We spotlight two Record Store Day 2026 releases from Craft Recordings that landed in the racks last Saturday.
That’s Him! from Abbey Lincoln is another in a long line of bespoke jazz reissues from Craft Recordings. It’s an RSD 2026 Exclusive with a run of 4,200 copies. Cut by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio and pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing on 180-gram vinyl, the reissue comes in an archival sleeve, is a limited mono edition, and replicates the period Riverside label.
Originally released on Riverside as part of the Contemporary Series in 1958, but recorded in 1957, Lincoln is backed by what is billed as the Riverside Jazz Stars, and that’s not hyperbole. The quartet is Kenny Dorham on trumpet, Sonny Rollins on tenor sax, Wynton Kelly on piano, and Paul Chambers on bass. Max Roach, not part of the Riverside stable, plays drums.
Lincoln is a powerful singer, but approaches the songs here with understatement and nuance. “Strong Man,” “My Man,” “I Must Have That Man,” and “When a Woman Loves a Man” form the lyrical thematic core of the album, along with the album’s closing track “Don’t Explain,” written by Billie Holiday. The way Lincoln handles the Oscar Brown Jr. composition “Strong Man,” which opens the album, sets the mood for an extraordinary set.
The players are equally restrained, with Dorham and Rollins, in particular, letting Lincoln own the spotlight throughout. This is a breakthrough vocal jazz small-group recording not to be missed.
Stax Killer B’s is an altogether different release. This recently assembled compilation includes rare and hard-to-find B-sides from the vaunted Stax vault, featuring recordings from 1969 through 1973. The album starts with a couple of instrumentals from The Bar-Kays and Booker T. & The M.G.’s, the two groups most responsible for backing the bulk of Stax’s classic recordings.
From there, many of the recordings don’t sound like B-sides, but instead seem more like hit A-sides, particularly the tracks from Johnnie Taylor, Mel and Tim, and The Newcomers. Others that could have been hits include “The Right Track” from Jones and Blumenberg, with its Smokey Robinson and the Miracles vibe, and “One Woman Man” from Inez Foxx, which could have been another smash hit like her “Mockingbird,” recorded ten years previously in 1963 with her brother Charlie.
“They Want Money” from Little Sonny has a John Lee Hooker blues feel, and “Poems on the School House Door” is so rare that you can hear the pops and clicks from the well-played 45-RPM vinyl record used for the mastering of the track on this compilation.
This is a fun, hip-shaking, and heartfelt soul compilation, pressed on red smoke vinyl housed in a poly-lined sleeve, and is an RSD Exclusive available in an edition of 3,700 pressings.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
Abbey Lincoln, That’s Him
B+
VA, Stax: Killer B’s
B
