Marvin Gaye Graced with an extraordinary voice, complex personality, musical genius, and a backstory worthy of a Hollywood movie, Marvin Gaye wasn't your average soul singer. Born in Washington on the 2nd of April in 1939, the now legendary singer began his career singing at church at the age of four, accompanied by his father on piano. Marvin's mother was a supportive figure who encouraged her son to pursue music, and once he got to high school, he joined various doo-wop groups. By contrast, Marvin's father was a violent man who would regularly beat his son, and this pushed Marvin to join the U.S air force once he had completed his schooling. He quickly became disillusioned with the forces however, and faked madness in order to be discharged. Back in Washington, Marvin Gaye started the Marquees with his best friend, Reese Palmer. The band made quite a buzz, and found itself working with Bo Diddley, who managed to secure them a contract at OKeh records, a sub-division of Columbia.

Ike & Tina Turner As husband and wife, Ike & Tina Turner headed up one of the most potent live acts on the R&B circuit during the '60s and early '70s. Guitarist and bandleader Ike kept his ensemble tight and well-drilled while throwing in his own distinctively twangy plucking; lead vocalist Tina was a ferocious whirlwind of power and energy, a raw sexual dynamo who was impossible to contain when she hit the stage, leading some critics to call her the first female singer to embody the true spirit of rock & roll. In their prime, the Ike & Tina Turner Revue specialized in a hard-driving, funked-up hybrid of soul and rock that, in its best moments, rose to a visceral frenzy that few R&B acts of any era could hope to match.

NOW Music is very proud to present the second of our ‘Now That’s What I Call An Era’ releases. ‘The Albums 1980 > 1984’ celebrates 72 iconic albums that were released between 1980 and 1984, featuring a magnificent track from each - and none of them UK hit singles! Most of the albums being highlighted produced huge hit singles that have become both synonymous with the decade and enduringly popular – but these albums are of such a high quality – forever part of the artist’s legacy - that other tracks could have equally become hits – and some have become as well-loved by fans as the singles, and have for many artists always been an established part of their live shows.

The Great Sounds Of The Yacht Soul: The Smooth Sounds Of The 70s And 80s – Two CDs with the greatest hits 70s 80s songs

Limited four CD set exploring the evolution of the 'new pop' movement, 1979-1983. Featuring The Human League, Fun Boy Three, Soft Cell, Scritti Politti, The Style Council, Heaven 17, The Cure, Eurythmics, Tears For Fears, Altered Images, Art Of Noise and countless other big names and lesser-known gems. A term forever associated with tastemaker NME scribe turned Svengali Paul Morley, 'New Pop' came to describe any forward-thinking British music of the early 1980s which wasn't 'rockist' (macho men with guitars, etc.) or overtly punky and anti-establishment in outlook. New Pop was an aspiration. Punk had shaken up the UK music industry - and more importantly, had inspired a generation of art students, budding musicians and others with a sense of what was possible.

What happens when genius, bravery, talent, and perseverance meet, fueled by many individuals from three groups? Well, you get this freaking masterpiece! Blake Boris-Schacter (venue owner The Get Down Portland, OR), and Kris Howland (Heady Wax Fiends) had the idea of making a live record for the HWF club at The Get Down. They saw it come to fruition when they recorded a blazing show from The Polyrhythmics on May 4, 2024!The seven piece band meld funk, jazz, rock, Afro-beat together as they meld the listeners minds too! The musicianship is top notch! A great job was done by getting this on wax and making it translate so well! The packaging is amazing, with a beautiful cover, rad looking wax, cool pics inside the gatefold of the night, and some short write up’s about this incredible endeavor!!

2009 three CD collection. How do you like your Funk, y'all? Streetwise, southern fried or paaarty? You'll find them all here as this collection of original rare grooves brings you Curtis Mayfield, The Meters, Funkadelic, Bobby Womack, Mavis Staples and many other true funky legends. Sure to satisfy, this is funky perfection on plastic! Includes informative notes on all songs featured. 60 tracks.

Prince No artist of the rock & roll era compares to singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Prince. He was the rare combination of a visionary pop conceptualist and master musician who could capture the sounds he imagined. This quality fueled his remarkable success throughout the 1980s, a decade in which he authored a string of nine gold, platinum, or multi-platinum albums that included 1999 (1982), Purple Rain (1984), and Sign 'o' the Times (1987). Ideas came to Prince so quickly that they couldn't be contained on his own records.

