Incredible though it may seem, Ace has now been associated with the Fatback Band's Spring and Event recordings for a longer period of time than the original owners of those catalogues!

Our CD release of Fatback's debut Event album, Keep On Steppin', first appeared 10 years ago this month. To celebrate our decade of FB on CD, Dean Rudland and yours truly are delighted to bring you FATBACK MELLOW and FATBACK FUNKY - two mid-price compilations, specially designed to demonstrate that there was, is and always will be much more to Fatback than the admittedly splendid (and justifiably anthemic) floorfillers Do The Spanish Hustle, Party Time and, of course, (Are You Ready) Do The Bus Stop.

Fatback MELLOW offers a unique perspective on the group's catalogue, being the first compilation to concern itself exclusively with the soulful side of Fatback. You may well have been too busy dancing to the likes of Spanish Hustle and Backstrokin' to have noticed that just about every Fatback album also contains at least one soul ballad or mellow mover (and hey, why shouldn't they? Even the most frenzied of dancefloors has to offer 'scope for a grope' from time to time!).

Over the years, many of these tracks have endeared themselves to the kind of soul fan who would run the London Marathon blindfolded and backwards rather than possess - heaven forbid - any kind of funk or dance album. Fatback MELLOW collects the best of said tracks in one place, to ensure that the "F" section of every true soulie's CD collection is shortly about to be extended by the width of a jewel box. The scope of our inclusions ranges from the intensely soulful take on that venerable standard At Last - nowadays most associated with Etta James, of course - to the two-step splendour of Do It To Me Now, and takes in rap ballads (Please Stay), mellow social comment (Is This The Future) and the extremely soulful, bona-fide biggie I Found Lovin' - thankfully not embellished here by cries of 'You Wot, You Wot, You Wot' - in its original unremixed form. Fatback MELLOW won't surprise anyone who already knows these great tracks, of course. But it'll be a more-than-welcome sound-for-sore-ears to anyone who doesn't...

...Not that Fatback has ever needed to prove its versatility, of course. But if further proof was needed that the Fatback Band was never a one-trick pony, Mellow's sister (or, perhaps, brother!) compilation FATBACK FUNKY seals the deal and then some. Ace's BGP boffin Dean Rudland has taken a similarly-unique look at the Fatback back-cat and pulled together an unimpeachable selection of the group's hardest street funk, putting the emphasis on lesser-known album cuts, like the much-sampled Feed Me Your Love, over the early hits (but wisely not omitting Wicky Wacky - surely a contender for the funkiest record of all time, this side of James Brown at least!)

Disco may have been Fatback bread and butter during the peak of their 70s popularity, but they never overlooked an opportunity to add meat and gravy to the menu in the shape of the kind of uncompromising street funk and soul balladry that you'll hear on Mellow and Funky. You may think you know all you need to know about the Fatback Band. Hear these compilations, and you may think again...

"...Gotta be Mellow? Gotta be Funky? Gotta be Fatback!"

by Tony Rounce