Brenton Wood - Brenton Wood's 18 Best

Brenton Wood spent the late 1960s carving out a sound that didn't quite fit the mold of the soul music coming out of Memphis or Detroit, and that's exactly what made him impossible to ignore. Born Alfred Smith in Shreveport, Louisiana and raised in Los Angeles, Wood signed with Double Shot Records in 1967 and immediately struck gold. "The Oogum Boogum Song," his first single for the label, climbed to number 34 on the Billboard Hot 100 that spring, and by fall he'd scored his biggest hit yet with "Gimme Little Sign," a number nine pop smash that also reached number eight in the UK and sold over a million copies.

What set Wood apart was the warmth in his delivery. His voice had an easy, sun-warmed quality that leaned closer to pop than the grittier Southern soul of his contemporaries, built on simple, hook-driven arrangements that made songs like "Baby You Got It" feel instantly familiar. It's soul music designed for comfort rather than catharsis, the kind of record that sounds just as good on a porch in July as it did when it first hit the radio nearly sixty years ago.

This eighteen track collection rounds up the best of his Double Shot Records run in one place. Remastered and pressed on black vinyl for this 2024 Craft Recordings reissue, it's a fitting tribute to a singer whose laid-back charm has aged into one of the most reliably pleasant corners of 1960s soul, and whose songs have only become more beloved since his passing last year.