“The world capital of soul has moved around a lot in the last 50 years or so,” writes Douglas Wolk in the liner notes for Daptone Gold. “For the better part of the past decade, soul’s central headquarters has been in Brooklyn.” That’s largely due to the presence of Daptone Records, a small, tight-knit label dedicated to producing soul records that sound as if they were plucked straight from the heyday of Stax or Motown.
Daptone Gold is the label’s first compilation, and it’s a stunner. These 23 tracks will appeal to newcomers and longtime converts alike. Some of Daptone’s biggest hits are present (like Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings’s “Tell Me”), as well as some vinyl-only rarities and even a batch of unreleased songs. Nearly every track here sizzles, but put on Lee Fields’s mammoth ballad “Could Have Been” or Cynthia Langston’s aching “I Need You to Hold My Hand” and watch every heart in a 10-mile radius melt and break all at once.
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