1. I Didn't Know The Meaning Of Pain (3:25)
(F. Williams - BMI): Lenny Smith - guitar * Don Garvin - guitar & bass * Max Leake - keyboards * H.B. Bennett - drums * Ralph Guzzi - trumpet * Mark Snyder - trombone * Nick Dialoiso - tenor sax * Theresa Davis, Robin Robinson, Dianne Madison - background vocals.

2. Let It Happen (2:59)
(D. Penn, S. Oldham - Screen Gems EMI/Sunalee Music, BMI): Don Garvin - guitar * Paul Thompson - bass * Brooks Whipple - piano * Max Leake - organ * H.B. Bennett - drums & percussion * Ralph Guzzi - trumpet * Nick Dialoiso - tenor sax * Eric DeFade - tenor & baritone saxes * Mark Snyder - trombone * Theresa Davis, Robin Robinson, Dianne Madison - background vocals.

3. Beautiful Feeling (3:41)
(Bridges, Knight, Eaton - Longitude Music, BMI): Don Garvin - guitar * Paul Thompson - bass * Max Leake - keyboards * George Jones - congas & percussion * H.B. Bennett - drums * Ralph Guzzi - trumpet * Mark Snyder - trombone * Nick Dialoiso - tenor sax * Curtis Johnson - baritone sax * Theresa Davis, Robin Robinson, Dianne Madison - background vocals.

4. Gonna Forget About You (3:19)
(O.V. Wright - MCA/Duchess, BMI): Don Garvin - guitar * Paul Thompson - bass * Max Leake - keyboards * George Jones - tambourine * H.B. Bennett - drums * Ralph Guzzi -trumpet * Nick Dialoiso - tenor sax * Eric DeFade - tenor & baritone saxes * Theresa Davis, Dianne Madison, Otis Clay - background vocals.

5.Your Time To Cry (3:46)
(J. Simon, R. Gerald, D. Price Jr. - Unichapell Music/Gaucho Music, BMI): Don Garvin - guitar * Paul Thompson - bass * Max Leake - keyboards * H.B. Bennett - drums * Ralph Guzzi - trumpet * Nick Dialoiso - tenor sax * Mark Snyder - trombone * Theresa Davis, Robin Robinson, Dianne Madison - background vocals.

6. That's How It Is (3:44)
(M. Dollison, M. Bland - BMI): Otis Clay - lead vocal * Don Garvin - guitar * Paul Thompson - bass * Brooks Whipple - piano * Max Leake - organ * Dave Dodd - drums * Ralph Guzzi - trumpet * Mark Snyder - trombone * Nick Dialoiso - tenor sax * Eric DeFade - alto & baritone saxes.

7. A Man Must Stand For Something (3:12)
(R. Peckman - Mega Marij Music, BMI): Don Garvin - guitar * Paul Thompson - bass * Max Leake - keyboards * H.B. Bennett - drums, background vocal * Bob Peckman - background vocal * Ralph Guzzi - trumpet * Nick Dialoiso - tenor sax * Mark Snyder - trombone * Curtis Johnson - baritone sax.

8. You Got Me Knocking (4:56)
(A. Alexander, T. Cain, E. Williams, S. Hostak - Combine Music, BMI): Don Garvin - guitar * Carl Hildebrandt - bass * Max Leake - piano * H.B. Bennett - drums.

9. I Can't Stand It (2:55)
(S. McAllister - Staccato Music/EMI Unart Catalog, BMI): Don Garvin - guitar * Paul Thompson - bass * Brooks Whipple - piano * George Jones - congas, tambourine * Dave Dodd - drums * Ralph Guzzi - trumpet * Nick Dialoiso - tenor sax * Eric DeFade - tenor & baritone saxes * Theresa Davis, Robin Robinson, Dianne Madison - background vocals.

10. I Betcha Didn't Know That (3:44)
(F. Knight, C.S. Dees - Irving Music/Moonsong Music/II Knight Publishing, BMI): Don Garvin - guitar * Paul Thompson - bass * Max Leake - keyboards * George Jones - congas * H.B. Bennett - drums * Ralph Guzzi -trumpet * Mark Snyder - trombone * Nick Dialoiso - tenor sax * Theresa Davis, Robin Robinson, Dianne Madison - background vocals.

11. It's In The Wind (3:14)
(D. Covay - Cotillion Music, BMI) Don Garvin - guitar * Paul Thompson - bass * Max Leake - keyboards * H.B. Bennett - drums & background vocal * Ralph Guzzi - trumpet * Curtis Johnson - alto sax * Nick Dialoiso - tenor sax.

12. Let Yourself Go (3:19)
(C. Hodges, A. Turner, D. Carter - Irving Music, BMI): Don Garvin - guitar * Lenny Smith - guitar * Carl Hildebrandt - bass * Max Leake - keyboards * H.B. Bennett - drums * Mark Snyder - trombone * Ralph Guzzi - trumpet * Nick Dialoiso - tenor sax * Theresa Davis, Robin Robinson, Dianne Madison - background vocals.

13. I Die A Little Each Day (2:56)
(D. Bryant - Irving Music, BMI): Don Garvin - guitar * Paul Thompson - bass * Max Leake - keyboards * H.B. Bennett - drums & percussion * Ralph Guzzi - trumpet * Mark Snyder - trombone * Nick Dialoiso - tenor sax * Theresa Davis, Robin Robinson, Dianne Madison - background vocals.

