If This World Were Mine...

Daptone Records has built a name releasing vintage-sounding R&B created by contemporary artists. But Bob and Gene's IF THIS WORLD WERE MINE flips the paradigm: the recordings, made in the late 1960s and early '70s, are vintage, but are being released for the first time in 2007. Only teenagers when they made these homemade demos, Bob Nunn and Gene Coplin deliver the kind of harmonies familiar to fans of the Five Stairsteps and the Jackson 5. In high, emotive voices the two sing about love and social change, among other topics, but it's the overall sound--a sort of underground, lo-fi R&B--that will capture the imagination of soul collectors.