Rock Instrumental Classics, Vol. 4: Soul

Includes Green Onions; Hang 'Em High; Time Is Tight Booker T. & The MG's; Grazing in the Grass Hugh Masekela; The Horse Cliff Nobles & Co; Last Night Mar-Keys; The "In" Crowd Ramsey Lewis Trio; Soul Finger The Bar-Kays; Soulful Strut Young-Holy Unlimited; Mercy, Mercy, Mercy Cannonball Adderley; Watermelon Man Mongo Santamaria Band; Soul Twist King Curtis, and more.

The most consistently enticing disc in the Rock Instrumental Classics series, this is both a great party and driving record and a window on the rhythms that powered soul music in the '60s (and early '70s, in two cases). In addition to some obvious choices (the four Booker T. & the MG's tracks, the Mar-Keys' "Last Night"), it also offers some left-field picks, such as the varied approaches to Latin music offered by Ray Barretto, Mongo Santamaria, and El Chicano. The stock of virtuoso performances here is all but endless: the bass-and-drums breakdown on Cliff Nobles and Co.'s "The Horse," the glinting guitar solo on the Bar-Kays' "Soul Finger," Hugh Masekela's questing trumpet on "Grazing in the Grass." --Rickey Wright