Invictus' Greatest Hits/Hot Wax Greatest Hits

Personnel: Ronald Dunbar (vocals).
Audio Mixers: Elvira Redd; Lawrence Horn; Barney Perkins.
Liner Note Author: Tony Rounce.
Arrangers: Hidle Brown Barnum; McKinley Jackson; Tony Camillo.
Edsel's 2009 two-fer, Invictus' Greatest Hits/Hot Wax Greatest Hits, offers expanded versions of two original hits LPs from the '70s, neither of which have been available on CD before. Much of this material has been reissued before -- most recently on the excellent triple-disc 2006 Invictus Soul Box Set -- but this may be the best overview of these twin labels, offering 48 tracks of superb soul from Freda Payne, the Chairmen of the Board, the 8th Day, the Glass House, Laura Lee, the Honey Cone, 100 Proof (Aged in Soul), and the Flaming Ember. All the big Invictus/Hot Wax hits are here -- "Band of Gold," "Give Me Just a Little More Time," "You've Got to Crawl (Before You Walk)," "Want Ads," "Westbound # 9" -- but what impresses is the depth of the labels, how the songs that didn't make the original LPs were either big hits in their own right or could have been. The Invictus Soul Box Set digs deeper, thanks to that extra disc, but this two-fer is in some ways better, simply because it's tighter, serving up nothing but dynamite early-'70s soul. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine