Various Artists - Eccentric Soul: The Capsoul Label (2005)

Where everything Numero begins. Three guys in a purple Saturn station wagon drove down to Columbus, Ohio, and came back to Chicago with a lost label—the rest is history. In the early ’70s, Bill Moss’ Capsoul imprint could barely break wind in the larger music marketplace, and yet today the label’s output can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with any classic soul of its era. Isolated in central Ohio and lacking the funds to back them, groups like the Four Mints and Johnson, Hawkins, Tatum & Durr might’ve easily withstood ten rounds against the Temptations, Smokey, or Otis. The scrappy Capsoul writing team of Dean Francis, Jeff Smith, and Norman Whiteside would’ve thrown blow-for-hook-filled-blow with any Gamble & Huff or Holland/Dozier/Holland thrown at them. From Bill Moss’ civil rights meditation “Sock It To ‘Em Soul Brother” to Marion Black’s future hit about the future “Who Knows” to Kool Blues bounding “I’m Gonna Keep on Loving You,” Eccentric Soul: The Capsoul Label remains dollar-for-dollar the best soul compilation of its century and the perfect primer for anyone piqued by the Eccentric Soul series.
As the capital of arguably the most soulful state in the nation, Columbus, Ohio is remarkably unassuming. Just south of the rust belt and barely above the Mason-Dixon, it is surrounded by the fertile crescent of American R&B. Propped up culturally and economically by the largest university in the country, it had neither the boom nor the bust of nearby meccas Detroit and Memphis. Columbus was a stable burg where talent could flourish unmolested by the prospect of stardom, a the perfect environment in which idiosyncratic, eccentric soul music could thrive.
Capsoul, short for Capital City Soul, released in its five short years only a dozen 45's and one highly-sought-after LP but managed to score several regional smashes and one national hit before collapsing under the weight of its own debt and hubris. The catalog languished afterward in a sort of limbo, too obscure to find new life on oldies and dusties stations or on Time-Life collections, but too common to attract serious interest from collectors of rare soul. But 30 years after it ceased to exist, the Capsoul label would rediscover its original audience, lying in wait somewhere between the mainstream and the underground.

Tracklisting:
01. Johnson, Hawkins, Tatum & Durr - You're All I Need to Make It (3:18)
02. Marion Black - Who Knows (2:18)
03. Kool Blues - I'm Gonna Keep on Loving You (3:20)
04. Bill Moss - Sock It to 'Em Soul Brother (2:26)
05. Four Mints - Too Far Gone (2:07)
06. Johnson, Hawkins, Tatum & Durr - You Can't Blame Me (3:28)
07. Bill Moss - Number One (3:01)
08. Four Mints - Row My Boat (4:04)
09. Ronnie Taylor - Without Love (2:59)
10. Kool Blues - I Want to Be Ready (4:03)
11. Johnson, Hawkins, Tatum & Durr - Your Love Keeps Drawing Me Closer (2:06)
12. Elijah & The Ebonites - Hot Grits!!! (3:28)
13. Ronnie Taylor - I Can't Take It (2:23)
14. Kool Blues - Can We Try Love Again (3:46)
15. Four Mints - You're My Desire (3:12)
16. Johnson, Hawkins, Tatum & Durr - A World Without You (3:19)
17. Marion Black - Go on Fool (5:10)
18. Elijah & The Ebonites - Pure Soul (3:19)
19. Bill Moss - Sock It to 'Em Soul Brother (Instrumental) (2:28)
20. Capsoul Group - All I Need to Make It (Instrumental) (3:06)