The 70s Soul Experience
(Rhino) First off, it’s worth noting Rhino’s knack for packaging; to all outward appearances, The 70s Soul Experience is a half-dozen pristine 8-tracks by Bill Withers, the Temptations, Spinners, and a few others, stacked in an authentic woodgrain case. Open the facade of everybody’s favorite dead technology, and you’ll find a 6-CD set with a booklet the size of a small paperback. As you might expect with half-a-dozen discs, Rhino has pulled together a pretty thorough overview of polyester-and-afro soul hits. There’s the obvious (“Love Rollercoaster,” “Lady Marmalade,” “Let’s Get It On”), the somewhat more sublime picks (Joe Tex’s leering “I Gotcha,” Bill Withers’ “Use Me,” Curtis Mayfield’s falsetto crooning “Freddie’s Dead”), and the more obscure stuff (the Delfonics’ “Didn’t I,” the Originals’ haunting “The Bells”). It’s all introduced with a lengthy and thoughtful essay by Craig Werner titled “Black Power and the Soul of the 70s,” while Steven Ivory supplies complete rundowns on each track, and the whole thing is then wrapped up with a glossary of long-obsolete Seventies slang. The only gripe about this box set might stem from a desire to hear more from the dusty corners of Seventies R&B and less of the radio hits. Still, it’s a great compendium of a period that’s dead and gone, the days of synchronized dance moves, matching tuxedos, and bigger-is-better afro blowouts, a period as dead as those phony 8-tracks on the front of the box. Play it and leave the box lying out so your friends can say, “Cooool! 8-tracks!” 
This article appears in December 7 • 2001.