14. Something 'Bout 'Cha (4:12)
(B. Latimore - Longitude Music, BMI): Don Garvin - guitar * Paul Thompson - bass * Max Leake - piano * Dave Dodd - drums * Ralph Guzzi - trumpet * Mark Snyder - trombone * Nick Dialoiso - tenor sax.

15. Why Can't We Be Lovers (4:02)
(B. Holland, L. Dozier, E. Holland - Gold Forever Music, BMI): Don Garvin - guitar * Paul Thompson - bass * Max Leake - keyboards * George Jones - congas * H.B. Bennett - drums & percussion * Ralph Guzzi - trumpet & flugelhorn * Mark Snyder - trombone * Nick Dialoiso - tenor sax * Theresa Davis, Robin Robinson, Dianne Madison - background vocals.

16. Dangerous Highway (6:03)
(E. Hinton - copyright control): Don Garvin -guitar & bass * Max Leake - keyboards * George Jones - congas * H.B. Bennett - drums * Ralph Guzzi -trumpet * Mark Snyder - trombone * Nick Dialoiso - tenor sax.

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* Pennsylvania residents only, please add $.90 tax per CD. If you are purchasing CDs by check or money order, please add $3.00 per order to cover shipping and handling. Please send your order, with a personal check made out to "Billy Price," to: Billy Price Band P.O. Box 81831 Pittsburgh, PA 15217

Liner Notes, by Billy Price

This is the third album I've recorded at Jeree Records in New Brighton, Pennsylvania, 30 miles west of Pittsburgh along Route 65, past the abandoned mills in the pockmarked little towns along the Ohio River. There are studios closer to home in Pittsburgh that have more modern equipment, but Jeree has something more important: the elusive quality called "soul" that is the theme of this collection.

Jeree is inside a weather-beaten two-story Victorian on Third Avenue. The first floor is an old English tea room with wooden floors, ornate wooden bannisters, and stained-glass windows. Co-owner Jerry Reed sits at the desk in the tea room, smokes cigarettes, gazes out the bay window, reads Billboard, answers the phone, and engineers when Don Garvin is playing guitar. His desk is surrounded by the artifacts of show business in all of its gaudy absurdity: publicity photos of bands and singers who brought their dreams out to New Brighton, and the 45s and LPs that they produced. A few of these faces and artifacts are recognizable--Donnie Iris, the Iron City Houserockers, Maureen McGovern, Freddie Cannon, the soundtrack for Day of the Dead--but most of the people whose pictures adorn the walls have long since exited the dangerous highway of show biz and gone on to do their life's work.

Don Garvin has done most of his life's work at Jeree; he built the studio, engineers many of the sessions, and has played guitar on all three of the albums I've recorded at Jeree including this one. Garvin is fluent in the four essential languages of American pop music--blues, country, R&B, and rock 'n roll--and he's the biggest reason why I make the trip. Between takes and during downtime, Garvin fills the air with apocryphal tales of WLAC in Nashville and its DJs, John R., Bill "Hoss" Allen, Gene Nobles, and Big Hugh, and we trade stories and speculate about the way it was done by "those guys down there." "It" is the conjuring of the immortal soul records; "those guys" are the musicians and producers whose names we learned from liner notes and record labels--Tommy Cogbill, Jimmy Johnson, Isaac Hayes, David Porter, Barry Beckett, Roosevelt Jamison, Chips Moman, Willie Mitchell, Quin Ivy, Dan Penn, Eddie Hinton, Steve Cropper, Teenie Hodges, Al Jackson; and "down there" is the south, especially Memphis, Muscle Shoals, and Nashville.

This collection draws from the work of artists who, through some combination of fate, lost opportunity, and bad luck remained in the second line behind James, Aretha, Otis, Sam, and Al. It would be cultural piracy not to acknowledge my debt to them: Syl Johnson (Let Yourself Go), James Carr (Let it Happen), Darrell Banks (Beautiful Feeling), the late great O.V. Wright (Gonna Forget About You), Joe Simon and Betty Lavette (Your Time to Cry), Arthur Alexander (You Got Me Knocking), Frederick Knight (I Betcha Didn't Know That), Don Covay (It's In the Wind), the Soul Sisters and Linda Jones (I Can't Stand It), Latimore (Something 'Bout 'Cha), Lamont Dozier (Why Can't We Be Lovers), and Eddie Hinton (Dangerous Highway).

The spirit of my friend and mentor Otis Clay infuses The Soul Collection. I sing three of his songs--I Didn't Know the Meaning of Pain, I Die a Little Each Day, and That's How It Is--and Otis was gracious enough to join me in the studio during our Chicago session to sing with me on That's How It Is. We recorded the background vocals in Otis' hometown with Theresa Davis, Dianne Madison, and Robin Robinson, who sparkle throughout this collection. Bob "Pecky" Peckman, the Chips Moman of Beaver County, wrote A Man Must Stand for Something and helped out with background vocals.

My friend and bandmate H.B. Bennett logged long, hard hours as co-producer and contributed his considerable talents and great ears to the finished product. Thanks also to the other guys in the Billy Price Band--Lenny Smith, Carl Hildebrandt, Gene Ludwig, Max Leake, Mark Snyder, Nick Dialoiso, and Ralph Guzzi--and to our fans, whose support has kept me on the highway and given me the confidence to keep making records.

And finally, thanks to my family and to Rebecca, my soul mate.