The Ikettes - Can't Sit Down ... 'Cos It Feels So Good! The Complete Modern Recordings [Remastered] (2007)

Like Ike & Tina Turner, the Ikettes had a pretty confusing recording career, releasing numerous discs for several labels and enduring several lineup changes. They did, however, settle at Modern for a while in the mid-'60s, releasing six singles and one LP for the company. This 27-track compilation includes all of that material, as well as some solo recordings by Ikettes Venetta Fields and Flora Williams (aka Delores Johnson), adding quite a few outtakes and alternate takes not issued in the '60s. It's not, it should be a clarified, a greatest-hits compilation; it doesn't include anything not recorded for Modern, which means it doesn't have their biggest hit, 1962's Top 20 single "I'm Blue (The Gong-Gong Song)" (released on Atco), though it does have their only other Top 40 pop entry, 1965's "Peaches 'n' Cream." The Ikettes were good singers -- you probably had to be to remain in Ike Turner's employ -- and at Modern, they cut a variety of material in a straightforward early soul vein, sometimes with a bit of a girl group edge. However, many of the songs they recorded for the label were more ordinary than their talents likely deserved. Most of this is pretty average mid-'60s soul, sometimes with (like many Modern discs of the time) a rather ersatz Motown sound -- the Top 20 R&B single "I'm So Thankful" is a virtual copy of mid-'60s Mary Wells -- and sometimes with a pronounced R&B approach more in line with Ike & Tina Turner's own discs (though Ike Turner wrote only a few of these songs). Sometimes, for sure, it's pretty good, particularly on "Peaches 'n' Cream," "Can't Sit Down 'Cos I Feel So Good," and the Ike Turner-penned dance tune "Camel Walk." But this is a group that would be better served by a more selective best-of sampling from their work for various labels, though this comp's valuable for completist soul collectors who want everything the Ikettes did during this period.