Various Artists - London American Label: Year By Year

Facts UK collection. After a lengthy hiatus, just when you had all given up hope of ever seeing another volume, Ace's chronicling of London American resumes this month with an overview of the label's output from 1967. By the mid-60s, while it was no longer the only outlet for the release of hot new American hits, London was still a name that commanded maximum respect among record buyers all over the UK, and the label was still bringing some of the most interesting (and very best) of what was currently happening in the USA over to our side of the Atlantic. 1967 was a watershed year in popular music, and the eclectically enjoyable nature of previous volumes is upheld by the 28 tracks in our latest compilation, which - just as the US Hot 100 charts of the time did - embraces soul, country, folk-rock, psychedelia, adult contemporary and much more besides. Legendary names - many of them with lengthy London American associations - rub shoulders here with terminally obscure one-record wonders, just as they had always done from the label's earliest days. All tracks have been mastered from original mono sources.