Centaura featuring Jewel Bass – I Need Love b/w Just Don’t Love You – Creative Soul UK 7″

The long awaited third release on Nottingham’s connoiseur’s label ‘Creative Soul’ is shining a light on the very talented and rarely heard Jewel Bass, pulling the incredible ‘I Need Love’ out of the shadow of ‘Just Don’t Love You’, both recorded as Centaura on the near ‘mythical’ and super rare Spiral LP recorded and released in Birmingham, Alabama in 1978/1979 respectively as a limited press and distribution, it disappeared quickly into the sands of time.

We can say that ‘I Need Love’ sits effortlessly with the very best that that Soul music can offer and manages to walk that fine line between being well produced with commercial potential but retains the essential grittiness which so many of us find so appealing.

The other great track featured here ‘Just Don’t Love You’ is a long time proven winner on Rare Soul scene, commanding a hefty price tag on the rare occasion an original Git Down Inc. 7″ copy is offered for sale.

Whilst we know and love Jewel Bass and her recordings as a solo artist, within groups such as Centaura/Carbon Copies and as a featured (but often uncredited) vocalist in her work with Natural High, Sho-Nuff, and Freedom, very little is known about Centaura.

Aside from the Spiral LP from 1979, the group seem to have little other recording output. A 45 was released by them in 1981 ‘Centauraland’/‘Why Can’t We Love’. Recorded at Lockett’s Recording Studio in Birmingham ALA, produced and arranged by Centaura and released on their own Centaura label. They also participated in the Budweiser Showdown from which ‘Your Love Is All I Need’ was released as a Budweiser Showdown 12” in 1983, before joining that long list of talented artists that were failed by poor management, marketing, or distribution and consigned to obscurity.

It’s wonderful to now have these two great Super Soul tracks by Centaura featuring the fantastic vocals of Jewel Bass available for everybody to own back to back on everyone’s favourite format… the 7” single! Can it get any better?