Dating back to 2000, when they issued the first volume of the New Orleans Funk series, the
Soul Jazz
label has occasionally directed their spotlight at Crescent City R&B, as heard on later compilations such as
Saturday Night Fish Fry
and
New Orleans Soul
. Among the artists whose work they've featured is powerful and poised vocalist
Betty Harris
, the focus of this set.
The Lost Queen of New Orleans Soul
gathers most of her A-sides and B-sides from 1965 through 1968, all of which came out on
Allen Toussaint
Marshall Sehorn
's
Sansu
label, as well as both sides of a 1969 single released on
SSS International
.
Harris
had more commercial success with earlier output on
Jubilee
-- most notably her version of "Cry to Me," which went to number ten on the Billboard R&B chart and almost trumped
Solomon Burke
's original.
wasn't widely distributed outside New Orleans, so these singles, recorded with the brilliant
Toussaint
, didn't stand much of a chance on a national level. Only the grieving ballad "Nearer to You" charted, while the weeping likes of "What a Sad Feeling" and "I'm Evil Tonight" (what a title), along with a clutch of the B-sides, deserve to be known by more than devout soul parishioners. The booklet includes informative liner notes with fresh quotes from
. "I got in this business to make money," she frankly admits. Her work didn't make her rich -- she left music shortly after the release of the 1969 7" that forms the beginning and end of this anthology -- but it made her a favorite beloved by some who justifiably consider the
collaborations as fine as those of
Irma Thomas
'. The
Westside
label's expanded 1998 reissue of
Soul Perfection
is more in depth -- it covers the
era and contains the
Lee Dorsey
pairings missing here -- but it went out of print long before the release of this incomplete, if wonderfully presented, anthology. [
was also released on LP.] ~ Andy Kellman