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RockerZ Lost R&B Classics Vol. 1

Forty records that should be famous and are not. This is the most valuable kind of playlist — the one built entirely from things you will not find any other way.

The songs that fell through

Every era produces records that were as good as the hits and did not become them — because of label politics, bad timing, a missed radio window, or simple luck. This mix is a working archive of exactly that, drawn largely from R&B's 1970s through 2000s, and its value is that almost none of these will be familiar even to people who know the era well.

What to listen for

Christión's "Face Like Yours" is the holy grail for collectors of this period. The Bay Area duo were signed to Roc-A-Fella, released one album in 1997, and vanished. Ghetto Cyrano is now a genuine cult object.

Brownstone's "5 Miles To Empty" deserved to be enormous. Gary Taylor's "Tease Me" comes from a singer-songwriter who wrote for Whitney Houston and Anita Baker and never broke as an artist.

Lillo Thomas's "Wanna Make Love (All Night Long)" is 1980s Capitol soul at its smoothest, and El DeBarge's "Heart, Mind & Soul" and Chico DeBarge's "Trouble Man" show a family with more talent than fortune.

Deon Estus's "Heaven Help Me" was a top ten hit and is now almost entirely forgotten — Estus was Wham!'s bassist, and George Michael sings on it.

Heatwave's "Happiness Togetherness" is the deep cut from the band who gave us "Boogie Nights" and, through Rod Temperton, half of Michael Jackson's catalogue.

Eric Roberson with Algebra Blessett represents the modern independent lane — Roberson has built one of the most durable careers in soul entirely outside the majors.

Men of Vizion's take on "Show You The Way To Go" and Yvonne Elliman's "Hello Stranger" are the covers, and Stanley Clarke's "Fantasy Love" is the jazz-fusion outlier.

Go deeper

Three to chase properly. Christión's Ghetto Cyrano — if you can find it. Gary Taylor — a whole catalogue of quiet-storm songwriting by a man who should be much better known. Eric Roberson — start with Left, and then work through everything.

For the how-to: the useful skill in this area is following writers and producers rather than artists. Almost every record here was made by people whose other work is easy to find once you know their names, and the credits are the map.

And record stores, Discogs and the reissue labels — Soul Jazz, BBE, Athens of the North — are doing the archival work that streaming services do not.

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