Continuous Hit Music – a weekly exploration of vinyl finds in 2012. Read ’em all here.

Artist: Soundtrack
Title: The Big Chill
Original Release: 1983
Label: Motown
Store: Dirty Jeans Emporium & Antique Market, Bowral
5/391-397 Bong Bong Street, Bowral NSW 2576
Price: $15
(Original)

A summer drive around country NSW, and an attempt to find records in the Southern Highlands, finally led to a decent find. The Dirty Jeans Emporium & Antique Market in Bowral is a big old warehouse full of antiques. It’s split into individual stalls, and there is a decent selection of good records, well bagged and graded. It was the only place I really found with a decent vinyl collection in the area. Some really big collection of records here and there, but usually badly looked after, low rent titles. I could have walked away with plenty of pieces.

I have never seen the Big Chill, but I love this soundtrack. It was my teenage entry point into Motown (and surrounding suburbs). It is simply a collection of some of the biggest 60s singles of all time. My Girl by The Temptations. I Heard It Through the Grapevine by Marvin Gaye. You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman by Aretha Franklin. And my favourite song of the lot, A Whiter Shade Of Pale by Procol Harum.

In the CD era, it’s extra running time was packed with extra Motown hits (the original album being released on Motown), but it’s stripped back to just ten timeless tracks on the LP.

I used to listen to this album all the time. And like a good compilation that you love, I still hear this tracklisting running in order. Yet, I’ve bought more comprehensive Motown collections, Aretha Franklin albums and even Procol Harum best ofs. So it’s been a while since I reconnected with this compilation. I’m not even sure I even have the CD of this anymore. And certainly not the several CD reissues of this album.

So I’m happy to have found this on vinyl. I don’t usually make my way through the soundtrack section of a record store. Maybe I should do it more. Did they ever put the Forrest Gump soundtrack on vinyl?

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