Leaked Soundboard recording from the first stop on Prince's 2015 Hit and Run tour.Recorded 4/9/15 @ the Detroit Fox Theater

From 1958 to 1993, Thomas and Louise Boddie’s industrious Boddie Recording Company issued nearly 300 albums and 45s, recorded 10,000 hours of tape, and remained in operation longer than any other studio, pressing plant, or label group in the history of Cleveland. Long forgotten even by the standards of the chronically overlooked northeastern Ohio music scene, Boddie was a fusion of its owner’s engineering genius and his limited economic means, its DIY recording studio housed in a humble barn, churning night and day to capture the sounds emanating from Cleveland’s east side neighborhoods. The 58 tracks on these three CDs (or 65-track 5LP) represent the best of the Boddies’ in-house Soul Kitchen, Luau, and Bounty labels, which released an unspoiled treasure trove of kitchen-sink eccentric soul, fuzzbox funk, shoestring doo-wop, and haunted, eerily hook-laden spirituals. Enclosed inside is a mountain of office-styled ephemera: two massive booklets brimming with detail on the Boddies and their artists; extensive notes and scores of unpublished photos; a complete detailed discography folio; reproduced fliers; and a Boddie greeting card—all rendered with the handcrafted charm that was the Boddie hallmark. Call it a self-contained secret record industry crammed into one box.

An astonishingly diverse solo debut by the Isleys' axeman, High Wire is full of screaming guitars, tight riffs, ear-tugging melodies, and evocative vocals.

2003 compilation featuring 42 massive dance & funk tunes that time forgot. Artists include Soul II Soul, KC & The Sunshine Band, New Edition, The Dazz Band, Princess, Loose Ends, Kool & The Gang, Level 42, Tone Loc, The Jackson, The Chimes, The Weather G

This 30-track compilation collects together the best and more unusual, even peculiar, picks from Tom Petty's treasured shows, and in so doing provides fans of this maverick performer a window into the music that helped shape the great man's muse. After almost 30 years as a performer, musician, composer and occasional actor, in 2005 Tom Petty turned his hand to DJing, hosting his own radio show, "Buried Treasure" on XM Radio, during which he shares selections from his personal record collection with his listeners. In 2013 Petty joined a select group of artists who have been given their own radio station. Dedicated to episodes of Buried Treasure, which airs every Thursday night on "Deep Tracks" Channel 27, the programmes now also air around the clock, 24/7, on SiriusXM Internet Radio Channel 712.

With about seven years of downtime on the recording front, Isaac Hayes burst to life again in 1995 with not one but two albums, released simultaneously with cover art that merges together when placed side by side. One was a collection of old demos and new instrumental tracks (Raw and Refined), but the other - the disc at hand - was a brand-new package hearkening back to Hayes' old extravagant ways. In a major attempt to restart his commercial engines, Hayes goes so far as to record in his original headquarters, Memphis, gathering around him many old cronies - most notably his old writing partner from the Sam & Dave days, David Porter, and guitarists Michael Toles and Skip Pitts from the Stax period. Once again, Hayes attempts to transform well-known pop hits into wide-screen spectaculars, and he revisits tunes and ideas from his heyday…

After discreetly having pre-release album cuts played on the UK’s pirate jazz-funk and soul stations, IMAGINATION, with their charismatic lead singer, LEEE JOHN, burst onto the scene in May 1981, when their debut single ‘Body Talk’ entered the UK Charts at #68, with it peaking at #4 on 18th July 1981, having gained momentum after their momentous and unforgettable debut performance on BBC One’s Top Of The Pops on 4th June. In the period 1981-1983, IMAGINATION had hits in almost 30 countries around the world, with very high popularity across Europe, especially in France, Italy, Benelux and Germany, whilst also appearing in the Billboard US Dance and R&B Charts on a regular basis in the throughout the ‘80s. They really were a internationally successful British group, earning numerousPlatinum, Gold and Silver discs, for hit singles ‘Flashback’, In And Out Of Love’, the much-sampled ‘Just An Illusion’ and ‘Music And Lights’, ‘New Dimension’, ‘State Of Love’, ‘Looking At Midnight’ and ‘Thank You My Love’ and albums BODY TALK, IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, SCANDALOUS, NIGHT DUBBING, CLOSER and LIKE IT IS.