Septiembre 30, 2008 a 8:53 pm (Uncategorized)
Smooth Sailin’ (1987).
This was the first album The Isley Brothers made after O’Kelly suffered a heart attack and died in 1986. It’s both poignant and painful, because Ronnie demonstrates the vocal presence and soulful character that always made his ballads so vital. Angela Winbush, who later became Ronnie Isley’s wife, served as background vocalist, co-composer, and producer.
Tracks:
1. Everything Is Alright
2. Dish It Out
3. It Takes a Good Woman
4. Send a Message
5. Smooth Sailin’ Tonight
6. Somebody I Used to Know
7. Come My Way
8 . I Wish
2 comentarios
Septiembre 30, 2008 a 6:29 pm (Uncategorized)
Masterpiece (1985).
From 1973-1983, the Isley Brothers had a ten-year stint with CBS resulting in an unparalleled string of success with albums like The Heat Is On and Grand Slam. After 1983’s classic Between the Sheets, the group fractured right down the middle. The younger members, Marvin Isley, Ernie Isley, and brother-in-law Chris Jasper left to become Isley/Jasper/Isley. The vocal part of the group, the “originals,” O’Kelly, Rudolph, and lead singer Ronald Isley stayed together and signed with Warner Bros. Masterpiece is their first effort for the label. With the three exited members taking their instruments with them, the Isley Brothers had to employ L.A. session players. Unlike other R&B artists who did the same thing, the group served as producers here, which gave Masterpiece a singular, rich sound. If anything, the best tracks here are reminiscent of the group’s more subdued work like “Welcome Into My Heart” and “Don’t Hold Back Your Love.” The first track “May I” juxtaposes skilled synthesizers to challenging melodies and warm musicianship. On the track “My Best Is Good Enough” like most of the songs on the album have lush string arrangements from Gene Page. What typified Masterpiece was a few choice ballads. “You Never Know When You’re Gonna Fall in Love” and the Stevie Wonder- and Carmine Coppola-written ballad “Stay Gold” both have poignant and reserved vocals from Ronald Isley. Often on the majority of their late-’70s and early-’80s efforts sometimes-fatuous premises obscured the vocal prowess the group. On Masterpiece, that aspect is front and center. On the album’s best track, the powerful “Come to Me” has Isley again giving a passionate performance as his brothers supplied a beautiful harmony that takes the song to another level. Although some fans may miss the booming basslines and customary double entendres of some of the Isley Brothers’ work, Masterpiece took a more mature approach and it certainly paid off. (For collectors- AMG).
Tracks:
1. May I?
2. If Leaving Me Is Easy
3. My Best Was Good Enough
4. You Never Know When You’re Gonna Fall in Love
5. Stay Gold
6. Colder Are My Nights
7. Come to Me
8. Release Your Love
9. The Most Beautiful Girl
**Listen**
4 comentarios
Septiembre 30, 2008 a 1:47 am (Uncategorized)
Doing To The Death (1973), CD Japan
In spite of James Brown’s 1974 hit “The Payback” and his future canonization in rap, 1973’s Doing It to Death was, as the title now suggests, the sound of James Brown obsessing the almighty funk into commercial irrelevance. His tight circle of musicians was still creating a brand of R&B as distinct as it was influential. (You can hear it in the music of artists as disparate as Nigeria’s Fela and Germany’s Can.) But on his home turf, James was already competing with post-Superfly wah-wah pedal hoppers and the pre-disco Philly sound. So it’s not surprising that he soaked up loose change from his pre-sold followers with cut-’n-press JB’s albums like this one on his indie label, People.
Though composed by bandleader Fred Wesley and a bigger hit than any single released by James under his own name that year, the talky 10-minute title cut is still pure Godfather. And the unexpectedly solid album constructed around it is every bit a classically Jamesian combination of loose lip and tight ship. The boss man’s mug is missing from the sleeve, but if there’s any doubt who’s in charge, just listen to the way he introduces the bass solo on “More Peas,” relinquishing the groove only after giving the band notice that “if he lose the funk we gotta chunk him out.”
The theme song, “You Can Have Watergate Just Gimme Some Bucks and I’ll Be Straight,” is ironic given James’ re-election endorsement of the vulnerable funky president. JB had hoped to pressure Nixon for a Martin Luther King holiday (“You can’t change a house from the outside,” he’d told hecklers at the Apollo). By ‘73, he just wanted his 40 acres. Instead, he got a call from the IRS and belated thanks “for inventing modern music” some 23 years later”.
