• Track Listing

Four CD set. The Greatest Soul / Funk & Disco 12" Inch Singles of The 70s & 80s is packed with some of the greatest 12-inch versions from that era. With liner notes by journalist Charles Waring against every track in the booklet. Like many crucial inventions, the 12" single was born out of necessity. Although it's widely seen as an innovation born in the disco era to help DJs keep people dancing by stretching out songs much further than the conventional three-minute mark defined by the 7" single, the very first 12" single appeared in 1970. It was a novelty that didn't catch on but a few years later in 1974, an innovative New York producer called Tom Moulton resurrected the 12" single format as a vehicle for making extended mixes of dance tracks. It was an innovation that helped stoke the flames of the Disco Inferno and introduced the concept of instrumental breakdowns or "breaks". Initially, 12" pressings targeted DJs and were only used for promotional purposes but such was their desirability that it wasn't long before record companies made them commercially available; the first one sold to the public was Double Exposure's 'Ten Percent' in 1976, that is included in this package. It's success opened the floodgates and from that moment, the 12" single became the format that defined Disco's glory years.