Spencer Wiggins - The Goldwax Years - 2006.

Review
Spencer Wiggins had the poor fortune of being a great soul singer in a place where and at a time when there were more than enough of those to go around -- namely Memphis, TN, during the mid-'60s when Stax Records was the biggest name in town, Willie Mitchell's Hi Records was on the rise, and Atlantic had practically made the town its second home. While Wiggins had a strong enough voice to have found a home at any of those labels, he was discovered by Quinton Claunch of Goldwax Records, and while Claunch was a talented songwriter and producer, his label didn't have the juice to push many of its acts to stardom (the tragic James Carr being a rare exception). Listening to The Goldwax Years, a collection of 22 numbers Wiggins cut for the label between 1966 and 1969, it's not hard to imagine that with better breaks Wiggins could have become one of the major soul stars of the era; his voice could swing from quiet pleading to full-on soul bellow without seeming excessive either way, his sense of phrasing and working the drama of a song was strong indeed, and the production on his sessions (usually by Claunch and Rudolph V. Russell) was terrific, able to conjure up shades of Big City cool when needed while usually offering a healthy portion of Deep South passion. And though not all the songs he had to work with were great ("He's Too Old" and "Soul City U.S.A." just don't work despite solid performances from Wiggins and the studio players), there are some really fine numbers here, including "Lonely Man," "That's How Much I Love You," "Poor Man's Son," and a gender-switch cover of the Aretha Franklin hit " "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)." Spencer Wiggins never became one of the leading players in Southern soul, but his recorded legacy supports the notion that there were an awful lot of great acts around if someone this good could slip through the cracks, and folks who dig vintage R&B owe it to themselves to give this underappreciated master a listen.

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Spencer Wiggins - Feed the Flame: The Fame and XL Recordings - 2010.

Review 
Spencer Wiggins is mostly known for his mid- to late-'60s recordings for the Goldwax label, but he did go on to some more recording for other companies at the end of the ‘60s and the beginning of the 1970s. This CD has the Kent label's typically thorough roundup of the loose ends that don't appear on the label's other reissues (excepting some later gospel recordings). The 22 tracks include singles he did for both Fame and Sounds of Memphis; a few stray Goldwax cuts, some of which have appeared on other CD compilations; and a full dozen previously unreleased songs. The very nature of a compilation such as this means it's not the best  Wiggins anthology to start with. But even though about half of it is unreleased, the quality is good enough that no obvious reasons can be detected as to why much of his work from this period was consigned to the vault. At the same time, it's the sort of stuff that will largely appeal to specialists and collectors, particularly those with a yen for Southern soul, as it's not top of the line even by the standards of the subgenre. Wiggins sings the songs dependably well in an emotional, at times vibrato-laden deep soul style that owes something to Otis Redding, though he was hardly alone among artists from his region in that regard. Some of the later sides, like 1973's "I Can't Get Enough of You Baby," had a more contemporary funky edge. Obvious hit material was lacking, and it might be no coincidence that the most immediately striking tunes, "I'd Rather Go Blind" and "Cry to Me," are covers of soul classics.

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mp3 320 kbps - 151 Mb
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