Black Diamond: Dave Hamilton's Detroit Masters

The Kent label's excavation of soul music from the vaults of Detroit producer Dave Hamilton had stretched over many years by the time this single-artist compilation was issued in 2011. Even for some of the fans dedicated to seeking out such obscure soul, this 22-track compilation might be a stretch too far, as singer O.C. Tolbert hardly released any records. Indeed, only three of the cuts (all from 1972-1973 singles) appeared around the time they were actually recorded, and a dozen of them never appeared anywhere prior to showing up on this CD. The bulk of the tracks date from the late '60s and early '70s (although the date of recording is uncertain for some of them), and display what in baseball lingo might be termed a "tweener" talent: not bad by any means, but not so good or original that the vocalist would command attention from record labels. That limits the desirability of this anthology to serious genre fans, though Tolbert is a fair singer who favors the rough side of the era's soul music, with a husk and growl to his tone. It's hard to get too worked up, however, when the singer doesn't project much of a persona, either in his vocals or the material (much of which Hamilton wrote or co-wrote) and production. Tolbert and Hamilton tried a variety of approaches, from the funky and sweetly upbeat to gospel and the socially conscious, without really hitting on anything much more than adequate, or even too easily summarized or described when listened to decades later. Maybe a cut here and there could be pulled onto a mix tape depending on your particular tastes, like the 1973 single "A Message to the Black Woman" (actually credited to King Diamond upon its original release), which fits very much into the spirit of its time with its slight wah-wahs and attempt to craft an uplifting lyric of African-American pride. "The Grown Folks Thing" comes off like a bluesy late-'60s James Brown, with other 1969 recordings, "Fix It" and "Everybody Wants to Do Their Own Thing," making for other easy Brown comparisons. In a way, it's nice to hear vault soul from the era with a rougher, less polished production edge than most such CD-era discoveries, but at the same time, the playing is often notably more ragged than what you'll hear on many other period soul productions both famous and obscure.