Search - Lulu :: The Atco Sessions 1969-1972

Atco/Atlantic had struck artistic and commercial gold when they brought Dusty Springfield to the States to record with Jerry Wexler, Arif Mardin and Tom Dowd and topnotch Southern session musicians, so it made sense for the label to introduce another great British pop-soul singer, Lulu, to the same stellar production team. And Lulu, who had just married Bee Gee (and Atco label-mate) Maurice Gibb, didn t need much convincing given the success of Dusty in Memphis. The result was two overlooked classics: New Routes paired the Scottish singer with the classic Muscle Shoals session squad of Barry Beckett, David Hood, Roger Hawkins and Jimmy Johnson, with Eddie Hinton, Cornell Dupree and Duane Allman all sitting in on guitar. And Melody Fair, which also came out in 1970, retained the same production team but moved the sessions to Miami with the Dixie Flyers the back-up band. Those two albums comprise disc one of this two-disc set; the other disc features almost an album s worth of unreleased material produced by Dowd, plus alternate takes, the great single It Takes a Real Man (to Bring Out the Woman in Me) / You Ain t Wrong You Just Ain t Right and other stray tracks. Real Gone s reissue of this compilation (which came and went in a heartbeat in the U,K. about seven years ago and sells for a queenly sum) includes new liner notes by Richie Unterberger;. it s a fascinating look at forgotten phase in the career of one of the British Invasion s leading female figures.