Kent 312 - Maxine Brown - Best of the Wand Years (2009) + Booklet + AMM,s Posters - Rare Soul (FLAC)

Maxine Brown was born in Kingstree South Carolina in 1939 and first started singing during the long, balmy summer days alongside her sister and an upstairs neighbour. The product of a turbulent marriage The girls became quite accomplished as a three part harmony outfit but Maxine’s sister wasn’t as interested in spending the summer singing so the girls sought out a couple of other neighbours and before long the newly formed quartet were performing Gospel standards in the local area churches as The Angeleers. Due to their father’s violent outbursts Maxine and her sister were removed from the family home and fled to New York with their mother where they settled. Sadly Maxine’s mother passed away at the tender age of 34 but she stayed in NY and continued her education. On graduating High School, Maxine, now living in Queens, enrolled at the Central Needle Traders which was then affiliated to the Fashion Institute of Technology. As Maxine moved into her mid teenage years the church influences solidified when Maxine was asked to join another Gospel group The Royaltones which led to a move to Brooklyn, where the group spent the late 50s performing their Gospel repertoire...But this is about her years at the Wand Label and much more information in the booklet about this iconic soul singer i rate as an uncrowned superstar. This album replaces the deleted “Oh No Not My Baby” CDKEND 949, first issued in 1990. That disc could have used as its subtitle but this time around Kent were stricter and re-released the 1961 and 1962 Nomar hits ‘All In My Mind’ and ‘Funny’, which were in a noticeably earlier style. However kent have been intentionally lax in including the ABC recording ‘Am I Falling In Love’. This is in order to represent Maxine’s first ever Wand release, which was surprisingly an album consisting mainly of ABC tracks that Scepter/Wand owner Florence Greenberg had bought from the major label when buying Maxine’s contract. Since the old CD was issued, Kent have used other previously unreleased Wand tracks, dotted about on several Various Artists CDs but they gathered them together for inclusion here. The main Kent package since “Oh No Not My Baby” was 2000’s “Spotlight On / Greatest Hits” (CDKEND 187) which featured all the tracks from the “Spotlight On” LP but only some of the “Greatest Hits” LP, as those two Nomar hits were included on the vinyl version but, as they were not Wand, are not on the CD. It is impossible to deliver the best of Wand without also including several of the “Spotlight On” tracks and there are seven of those twelve tracks duplicated here. Kent have used the mono versions of the songs, as opposed to the stereo of “Spotlight” to offer Kent collectors the chance to hear the songs how they were, in most cases, issued in the 60s in their true glory. Sticking with the Kent history theme (so that you know what you’re getting here), like the original “Oh No” CD, they included several tracks that we originally discovered in the Wand vaults in the mid-80s and debuted on the LP “Like Never Before” (Kent LP 047). In order to give the collector good value, three of those waxings were included on the “Spotlight” CD but they have revived another eight of them on here. Fortunately further research into their mid-80s Wand trawl has revealed several more excellent recordings to give the great Kent public a “must have” CD for their collections. The two of interest to all soul fans will be those that Maxine cut with Otis Redding producing at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. They put the more obvious ‘Baby Cakes’ and ‘Slipping Through My Fingers’ out on “Like Never Before”; the former is here, the latter on “Spotlight”. Kent had confused ‘If I Had Known’ with the similarly-titled ABC recording, ‘If I Knew Then’, which is actually a line in this song’s lyrics and as for ‘That’s All I Want From You’, put it down to human error. Though not as obviously southern as the first two Otis tracks kent released, these are well worthy of inclusion and the quotes from Maxine on the sessions and Otis’ subsequent death are revealing. Maxine kindly granted kent a two hour phone interview about some of the specifics on this CD and her thoughts and stories helped them fill in more details of her illustrious career and to the ways of Scepter/Wand in the 60s. She also provided some splendid shots of herself, looking as fabulous as ever, to go with the several exclusives they had already sourced. Other notable bonuses for Maxine’s many Kent fans are a noticeably alternative vocal on the Ashford, Simpson, Armstead dancer ‘I Want A Guarantee’ and, for the first time on any CD, the correct version of ‘Let Me Give You My Lovin’’ is used. There’s another treat for lovers of the uptown, uptempo style and that is the previously unissued ‘Why Did I Chose You’ another dancefloor hit from the great lady. They  even feature three of the very best Wand 45s sides, unavailable elsewhere, on here: ‘You’re In Love’, ‘Put Yourself In My Place’ and ‘The Secret Of Living’. You need this CD even if you’ve got the other two and Maxine Brown is magnificent and reinforces my statement that she is one of the greatest soul singers ever!

AMM

 

                                                                       The Tasters!