Before I roll out the list, please indulge me a couple of general comments. First, when it comes to soul music, I remain hopelessly trapped in the 1960s and ’70s. I do pay attention to and enjoy some of the newish crop of soul singers—the likes of Ricky Fante, Van Hunt, Charlotte, NC-bred Anthony Hamilton, Macy Gray, and John Legend—but my heart clearly belongs to Muscle Shoals and Memphis and those other prime country-soul depots. The proof is in the list below: Half of the albums are compilations or reissues, and all but one of the new releases are from artists who were cutting records in the ’60s and ’70s.

Second, four names go a long way toward summing up soul music for me in 2005. Legendary songwriter/so-much-more Dan Penn was officially everywhere, a state he began moving toward the year before with his Country Soul Revue work. He produced albums by Nashville’s Greg Trooper, West Coast roots/soul outfit the Hacienda Brothers, and distinguished vet Bobby Purify (and wrote songs for each) and played on Frank Black’s pace-changing Honeycomb. To top it off, Moments from This Theatre, a live Penn-Spooner Oldham album recorded when the duo opened for Nick Lowe on a late-’90s tour, finally received a U.S. release. It’s a warm and comfortable wonder, the musical equivalent of that worn flannel shirt that you reach for on chilly mornings.

Bettye LaVette was this year’s soul comeback story, not unlike Solomon Burke in 2002, courtesy of her compelling I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise album. (It’s debatable whether the term “comeback” is accurate in either case because neither artist ever really went away, but it’s definitely the angle the press went with.) And she also stood out on four compilations that were released in ‘05, all of which pop up below. In addition to producing I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise, Joe Henry was at the helm for the I Believe to My Soul sessions (see #9 below) and Susan Tedeschi’s blues/gospel/soul gem Hope and Desire, and he also was involved with the Gulf Coast benefit album Our New Orleans. 2006 is already looking good for Henry: He’s producing the upcoming collaboration between Elvis Costello and I Believe to My Soul participant Allen Toussaint. The latter became the face of the Katrina crisis for me, as he went from being among the missing to making several moving television appearances and kicking off the Our New Orleans disc in perfect fashion with his “Yes We Can Can.”

Okay, on with the list.

1. Various Artists, Dirty Laundry: The Black Soul of Country (Trikont)
There’s a fascinating anecdote in the extensive liner notes of this collection, the story of a young Lamont Dozier writing a song for his hero, Loretta Lynn. That’s Dirty Laundry in a nutshell: the meeting and melding of musical cultures that on first blush might seem worlds apart. But find the right map, and Detroit and Butcher Holler, Kentucky, are in the same area code, Nashville and Muscle Shoals on the same block. For starters, there’s James Brown’s walloping big-band version of “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” Curtis Mayfield’s brilliant and beautiful title track, Bettye LaVette feistying her way through “Just Dropped in to See What Condition My Condition Was in,” Andre Williams teaming up with Jack White (for one of the most recent tracks; most everything else dates back to the ‘60s and ‘70s), and Solomon Burke’s pew-rattling take on “I Can’t Stop Loving You.” As that list implies, a lot of Dirty Laundry is soul artists doing songs that began life as country tunes, but there are some wildcardy things too, such as the aforementioned Williams-White collaboration, plus a hard-country tune from the late, great Stoney Edwards and a contribution from the equally late and great Clarence Gatemouth Brown.

2. Doris Duke, I’m a Loser: The Swamp Dogg Sessions and More (Kent)
I’ve been waiting for this one to see the light of day for a couple of years, my appetite sufficiently whetted by a half dozen Doris Duke songs that I’ve collected via various comps. This reissue brings together 1969’s I’m a Loser and 1971’s A Legend in Her Own Time, the first time on CD for both. They were recorded under the guidance of and powered by the songwriting of Jerry “Swamp Dogg” Williams—producer, soul artist, businessman, iconoclast, and a true music-biz character. This is wonderful stuff—from the heart or from the hip, whichever is called for—that can easily stand alongside the Candi Staton and Bettye Swann collections that were released last year. “To the Other Woman (I’m the Other Woman)” is Duke’s best-known song, and it’s a classic. But what’ll amaze you is how many other songs in Duke’s bag reach those same exhilarating levels of soul at its most deep.

3. Various Artists, Southern Soul Showcase: Cryin’ in the Streets (Kent), Shake What You Brought! (Sundazed), and My Goodness, Yes! (Sundazed)
The keys to the Shelby Singleton kingdom apparently just recently became available. Singleton’s labels released some amazing southern soul in the ‘70s. Anything went: some of it was Stax-like, some Muscle Shoals-ish, some Motowny. Kent unveiled Southern Soul Showcase: Cryin’ in the Streets to shine the light on the Singleton empire, and Sundazed released two comps, Shake What You Brought! and My Goodness, Yes! , that do the same. There’s some overlap between the Kent comp and the combined goods of the two Sundazed comps, but you’re going to want them all so that such exquisite moments as Doris Allen’s “A Shell of a Woman,” Danny White’s “One Way Love Affair,” and R&B vet Hank Ballard’s lived-in version of “Sunday Morning Coming Down” don’t slip through the cracks.

