Hold it, hold it – this ain’t over yet! I know: The passage of three long years since we last met may have led you to worry I’d abandoned my noble endeavor to unearth all of the mind-bending rhythm and blues in the nearly bottomless King and Federal vaults. But fear not. To paraphrase the immortal words of Titus Turner in ‘Hold Your Loving’, I’m gonna keep at it till the meatballs bounce! I’m delighted to report that “Bossa Nova And Grits” features some showstopping acts new to the R&B Hipshakers series: There’s 18-year-old Little Esther Phillips and her indelibly nasal voice, which would make her a star for decades to come; her fierce, piano-pounding fellow Texan Camille Howard, pushing 40 by the time she growled “You mole, you!”; Los Angelenos The Lamplighters, led by a young Thurston Harris (doin’ sixty-what’d-they-say?!); the otherworldly singer’s singer Jimmy Scott, just before a sad 20-year lull in his recording career that would be followed by a fresh round of well-deserved accolades in the 1990s. And then there’s our first dip into the ouevre of guitar god Jimmy Nolen, who would basically invent funk guitar playing a decade later as a member of James Brown’s band but is already wielding a pretty expressive instrument in ‘The Way You Do’. Some old favorites are back, too: It wouldn’t be a Hipshakers box, after all, without brilliant new entries from Little Willie John, The 5 Royales, Hank Ballard & The Midnighters, Johnny Watson and Freddy King – he in a rousing dance-floor duet with series stalwart Lula Reed. Non-bouncing meatballs? We’ve got ’em. Slinky mambo beats? They’re here. Back-toback odes to vino? Yep. Wailing instrumentals? But of course. Twin blast-offs to outer space? Check. Now just put the needle on the first record and prepare to taste the sound of these boss grits. Mr Fine Wine