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5 Long-Lost Soul Songs

Little Ann on the cover of <em>Deep Shadows</em>, reissued in 2009.
Courtesy of Timmion Records
Little Ann on the cover of Deep Shadows, reissued in 2009.

In 1978, Lily Pearson, Annette Warren and Avetta Henry walked into Cleveland's Boddie Studios and recorded a six-song rehearsal reel. The group's ambitions never came to fruition, though, and their tapes ended up languishing in the studio's vaults for the next 30 years until the Chicago reissue label, Numero Group, rediscovered it in the process of compiling a Boddie anthology.

Finally released on vinyl-only, the Love Apple project may be acoustically primitive, but by all other measures, it's high-quality soul. In honor of the mysterious trio's serendipitous return, here is one of its recordings, as well as four more soul songs — all performed by women — which have emerged from the shadows of history in recent years.

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Oliver Wang
Oliver Wang is an culture writer, scholar, and DJ based in Los Angeles. He's the author of Legions of Boom: Filipino American Mobile DJ Crews of the San Francisco Bay Area and a professor of sociology at CSU-Long Beach. He's the creator of the audioblog soul-sides.com and co-host of the album appreciation podcast, Heat Rocks.