The widely-acclaimed Sister Rosetta Tharpe is among the greatest Sanctified gospel singers of her generation; a flamboyant performer whose music often flirted with the blues and swing, she was also one of the most controversial talents of her day, shocking purists with her leap into the secular market. Playing nightclubs and theaters, she pushed spiritual music into the mainstream and helped pioneer the rise of pop-gospel. Tharpe was born March 20, 1915, in Cotton Plant, Arkansas; the daughter of Katie Bell Nubin, a traveling missionary and shouter in the classic gospel tradition known throughout the circuit as "Mother Bell," she was a prodigy, mastering the guitar by the age of six. At the same time, she attended Holiness conventions alongside her mother, performing renditions of songs including "The Day Is Past and Gone" and "I Looked Down the Line."

An anthology series set in a single hotel room, where every guest who comes to stay reveals a unique set of circumstances and quirks.

Anybody who has cut a standard like "Drift Away" can hardly be called unappreciated, but a hit of that magnitude can tend to overshadow the rest of an artist's career. Such is the case with Dobie Gray, who not only had a huge number five hit with "Drift Away" in 1973, but had a number 11 hit eight years earlier with "The 'In' Crowd." Two big hits, both widely known, which is more than most artists get, and Gray continued to chart throughout the '70s, albeit in the lower reaches of the R&B charts. All of this suggests that Gray was a minor talent, but that's misleading, as Hip-O Select's excellent four-disc box set Drift Away: A Decade of Dobie (1969-1979) proves. Chronicling the music Gray made after "The 'In' Crowd," it illustrates that Gray wasn't just a powerful yet nuanced soul singer, but that he restlessly tried different sounds and styles. The first tracks on this set collect his singles for the L.A. soft pop label White Whale, where he cut versions of Joe South's "Rose Garden" and Paul Williams' "Do You Really Have a Heart" that perfectly fit the label's breezy, lazy style while retaining a soulful edge. After that, it moves to his Drift Away album, recorded for Decca in 1973.