Various Artists Land of 1000 Dances: The Rampart Records Complete Singles Collection Minky Significant tracks and their release dates on these 79 tracks tell the tale of East L.A. soul and R&B along with Rampart’s rise and fall as well as any analysis. The imprint’s… ►

This fellow’s been around seemingly forever and this two-disc CD retrospective serves as less a career summation than a thorough, even fussily made case for his peculiar genius. ►

This is without doubt one of the all-time great reunion gigs and sounds nearly miraculous coming as it does out of high-energy teen music played by men in late middle-age. After a show-stopping pass at “I Can Remember,” Carmen is heard to muse “That was something ambitious for a bunch of twenty-two year olds, wasn’t it?” No kidding! ►

Social protest, gospel, roots rock and Jesus-hippie sentiments are scrambled together with all the sluggish pacing of a Billy Jack movie. Fans of “authenticity” will dig this hugely but many others will file it among the curios of this wonderfully strange era. ►

Too little soul music of this era crosses my desk these days so this reissue of a key late work in the slender catalog of this first-wave originator is a special delight. ►