Label: Retroworld

Released 2021

Where everything Numero begins. Three guys in a purple Saturn station wagon drove down to Columbus, Ohio, and came back to Chicago with a lost label - the rest is history. In the early '70s, Bill Moss' Capsoul imprint could barely break wind in the larger music marketplace, and yet today the label's output can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with any classic soul of its era. Isolated in central Ohio and lacking the funds to back them, groups like the Four Mints and Johnson, Hawkins, Tatum & Durr might've easily withstood ten rounds against the Temptations, Smokey, or Otis. The scrappy Capsoul writing team of Dean Francis, Jeff Smith, and Norman Whiteside would've thrown blow-for-hook-filled-blow with any Gamble & Huff or Holland/Dozier/Holland thrown at them. From Bill Moss' civil rights meditation "Sock It To 'Em Soul Brother" to Marion Black's future hit about the future "Who Knows" to Kool Blues bounding "I'm Gonna Keep on Loving You," Eccentric Soul: The Capsoul Label remains dollar-for-dollar the best soul compilation of its century and the perfect primer for anyone piqued by the Eccentric Soul series - otherwise known around here as the "budding Numero enthusiast."

Track listing:

1. Poison
   
2. Spark in the Dark
   
3. House of Fire
   
4. Why Trust You
   
5. Only My Heart Talkin' 
   
6. Bed of Nails 
   
7. This Maniacs in Love With You
   
8. Trash
   
9. Hell's Living Without You 
   
10. I'm Your Gun
    
11. Hey Stoopid 
    
12. Love's a Loaded Gun
    
13. Snakebite
    
14. Burning Our Bed 
    
15. Dangerous Tonight 
    
16. Might As Well Be On Mars
    
17. Feed My Frankenstein 
    
18. Hurricane Years 
    
19. Little By Little
    
20. Die for You 
    
21. Dirty Dreams 
    
22. Windup Toy
    
23. Sideshow
    
24. Nothing's Free
    
25. Lost in America
    
26. Bad Place Alone 
    
27. You're My Temptation 
    
28. Stolen Prayer
    
29. Unholy War 
    
30. Lullaby
    
31. It's Me
    
32. Cleansed By Fire