Amherst

If you claim any interest in soul balladry and haven't yet reveled in the love-fest that is The Stylistics, by all means rectify that situation posthaste. The Philadelphia vocal group, which shined under the tutelage of producer extraordinaire Thom Bell, is the leading light in a late-'60s/early-'70s mini-genre that includes The Chi-Lites, The Delfonics, The Manhattans and others. This Best of platter includes only 10 tracks, but among them are such transcendent slow jams as "Betcha By Golly, Wow," "You Make Me Feel Brand New," "You Are Everything" and "Break Up to Make Up." Lead singer Russell Tompkins has a falsetto that kisses the heavens.

This article appears in Feb 21-27, 2007.

Eric Snider is the dean of Bay area music critics. He started in the early 1980s as one of the founding members of Music magazine, a free bi-monthly. He was the pop music critic for the then-St. Petersburg...