Bobby Marchan – Get Down With It – The Soul Sides 1963-67 CD (Kent)

The rockin’ R&B years of the former front man of Huey “Piano” Smith and his Clowns, Bobby Marchan, have been collected on CD in the past – but his superior soul recordings of the 1960s have previously escaped compilation. “Get Down With It” remedies that by anthologising all of Bobby’s recordings for Volt, Dial and Cameo Records. More than half of the tracks on “Get Down With It” are making their CD debut. Several have never been issued before, in any format. This is one truly essential collection of 60s Southern soul.

Recorded in Memphis, Nashville and Muscle Shoals between 1964 and 1968, embracing every facet of 60s soul, from deep to sweet to danceable it shows that Marchan was unlucky not to have parlayed these great recordings into a sequence of big R&B and Pop hits. Instead some of the songs become hits for others, for example, the title track that became a 1971 UK and European #1 for Slade.

Musicians backing Bobby include Booker T and The MGs, the Memphis Horns, the second great FAME Studios band aka the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, and the American Studios group. Songwriters include Joe Tex, Paul Kelly (shortly to be the subject of his own 60s Kent anthology), Clarence Reid, Steve Cropper and Bobby himself. The tracks are produced by either Stax boss Jim Stewart or Dial head honcho Buddy Killen. This is a Who’s Who of quality Southern soul.

Those who have only known Marchan via his crazed New Orleans rock’n’roll recordings with the Clowns or the proto-soul of his early 60s sides for Fury Records will be more than surprised at how easily Bobby made the transition to soul music – something that not all of his contemporaries were able to do with such conviction – when they hear “Get Down With It” – Ace Records