“An incredible album — a landmark piece of funk that nobody should be without, funk fan or not! The album is the second to feature James Brown’s famous backing combo of the early 70s — and unlike their first one, which was really more of a collection of singles, this album has the group playing hard, long, and loud, in the free funk improvisational mode that was James’ real contribution to the music at the time. The tracks are all long, with James at the forefront, egging the band on with shouts and comments — but also letting them open up large instrumentally, playing in a mode that’s as much jazz as it is funky soul. The whole thing’s peppered with some nice shorter seques between tracks — but the long cuts are the winners, and are some of the best funk ever recorded”
Tracks:
1. Introduction to the J.B.’s
2. Doing it to Death – Parts 1 & 2
3. You Can Have Watergate Just Gimme Some Bucks and I’ll Be Straight
4. More Peas
5. La Di Da La Di Day
6. You Can Have Watergate Just Gimme Some Bucks and I’ll Be Straight
7. Sucker
8. You Can Have Watergate Just Gimme Some Bucks and I’ll Be Straight
**Listen**
1 comentario
Septiembre 29, 2008 a 11:55 pm (Uncategorized)
Concept (1981).
A 1970s favorite, the family group the Sylvers had long burned through their star power by the release of 1981’s Concept LP. With numbers that had at one time expanded to include nearly all ten children, the band now found themselves pared down to a, relatively speaking, small quintet. Solidly crafted, if eminently tired, R&B drives the slick set, swinging and balancing itself between sharp pop and smooth ballads. Both “I’m Getting’ Over” and “Heart Repair Man” are fairly respectable urban grooves and are surpassed only by the surprisingly funky “Reach Out.” “Taking Over,” on the other hand, with its breaks of light rap, struggles for credibility. The miasmic ballads “Just When I Thought It Was Over (Here I Go Again)” and “The Unfinished Letter” round out the experience. There’s a good reason that this album appeared and faded without a trace. By the time Concept reached the shelf, three years after the Sylvers’ last hit single, they were so out of fashion that not even the moments of excellence found on this album could have saved the band from the backlash that relegated them to oblivion. Keep this remarkable band alive instead through their brighter and much earlier sonic masterpieces.
Tracks:
1. Reach Out
2. Come Back Lover
3. Just When I Thought It Was Over (Here I Go Again)
4. Take It To The Top
5. I’m Getting Over
6. Taking Over
7. P.S. (The Unfinished Letter)
8. Heart Repair Man
9. There’s A Place
2 comentarios
Septiembre 28, 2008 a 7:59 pm (Uncategorized)
The Bass-ic Collection (1997).
Jazz bass players are typically heard and not seen, but the lack of Stanley Clarke pictures on this predominantly instrumental collection of some of his best work is still alarming. No photos and no liner notes other than track personnel make this appear like a quickie release, maybe one without much Clarke input. Regardless, the 14 tracks compiled here are some of the bassist’s best moments from notoriously uneven albums recorded between 1974 and 1989, with two previously unreleased tunes waxed in April 1995. As a jazz-funk bassist Clarke is perhaps without peers, and his second, third, and fourth albums from 1974-1976 best captured that style before he deteriorated into second-rate disco and watered-down R&B in the late ’70s and ’80s. So it’s not surprising that six cuts, including “School Days” (arguably his most accomplished and energetic piece of playing and composition), are drawn from these discs and encompass well over half the running time. With help from veteran sidemen such as Jeff Beck, keyboardist David Sancious, saxist Kirk Whalum, and of course shotgun-riding cohort George Duke, the vibe sizzles and burns. Jazz fusion buffs will want to start here to appreciate Clarke’s nearly lead guitar-style command of the bass. When Clarke finds his groove on P-Funk-inspired burners such as “We Supply” and “Mothership Connection (Star Child)” (the latter written by George Clinton and Bootsy Collins), he’s unstoppable. Even at his sappiest on the newly released “Between Love & Magic,” and the Earth, Wind & Fire-styled “Journey to Love,” Clarke’s precision and intensity on his instrument are startling. Although he has enough good-to-great moments for a double disc (even without digging into the Return to Forever catalog), this is a logical first purchase and a solid, if not terribly comprehensive, career overview of a bass guitar legend.(AMG).
Tracks:
1. School Days
2. Wild Dog
3. We Supply
4. Mothership Connection (Star Child)
5. Journey to Love
6. Hello Jeff
7. I Wanna Play for You
8. Silly Putty
9. Hot Fun
10. Rock ‘n’ Roll Jelly
11. Jamaican Boy
12. Lost in a Thought
13. Between Love & Magic
14. Life Suite
1 comentario
Septiembre 28, 2008 a 7:17 am (Uncategorized)
House Party (1980).
Tracks:
1. House Party
2. Bop To The Boogie
3. Still On The Loose
4. I Make Music
5. If This Be A Dream
6. Let’s Go Dancing
7. Are You Guilty?
8. Life Is Wonderful
**Listen**
1 comentario
Septiembre 28, 2008 a 6:47 am (Uncategorized)
It’s Time (1979).
