In 2005, Jim Lancaster walked into the decaying remains of the late Finley Duncan’s Playground Recording Studio, in Valpariso, FL, stumbling across the rotting gear and damp boxes of disintegrating master tapes. Two years later, the first of a projected series of compilations of this now-salvaged music has arrived. The enclosed booklet tells the story of the studio, which opened in 1969, its relationship with Minaret Records, a label Duncan purchased in the mid-’60s, as well as providing pocket bios of a number of the singers, songwriters, and backing bands featured within. Although soul driven, over the years Playground recorded a variety of music that ranged from the jazz-fired “Leroy’s Blues” to “The Funky Muscle” of “Count Willie,” and onto to that same exuberant artist’s “Disco Nights.” The slick arrangements that supported future Motown artist Rueben Howell bear little resemblance to the R&B abandon that fired up Jimmy Nelson’s “Watch Your Step,” the smoky jazz that wafts across Leroy Lloyd & the Duke’s “Sundown,” or the rich soulful backings that wrapped themselves around Len Wade’s emotive numbers. The musical backings themselves are worth the price of admission, and it’s extremely disappointing that Duncan kept no written record of the musicians who played on the recording sessions, for such fabulous work demands recognition. Thankfully though, that fate did not await the singers, although virtually nothing is known about some of them. Where information is available on their backgrounds, the liner notes provide them.
And a stunning bunch they are; the big-voiced soul singer Doris Allen, the gruff Jimmy Gresham, the smooth John Hamilton, the incredibly emotive Len Wade, the exuberant Johnny Soul, the exciting Jimmy Nelson — every artist here, in fact — is worthy of attention.
The compiler assures us that everything Duncan recorded is of this same high caliber, which presumably means that other material as good as this is yet to come. – Jo-Ann Greene
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