4. Eddie Hinton, Beautiful Dream: Sessions Vol. 3 (Zane)
You could make a case for Eddie Hinton being one of the great lost artists, soul or otherwise, of the music world. The Zane label out of the U.K. has been doing its best to help folks find him with this series. Hinton, who died in 1995, was a ferocious session guitarist in Muscle Shoals (that’s him on the Staple Singers’ “I’ll Take You There”) and gifted songwriter (among his songs were the Dusty in Memphis highlight “Breakfast in Bed” and the oft-covered “Cover Me”), and he’s considered by many to be the best white soul singer of his generation. Like the other installments in the Sessions series, Volume 3 collects demos and other artifacts from Hinton’s catalog. But this is far from a for-completists-only set thanks to songs such as “I Won’t Let You Down,” an outtake from Hinton’s ‘79 masterpiece Very Extremely Dangerous (recorded for a dying Capricorn label) that proves his throw-aways top most folks’ best days.

5. Various Artists, Soul Gospel (Soul Jazz)
Soul Jazz, like its fellow London-based label Kent, is a brand name you can trust when it comes to terrific soul-related compilations. The label has issued surveys of the soul and R&B scenes of the ‘60s and ‘70s in Philly, New Orleans, and Chicago, and several releases have examined the confluence of Jamaican reggae and ska and American soul and funk. Soul Gospel, however, is more about mood, emotion, and perceived spirituality than place, with the album’s definition of gospel wide reaching enough to encompass Bobby Bland, Irma Thomas, and Odetta alongside the perhaps more-expected likes of the Staple Singers and Aretha Franklin. The album’s crowning moment is a majestic version of “I Shall Be Released” by Marion Williams.

6. Solomon Burke, Make Do with What You Got (Shout! Factory)
While not as monumental a statement as 2002’s star-songwriter-studded Don’t Give Up on Me, this record, with Burke in powerful voice throughout, makes it clear that Don’t Give Up was no fluke. It might be a stretch to say that Burke’s voice-from-on-high take on the Band’s “It Makes No Difference” alone is worth the price of the album, but not by much. Put “What Good Am I?,” adroitly plucked from Bob Dylan’s Oh Mercy, alongside it, and it’s no stretch at all.

7. Bettye LaVette, I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise (Anti-)
This one never fully clicked for me. Turns out that I prefer listening to LaVette’s work from the ‘70s as captured on the aforementioned Dirty Laundry, Southern Soul Showcase, Shake What You Brought!, and My Goodness, Yes! compilations. For my money, her impressive interpretive skills were put to better use back in those days on songs such as “Games People Play” and “Piece of My Heart.” But with all that said and thanks to several brilliant moments (I especially like LaVette’s version of Joan Armatrading’s “Down to Zero,” and “The High Road” is a first-class country-soul ballad), I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise is still a top tenner.

8. Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Naturally (Daptone)
More than any new soul singer (read: one who wasn’t recording in the ‘60s or ‘70s), Sharon Jones radiates the excitement of a belt-it-out artist of the old school. No guest rapping or vintage snippets to be found; instead of sampling James Brown or Otis Redding, Ms. Jones and the beyond-boss Dap-Kings channel ‘em. Impressively, Naturally even slows things down a couple times to show Jones’ way with a soul ballad, from cold sweat to the night sweats. All that, and the funkiest Woody Guthrie cover you’ll ever hear.

9. Ann Peebles, Billy Preston, Mavis Staples, Irma Thomas, and Allen Toussaint, I Believe to My Soul (Rhino/Work Song)
Oh to have crashed Hollywood’s Capitol Studios early this past June, as Joe Henry oversaw a week-long old-fashioned soul session featuring five true luminaries ranging from a fifth Beatle and two New Orleans icons to a woman who can’t stand the rain and another who’ll sing you to heaven on earth. Everybody got a chance to shine, but for me the brightest light poured from yet another Dylan song, as Ann Peebles took ownership of “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You.” (If only Bettye LaVette had covered one of his songs one place or another in ‘05, Dylan might have been one of the names in the second paragraph above.) I’m still not crazy about this collection being available only at Starbucks, but that’s a different article.

10. Bobby Purify, Better to Have It (Proper American)
The Bobby Purify of Better to Have It (real name: Ben Moore) was actually the third pseudo-sibling to team up with James Purify, with Bobby/Ben’s tenure occurring several years post-“I’m Your Puppet.” And that, while valuable for clarification and scene setting, hasn’t a thing to do with Purify’s voice. If not one for the ages, it’s at least one to which age has added even more character. It’s a frequently stirring vessel for Dan Penn’s words (he wrote 12 of the album’s 13 songs), which tend to form stories about love’s detours, wrong turns, dead ends, and general hazardous traveling conditions. When everything comes together–Purify’s rich, evocative voice, Penn’s lyrics, Wayne Jackson’s trumpet, the whole glorious southern soul package–on the title track and its spiritual brothers “Hate to See You Go” and “Testimony of a Fool,” you’re time-machined back to late ‘60s Muscle Shoals when soul duos and such roamed the earth.