When Platinum Hook’s self-titled debut album of 1978 failed to sell, the band decided to try something different on its second album, It’s Time. Disco was huge in 1979 (when this LP came out), and Platinum Hook tried to cash in on its popularity by providing more party songs the second time around. There are a few examples of romantic Northern soul (including “Be Not a Long Time” and “It’s for You”), but disco-funk is what dominates the album. Unfortunately, the up-tempo material tends to sound contrived and mechanical this time. Although mildly catchy, disco-funk tracks like “Play With You,” “Time,” and “Give Me Time to Say” resort to formula instead of gambling with inspiration — there isn’t much to distinguish them from countless other disco-funk tunes that came out in 1979. And when It’s Time is finished playing, the romantic soul ballads are what you remember and want to go back to. Although uneven, It’s Time isn’t a bad album; even the most formulaic tracks aren’t terrible. But if you had to choose between It’s Time and Platinum Hook’s first album, the latter would be the obvious choice.(AMG).
Tracks:
1. Give Me Time to Say
2. Time
3. Be Not a Long Time
4. Play With You
5. One More Day
6. It’s for You
7. Love Makes Me Feel Good
2 comentarios
Septiembre 28, 2008 a 5:49 am (Uncategorized)
All The Woo In The World (1978).
Parliarment/Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell’s first LP is more Funkadelic than Parliarment, and with the exception of one tune, less exciting than either. The keeper is “Insurance Man for the Funk,” 12 minutes and 39 seconds of pure P-Funk; it has everything: layered sounds, a toe-tapping midtempo beat, and some incredible horns. The chorus has a great hook — “Insurance Man for the funk/Take some insurance out on your romp/You are the beneficiaryyyy”; it also has some side cracking lines like “Leroy’s (Lloyd’s) of London,” and a great synthesizer solo by Bernie. Not to knock Bernie’s rendition, which is great, but if George had cut this with Parliament or Bootsy’s Rubber Band, it would have blown up. Unfortunately, nothing else here measures up to “Insurance Man”; the other selections have a weird feel to them. Bernie does most of the lead vocals, and Junie Morrison plays a significant role. You get the feeling that most of these tracks were first slotted for other artists under George Clinton’s umbrella of stars. “Woo Together” features Bernie and Junie on a funk number; Morrison leads the rather dull “I’ll Be Here.” The concept is supposed to be something called Woo, which is not adequately explained.(AMG).
Tracks:
1. Woo Together
2. I’ll Be With You
3. Hold On
4. Much Thrust
5. Happy to Have (Happiness on Our Side)
6. Insurance Man for the Funk / Reprise: Much Thrust
**Listen**
1 comentario
Septiembre 28, 2008 a 2:28 am (Uncategorized)
Funky Disco Vol.10 (2008)
Para los amantes de la Onda Disco, esta es la decima compilacion que funkjazzforever deja a disposicion de ustedes. Recopilacion hecha con gran esfuerzo, ripiados desde vinilos y compactos, tratando de dejar el mas optimo sonido para que lo disfruten.
Tracks:
1. Soulful Dinamic – Jungle People
2. THP – Dancin’ Is Alright
3. THP – Dancin’ Forever
4. THP – Good To Me
5. Stacy Lattisaw – Jump To The Beat
6. People choice – Here We Go Again
7. Osibisa – The Warrior
8. Peter Jacques Band – Devil’s Run
9. Jimmy “Bo” Horne – Spank
10. Claudja Barry – Boogie Woogie Dancin’ Shoes
11. T-Connection – At Midnight
**Listen**
3 comentarios
Septiembre 28, 2008 a 1:29 am (Uncategorized)
Boogie Down U.S.A (1975)
If you asked five different R&B experts what the first disco songs were, you might get five different answers. It has been argued that the disco beat was born in Philadelphia in 1972, when Jerry Butler recorded his fast, ultra-danceable version of the Kenny Gamble/Leon Huff classic “One Night Affair” (which had been previously recorded by the O’Jays in 1969). Even if Butler’s hit wasn’t the very first disco single, it was definitely among the first. It’s inaccurate to give Philly all the credit for disco’s birth — Isaac Hayes and Barry White, neither of whom are Philadelphians, have been exalted as two of disco’s early architects — but the city deserves some of the credit. When Philly soul gave way to Philly disco-soul, one of the groups that got in on the action was the People’s Choice. The group’s 1975 smash “Do It Any Way You Wanna” is a definitive example of Philly dance music, as are several other disco-funk gems on Boogie Down U.S.A., including “Party Is a Groovy Thing” and the clever “Nursery Rhymes.” However, not everything on this 1975 LP (which was produced by Gamble & Huff at Philly’s legendary Sigma Sound Studios) is dance-oriented. The playful “Are You Sure” and the ballad “Don’t Send Me Away” are pure Philly soul, and the instrumental “Mickey D’s” contains jazz overtones. Without question, Boogie Down U.S.A. is the most essential LP that the People’s Choice recorded in the ’70s.
