Album: Candi Staton, Evidence: The Complete Fame Records Masters (Kent)

Rick Hall, the owner and producer of Fame studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, liked to push his recording-meters well into the red, creating a slightly distorted sound-print that gave an extra grain of grit to his late 1960s/early 1970s, country-soul stylings.

Staton, who's still singing, is no Aretha but her sassy, sexy voice could really sell a song, with a passionate delivery that neo-soul ingenues would do well to study. "Mr and Mrs Untrue" and "It's Not Love" are country-feminism writ large.