pre order item shipping on or around the expected release date of 25th september 2020
SHOWDOWN ~ THE COMPLETE 1966 RCA RECORDINGS
by KENNY CARTER
Compact Disc
CDKEND491
Label: KENT
The scintillating, multi-million dollar LP from KENNY CARTER finally gets a release, and it's only 54 years late!
1. EVERY TIME WE SAY GOODBYE
2. YOU'D BETTER GET HIP GIRL
3. I'VE GOTTA FIND HER
4. I STILL LOVE HER
5. I BELIEVE IN YO
6. TIME AFTER TIME
7. DON'T GO
8. SHOWDOWN
9. MY LOVE
10. LIVING IN THE LAND OF HEARTACHES
11. A BIG BAD RAIN
12. WHAT'S THAT ON YOUR FINGER
13. ROUND IN CIRCLES
14. I'VE GOTTA GET MYSELF TOGETHER
15. BODY AND SOUL
16. HOW CAN YOU SAY GOODBYE
17. LIGHTS OUT
18. I’LL KNOW
19. I'M NOT THE ONE
20. I'LL GET BY (AS LONG AS I HAVE YOU
21. I CAN'T STOP LAUGHING
22. SMILE
OVERVIEW
The scintillating, multi-million dollar LP from KENNY CARTER finally gets a release, and it's only 54 years late!
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A scintillating, multi-million dollar LP finally gets a release 54 years late.
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The massively admired Kenny Carter had three sides issued on RCA in 1966 but actually recorded 22. Those singles and some
previously unreleased tracks have made him a cult figure among soul connoisseurs. At last, we have the complete RCA sessions for you.
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Kenny Carter had two workmanlike 45s issued in the early 60s, to no success. For some unknown reason, in 1965 RCA decided to put him into the large Studio A at Bell Sound in Manhattan with one of the top arrangers of the time, a twenty-plus piece orchestra and four top backing vocalists. Three 45s were issued between April and October 1966, none of them charted but the sessions continued with a
view to issuing an LP in November. It never happened.
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The arranger Garry Sherman remembered it as a “a multimillion-dollar orchestra and chorus. In the violin section we had at least 7-8
Strads (each valued at $1,000,000+), many were Concertmeisters for major symphony orchestras and are on hundreds of hit records.”Backing singers included Val Simpson, Nik Ashford, Leslie Miller and Toni Wine; several excellent songs were provided by Larry Banks’song-writing team, which included Kenny, Tony May and Herman Kelley.
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However, it was the additional jazz and show standards that gave the album its raison d’etre. Garry Sherman wanted to move the songsinto the current soul idiom, rather than turn Kenny into a nightclub singer. He moulded the arrangements to suit Kenny’s powerful vocals. Fortuitously, RCA hired a photographer for the sessions and we have eight shots that show the recordings as they happened.
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We have had access to the tapes since the 90s but have only managed to release six of the unissued recordings in a piecemeal fashion, up to now. The full 22 tracks here vary from ballads to up-tempo dancers. That voice, supported by such an intelligently utilised orchestra, make it a true, as yet unknown, pinnacle of 60s soul music.