you’re treated to this Buffalo Springfield cover from Yes. As far as 3 a.m., big-city snowfall songs go, it’ll do nicely. Now, off to the fridge for some leftovers . . .

Recommended by: Gary Moore

Any alternative rock history book worth its salt will devote an entire chapter to Ann Arbor, Michigan’s finest, The Stooges. Though the group owed much of its notoriety to confrontational lead singer Iggy Pop, its music owes much of its raw staying power to brothers Ron and Scott Asheton (on guitar and drums, respectively). The original band’s 1970 masterpiece, Fun House, was a record of pretty music straight from hell, and among its highlights is the driving “Loose.” The Stooges may have been loose, but they were never careless, committing nearly 30 takes of the song to tape before one rose from the primordial ooze to become a punk anthem. Its minimal, repetitive riff is a fitting epitaph for the band’s late guitarist, who passed away just days ago.

Recommended by: John Hagelston

Jimmy Webb, only 24 years old at the time, had already penned “MacArthur Park,” “By The Time I Get To Phoenix,” and “Wichita Lineman” when he recorded this ode to one of his songwriting heroes. Sloan was still very much alive when the song came out and still is today, but by 1970 he wasn’t nearly as well-known as he’d been in the mid-’60s, when he wrote songs like “Eve Of Destruction,” “Where Were You When I Needed You,” and even “Secret Agent Man.” Webb has since expressed regret for writing about Sloan as if he were already a dusty old relic. But this nostalgic ballad, with a terrific harmonica part and incredible vocal harmonies, is a fitting tribute to a pop music icon.

Recommended by: Rob Hatch-Miller