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Clyde McPhatter - The Very Best Of Clyde McPhatter 1953-62 - This collection provides a worthy showcase for his distinctive talents. Clyde McPhatter was one of the most imitated vocalists to emerge... more

Perhaps more than any other artist, Ruth Brown helped lead the way in bridging the gap between R&B and pop as far as female artists were concerned, paving the way for the likes of Mary Wells and... more

Who is best-known for recording the original 1953 version of the legendary song "Hound Dog", which Elvis Presley famously covered to have a big early career hit. Willie Mae Big Mama Thornton was an... more

The Impressions were one of the R&B vocal groups that heralded the transition from doowop to the more pop-oriented styles of the late '50s, and were notable for bringing to the fore two of the great... more

The Crests were a ground-breaking multiracial pop/doowop group formed in the mid-1950s when singer Johnny Mastrangelo joined forces with a doowop quartet comprising three African-Americans and one... more

Only a tragic backstage gun accident could have halted the rise of this wonderfully talented singer/pianist, who worked with B.B. King and Bobbie "Blue" Bland before taking off as a solo artist. Here... more

All 19 pop and R&B hits plus choice B-sides from the prime years of this wonderfully versatile singer (and successful songwriter). You get his MGM hits "All Over Again," "It's All in the Game" (his... more

Gene McDaniels was an African-American singer, who started out performing gospel, before turning to jazz, and came to the fore as vocalist with the Les McCann Trio in Los Angeles. Signed by Liberty,... more

Pianist, singer and songwriter Ivory Joe Hunter was a blues balladeer extraordinaire, specialising in a unique brand of highly tuneful and soulful blues songs that bucked the trend for more raucous... more

Mickey Baker was a guitarist and Sylvia Vanterpool was a singer who was also one of his guitar pupils, and they teamed up to make records as Mickey & Sylvia, becoming famous for recording the first... more

Huey 'Piano' Smith was one of the many influential musical figures to emerge from New Orleans during the 1950s, becoming a noted and successful pianist, singer and songwriter on the R&B scene, and... more

It's a cold, hard fact that some groups are crucial to their genre but aren't a big part of its chart history. Such was true for the Harptones, one of the greatest doo-wop groups but the owners of... more

Doowop and R&B vocal group The Five Keys were often called "the group's group" because they were top class exponents among the doowop fraternity whose style and technique many other groups tried to... more

The Four Coins - Shangri-La: The Singles & Albums Collection 1954-62 - The Four Coins were one of the many vocal groups to emerge onto the pop scene in the wake of the classic early doowop groups... more

Annie Laurie was an R&B, blues and sophisticated jazz and pop singer born in Atlanta, Ga., in 1924, who came to prominence in 1947 with her debut hit "Since I Fell For You", and over the next 15... more

The Hollywood Flames were a doowop and R&B vocal group, who formed in Los Angeles in 1949, and remained active under a variety of names and with evolving line-ups through into the early 1960s,... more

This North Carolina group transitioned from gospel to secular music in the early '50s, becoming one of the most esteemed early African-American doo-wop groups. Bask in their sweet style and... more

They started as a gospel group, then found themselves on the pop charts (while most doo-wop groups scored their biggest success on the R&B charts) when they switched to secular music in the mid-'40s.... more

This iconic R&B pioneer went on an epic run of hits from the '40s to early '50s, but this intriguing collection brings us what came next: a streak of stellar records that didn't chart (as rock 'n'... more

Very few instrumentalists can match the chart success of American pianist Roger Williams, who had well over thirty chart entries during his career, and came to fame with his 1955 debut hit "Autumn... more

Evolving out of the Brown Dots and the Sentimentalists in the mid-'40s, the Four Tunes initially sang in the traditional style of the Ink Spots and Mills Brothers. But these tracks (late '40s to late... more

Ben E. King was one of the soul and R&B singers who bridged the gap between the doowop and R&B vocal groups of the late 1950 and the soul boom of the 1960s, beginning his career as a member of The... more

Elvis drew great inspiration from the Memphis performances of this gospel-fueled R&B/blues singer, who recorded for Savoy throughout this core era of his career. These 52 Savoy A- and B-sides include... more

What a smooth customer Mayfield was, crooning with a velvet touch and writing classics for himself as well as his longtime associate Ray Charles. Here are just about all the A- and B-sides from his... more

Johnny Moore's Three Blazers were one of the most distinctive and stylish R&B groups of the post-war era, specialising in a smooth jazz-flavoured style of music similar to the approach pioneered by... more