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Soul City Los Angeles presents recordings which served to establish the musical direction of LA and neighboring West Coast conurbations in the late 1950s and early 1960s when R&B was evolving into the style that became known as soul. Compiled and annotated by soul music authority Clive Richardson, Soul City Los Angeles is the latest in a series that has previously explored the nascent soul scenes in Detroit, New York and Chicago. This instalment presents a selection from key independent labels of the area, including Sam Cooke's SAR and Richard Vaughn's Arvee, as well as choice items from Aladdin, Liberty, Imperial and Ebb, and collectable releases from more obscure imprints. Famous names on CD1 of this 60-track 2 CD set include the Olympics, the Valentinos (aka the Womack Brothers) with 'Lookin' for a Love', the Rivingtons with 'Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow', and Johnnie Morissette with 'Meet Me at the Twistin' Place', while CD2 features 'Ko Ko Mo' hitmakers Gene & Eunice, both sides of a 1962 single on Rush by Don & Dewey, early recordings by future stars Johnnie Taylor and Johnny 'Guitar' Watson, and a young Sly Stone as a member of the Viscaynes. Soul fans of the early 1960s could often figure out the geographic origins of new singles as much by the 'sound' as by any knowledge of sometimes obscure artists and labels, with the output of West Coast studios tending to have a 'harder' sound in comparison with some more sophisticated (for the era) productions from the opposite coast or the regions of the Great Lakes. Here we have music from the formative period of the soul era in Los Angeles.