Independent label Numero Group released its latest album from its Eccentric Soul series titled Smart’s Palace. This 19 track installment documents the Wichita, Kansas, soul scene from the late 60′s to early 70′s and features cuts from the Smart Brothers, Theron & Darrell, Baby Neal, Chocolate Snow, L.T. & the Soulful Dynamics, Fred Williams & the Jewels Band, Kenneth Carr, Tim Jacob and The Hard Road.

During it’s brief six-year history as a label, Numero Group has proven that great soul music doesn’t have to come from Memphis or Detroit. The album’s title, Smart’s Palace, comes from a club owned by the Smart family, which was the hub for soul music in Wichita. 

Fittingly, the album kicks off with a slow ballad from the Smart Brothers featuring Baby Neal called “I’m Not Ashamed.” The Smart Brothers band, consisting of sons of Smart’s Palace owners, is the primary force behind the horn driven “Barefoot Philly” and “I’ve Got a Funny Feeling,” which, along with the opening track, unfortunately contains canned crowd noise in effort to give them a live feel.

Probably the most intriguing tracks on the album are “A Day in the Life” and “Inflation.” The cleverly named mixed race group Chocolate Snow (partially made up of some of Baby Neal’s brothers) gives their take on Wes Montgomery’s version of the popular Beatles track “A Day In The Life” from Sgt. Pepper’s. The cut sounds very little like the Lennon and McCartney-penned original, but instead offers a smooth, fusion-filled and almost Santana-esque adaptation sans vocals. Psychedelic guitar solos play over grove driven organ lines making this the most head bobbing friendly track on the disc. The track “Inflation” uses the same instrumental take from Chocolate Snow’s “A Day In The Life,” but includes spoken word. With lines like “You mean to tell me you don’t have no jobs today/ Well you told me last week to come back this week/But tell me what I can do/I got a family to feed,” the word choice seems as pertinent today as it did in 1974. The vocal track over the funky background music gives this rework a Leon Haywood feel and could undoubtedly be sampled for a Dr. Dre song.

Takes from L.T. & the Soulful Dynamics, “Everybody Needs Someone” and “Crazy About You Baby,” evoke memories of AM radio but could also be backing tracks for today’s soul music superstar Sharon Jones. Fred Williams’ “The Dance Got Old” features the popular soul music “tighten up” technique, which is the band leader calls out an instrument one at a time for a solo. On “Let Me Be Your Christmas Toy,” Chocolate Snow takes a odd and poorly executed attempt at seasonal soul music proving why there aren’t many (any?) Christmas soul albums.

For a compilation from Wichita, Kansas, which offers some tunes that have never before saw the light of day, this album delivers a solid mix of rare soul. Not every song hits the mark completely, but the ones that do offer enough classic soul that would surely make the Smart family proud.