VA - Eccentric Soul: The Forte Label

Unrelentingly uptempo, this newest volume in Numero's neverending Eccentric Soul stash focuses on Kansas City's soul scene, offering up enough occasional oddness to truly fit the series name (as on Lee Harris' "Lookin' Good," replete with randomly-dropped censor-style beeps not actually censoring anything, or The Rayons' "Baby Be Good," a girl-group number interrupted by the piped-in, poorly recorded spoken sweet-nothings of a male suitor) and some particularly funky half-chorded basslines, as on Tear Drop's "I'm Gonna Get You" and Gene Williams' "Whatever You Do (Do It Good)."

"In 1969, after three years as Soul Sister #1 to James Brown's touring entourage, Marva Whitney came home to Kansas City, putting Ellis Taylor's Forte label back at full fighting strength. She'd calmed aching crowds the day after MLK's death, and she'd lived the life, despite its rigors—to pour out her pain and exuberance on Forte sides including 'I’ve Lived The Life' and 'Daddy Don’t Know About Sugar Bear,' which made national rounds in 1972. By then, Forte had already done more than deliver Marvelous Marva to market.

The Forte Label charts Kansas City yeoman's work, The Carpets and The Derbys, dapper clothiers mysteriously murdered, and marriages made and broken. There's a trove of promo headshots and label scans of every hue detailing all iterations of Forte's logo in print. This is an Eccentric Soul sojourn past vivid floor shakers and lost dance craze records alike—though what moves 'The Hen' required remains anyone’s guess." - Numero Group