Soul Britannica

True, in Queen Boadicea's day Britain was a small island of feisty, warlike people (and to some extent, it still is) but, by and large, time has mellowed us, and there's no better proof of that than these soulful Blighty Essentials.

From Amy Winehouse's Motown-reverent "Rehab" to the mellow neo-soul of Corinne Bailey Rae, these tracks will lift your spirit up . . . all the way through to our Next Steps.

The wide arms of British soul are all-embracing, drawing in the jungle of Goldie ("Inner City Life" with its soaring Diane Charlemagne vocal); the chart-conquering soul-pop of Dexy's Midnight Runners whose "Geno" was a tribute to Geno Washington, also featured here with "Michael (The Lover)"; and the acid jazz of the Brand New Heavies. The picture fragments further in Deep Cuts . . .

Old-school British soul rules the roost here: Standout tracks (and there are many) include a cover of "It's in His Kiss" by Linda Lewis, who takes her vocal to extreme octaves few singers can ever imagine; the firebrand swaggering of Van Morrison on "Baby Please Don't Go"; and Dusty Springfield's "Son of a Preacher Man", released in 1968 after Aretha Franklin had turned the song down.

No doubt about it, Britain's got soul: These tracks may run the gamut from R&B to jazz-funk to trip-hop, but they're all connected by that one defining quality, that unmistakable gut feeling, which signals the quintessence of soul. You can hear it in the silky tones of Mica Paris, the Welsh husk of Tom Jones, the mercurial flourishes of Lewis Taylor, and the almost supernatural talents of Joss Stone. All of these tracks defy the geographical confines of Village Britain and take you straight to those realms of infinite wonder accessible only to the soul. Transcendent.