As a music laboratory of great influence in the southern states of America, New Orleans was instrumental in the development of American popular music, and soul in particular. Fantastic New Orleans artists and producers mixed religious and secular music, Indian and Caribbean sounds, voodoo, Jazz and Zydeco… Their soul music was born out of the fusion between those influences and the language and emotions of Gospel, creating a universal idiom that stood the world on its head. In the 32 page booklet accompanying this essential anthology, Bruno Blum provides a commentary of the metamorphosis of Negro spirituals, blues and rock into pure New Orleans soul, thanks to such legendary artists as Lee Dorsey, Irma Thomas, Snooks Eaglin or Eddie Bo. Patrick FReMEAUX