It's what's in the grooves that counts

Many soul albums, particularly those of the 1960s, contained a couple of great singles padded out with filler tracks.  Also, the explosion of soul during this time meant that due to the sheer number of records being made, many artists only released one or two songs before disappearing from view.  This means that often, soul music is best consumed via the compilation.  I've picked up some of the more popular ones at boot sales over the last few weeks.

Everyone with a working pair of ears loves a bit of Motown, and I got volumes Three and Six of the Chartbusters series for a pound each:

Motown Chartbusters Vol. 3 (1969)

Motown Chartbusters Vol. 6 (1971)

As well as being stuffed with super choons, Volume 3 includes some bewildering sleevenotes from DJ Alan "Fluff" Freeman, while the rear cover of Volume 6 pictures an amusing look ahead at the Motown Revue in 2008:

Also for a pound was this Motown double:

Motown Dance Party (1988)

The cover art simply screams "1988!", and from that and the description "Specially sequenced for continuous dancing" you'd be forgiven for thinking that the album is some monstrous Jive Bunny-esque cut-up mix that butchers the songs in order to run them all together.  Thankfully this is not the case at all; the tracks are just edited a bit more closely together, with each one fading in proper Motown fashion before the next kicks in - perfect for a dance party in fact!

Next up, again for £1 is a Ronco Teleproducts album called Black Explosion:

Black Explosion (1974)

As well as selling kitchen gadgets like the Veg-O-Matic, Ronco put out budget compilation albums which it advertised on TV, much like its competitor K-Tel.  This particular record is a great all-round collection of popular soul licensed from Stax, Atlantic and Philly Groove among others.

Also from Ronco, also bearing the legend "As seen on TV" and this time bought for 50p is the soundtrack to the 1977 movie Black Joy:

Black Joy (1977)

Black Joy was a British culture-clash comedy about a Guyanan living in 1970s Brixton starring Norman Beaton, the late star of 80's sitcom Desmond's.  I've never seen it, but the soundtrack is terrific, featuring 22 tracks of 60s and 70s soul, reggae and R&B.

I've already included songs from some of these comps in the Car Boot Vinyl Diaries cloudcasts, which you can find here: http://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/ so dip right in - there are six episodes to date that include all kinds of music gleaned from car boot sales and charity shops over the years, featuring rock, pop, soul, disco, folk, blues and more.

• If you're a soul fan, you may also want to enter the current Super Summer Giveaway to be in with a chance of winning Stevie Wonder's brilliant Innervisions on LP.  It's open until 9pm on Sunday August the 3rd 2014: http://carbootvinyldiaries.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/super-summer-giveaway-final-part.html 

• Keep up with my car boot finds on Twitter: https://twitter.com/VinylCarBooty