With the publication of E Mark Windle’s book House Of Broken Hearts, the city of Nashville’s black music scene is being studied in detail for the first time since Kent issued the CDs “Uptown Down South” and “Music City Soul” in the late 90s. To coordinate with the book we are releasing another compilation of Nashville soul, this time concentrating on the work of multi-talented songwriter, producer and arranger Bob Holmes. Those earlier CDs featured Excello/A-Bet and Poncello/Ref-O-Ree recordings respectively. This new collection also draws from those sources, plus Bob Holmes’ personal tapes and other third-party licenses. The time span is 1965 to 1980.

Sandra King’s ‘Leave It Up To The Boys’ is an expensive record to find and shows how Holmes was stylistically influenced more by New York and Detroit than Memphis. Freddie North’s beautiful big beat ballad ‘Don’t Make Me Look So Bad’ and the Paramount Four’s stunning ‘You Must Leave Her Because You Love Her’ are similarly polished. Holmes worked extensively with R&B producer Ted Jarrett on superb late 60s recordings by great Nashville singers such as Gene Allison, Roscoe Shelton and Peggy Gaines, and even wrote and produced ‘Tip On In’, a hit for blues veteran Slim Harpo." - Ace Records