The Cats

From the label:

The Cats made a small stack of records in London at the end of the 1960s, mostly issued as 7-inch singles on their own BAF Records label. Many have been difficult to find ever since.

This LP gathers twelve of those sides in one shot, from the group’s rocksteady version of “Swan Lake,” a UK Top 50 hit, to tough R&B instrumentals and the funkier recordings they made with singer Ray Pereira.

Their music sits right where Jamaican ska and rocksteady meet American soul, R&B, and funk. You can hear the influence of Booker T. & the M.G.’s and James Brown, but The Cats have a feel all their own. The playing is lean, mean, and always built on a groove.