ECCENTRIC SOUL: THE SAADIA LABEL by VARIOUS ARTISTS

The third in our series of Miami soul overviews gathers 15 tracks from Frank Williams’ exceptional Saadia label. As Willie Clarke and Johnny Pearsall’s Deep City label was folding, the house band at Criteria studios were just getting started. Named for his daughter, the imprint took off just as James Brown broke his first “Cold Sweat” in 1967, building on that grunting brand of vampy funk for the next half decade. Together with his arranger Willie “Little Beaver” Hale, Williams produced just 10 singles, but all are peerless examples of the original Miami sound.