Although the Stones were more profoundly influenced by black American music, the young Beatles certainly drew from that well.
They covered Chuck Berry, Arthur Alexander, Little Richard, the Isley Brothers (Lennon's definitive version of Twist and Shout) and Motown material.
So blues, soul and rhythm 'n' blues seeped into Lennon and McCartney's songs, which explains this 24-track collection of black acts taking on everything from Please Please Me (Mary Wells, in a colourless, big band treatment) and I Want to Hold Your Hand (the peerless Al Green) to Let It Be (Aretha Franklin, on top gospel-soul form) and Come Together (a slinky, soul brother version by Chairmen of the Board).
Ticket to Ride sounds written for soul-blues belter Wee Willie Walker, as does Drive My Car for the sassy Black Heat. Billy Preston (who played on Get Back) delivers a slow-burning Blackbird, bluesman Lowell Fulson offers a gritty bar-room treatment of McCartney's throwaway Why Don't We Do It in The Road and Roy Redmond takes Good Day Sunshine from an English garden down to the South. Little Richard claims I Saw Her Standing There as his own.
Absent are a Ray Charles version of Eleanor Rigby (here, the more brooding Gene Chandler) and Ike and Tina Turner's thrilling Come Together, but this consistently delivers unexpected funk 'n' soul to songs overly familiar as originals. And Otis Redding's stonking Daytripper.
