Eccentric Soul: The Nickel & Penny Labels

Liner Note Author: Bill Dahl.
Nickel and Penny were two Chicago-based soul labels that existed in the late '60s, labels that never had a hit outside of the Great Lakes but nevertheless amassed a pretty impressive roster of regional hits and soul curiosities, most rounded up on Numero's 2011 collection Eccentric Soul: The Nickel & Penny Labels. Annotated by R&B scholar Bill Dahl, Eccentric Soul: The Nickel & Penny Labels saves this cool-grooving pop-R&B from the dustbins of time, and its extensive documentation helps place these sides in context of the times. As music, these 24 tracks are often better than many of the other singles featured elsewhere in Numero's catalog, although there are still a fair number of sides that get by on feel rather than song, with the grooves sounding appealing due to their alluring, thin cheapness. Most of these songs emphasize harmonies and smooth shimmering surfaces over hard, funky rhythms, which is typical of Midwestern soul in the '60s, and if there are no outright stunners here, everything is appealingly melodic and sweet. It's music meant to satisfy a specific local market and never reach beyond it, which is why it's more interesting decades later than it was at the time; it's an unwitting cultural artifact that fully embodies its time. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine