Twinight soul in spotlight tonight

Twinight soul in spotlight tonight

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If you’re a fan of classic Chicago soul music — and not just the big name stars — there’s concert tonight at Park West that looks like a must see. eccentric-soul-revue1Chicago’s Numero Group record label specializes in digging up and then reissuing obscure records that, more often than not, prompt the telling of great back stories that really help flesh out the history of the music business. Tonight at 7:30pm, at Park West, Numero is presenting its first ever live concert, the “Eccentric Soul Revue.” The show will bring together a bunch of the artists who’ve been featured on Numero’s “Eccentric Soul” series of reissues. Veteran Chicago soul-bluesman Syl Johnson is the biggest name of the bunch, and no stranger to Chicago audiences. But the rest of the folks appearing on the bill, including the Notations, Nate Evans, Renaldo Domino, The Kaldirons and The Final Solution, aren’t exactly household names for most music fans — which is what makes it such a cool event for us crate digging record collector types. Dave Hoekstra of the Sun Times, and Greg Kot of the Tribune, among others, have written some nice previews of the show. But if you’re a dedicated 848 listener, you may already be familiar with some of the back stories on these folks. Richard Steele did a real nice interview with Syl Johnson on 848 this past week. Johnson talks about some of the ups and downs of his music career, and previews tonight’s show. Back in 2007, I was really knocked out by Numero’s Eccentric Soul release titled “Twinight’s Lunar Rotation.” It documents a generous portion of the Twinight label’s output from the late 60s and early 70s. Here’s the 848 review. The most impressive resurrection of all might be that of the unfortunately named Chicago vocal group “The Final Solution.” They had recorded for Twinight as a Temptation-esque group called The Kaldirons. In the mid-70s, revamped as The Final Solution, they were tapped to record an album’s worth of songs as the soundtrack to a film called “Brotherman.” The film project never did get off the ground, but the music had already been recorded. So the music sat in the vaults, unheard for more than three decades. Here’s the 848 story on the soundtrack.