Tracks:
1. Do It Any Way You Wanna
2. Are You Sure
3. Micky D’s
4. I’m Leaving You
5. The Sooner You Get Here
6. Boogie Down U.S.A.
7. Nursery Rhymes
8. Party Is a Groovy Thing
9. If You Want Me Back
10. Don’t Send Me Away
**Listen**
3 comentarios
Septiembre 27, 2008 a 11:28 pm (Uncategorized)
Brooklyn Dreams (1977)
Brooklyn Dreams combined the harmonies of vintage doo wop with the electronic textures and rhythms of contemporary dance music to emerge as one of the more distinctive acts of the disco era. Members Bruce Sudano, Eddie Hokenson, and Joe “Bean” Esposito grew up in the same Brooklyn neighborhood and began collaborating as teens. In 1968, Sudano joined the group Alive ‘N Kickin’, scoring a Top Ten pop hit with the Tommy James-penned “Tighter, Tighter” before splitting in 1970 after just one LP. Sudano returned home and reunited with Hokenson and Esposito, with whom he also began writing songs. When friend and future manager Susan Munao landed an executive position with Los Angeles-based Casablanca Records, she encouraged the trio to travel west, where they signed to producer Jimmy Ienner’s Casablanca subsidiary Millennium. Produced by ex-Three Dog Night member Skip Konte, Brooklyn Dreams’ self-titled LP appeared in 1977. The record fared poorly at retail, but the group received an unexpected boost via their appearance in the 1978 feature film American Hot Wax. Brooklyn Dreams’ 1979 follow-up, Sleepless Nights, featured the smash “Heaven Knows,” a duet with disco queen Donna Summer. The trio not only opened for the singer on tour, but Sudano and Summer later wed. The ambitious, Juergen Koppers-produced Joy Ride nevertheless proved a commercial disaster, and when 1980’s Won’t Let Go met a similar fate, Brooklyn Dreams dissolved. A year later Sudano issued a solo LP, The Fugitive Kind, but earned his greatest success as a songwriter, penning Summer’s classic “Bad Girls” as well as the Dolly Parton smash “Starting Over.” Esposito also returned to the limelight in 1983 when his solo cut “Lady, Lady, Lady” was included on the blockbuster soundtrack to Flashdance.
Tracks:
1. Music, Harmony And Rhythm
2. Sad Eyes
3. I Never Dreamed
4. Don’t Fight The Feeling
5. Another Night At The Tango
6. On The Corner
7. Street Dance
8. (Baby) You’re The One
9. Old Fashioned Girl
10. Hollywood Circles
Bonus
11. Street Dance (12″)
**Listen**
3 comentarios
Septiembre 27, 2008 a 5:46 pm (Uncategorized)
Manchild & Babyface A Golden Classics Edition (1997).
Released in 1997, after Babyface became one of the most popular and successful producers in pop music, Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds & Manchild is a career-spanning compilation that covers all three albums by the ’70s soul outfit. The group had only one hit — “Especially for You” in 1977 — and, listening to this 17-track collection, it’s easy to see why: they weren’t very good. Manchild was certainly competent, and on a few songs Babyface suggests that he had the talent he eventually developed, but only diehard fans of the contemporary soul man — or fans of vocalist Reggie Griffin, who later launched a solo career — will need to explore this collection.
Tracks:
1. Red Hot Daddy
2. (I Want To Feel Your) Power And Love
3. Especially For You
4. Takin’ It To The Streets
5. You Get What You Give
6. We Need We
7. These Are The Things That Are Special To Me
8. Funky Situation – Kenny ‘Babyface’ Edmonds/Manchild K
9. The Phuff
10. Koriko
11. Walk With Me (Ande Conmigo)
12. If You Don’t Tell No One
13. Joy
14. Rowdy-Dowdy Blues/Don’t Get Get Me Rowdy
15. Our Message
16. Maybe My Baby
17. One Tender Moment
1 comentario
Septiembre 26, 2008 a 11:15 pm (Uncategorized)
The Album (1992)
Tracks:
1. How Gee
2. Money Money Money
3. Jazz Machine
4. Movin’
5. The Children Are Crying
6. Blood Bass
7. Funky Funky People
8. Gimme A White Line
9. Fascination
10. Just Like A Dream
11. The Black Machine Megamix
Bonus
12. How Gee (Radio Edit)
13. How Gee (Club Mix)
14. How Gee (Sax Mix)
**Listen**
2 comentarios
Septiembre 26, 2008 a 9:43 pm (Uncategorized)
Joystick (1983)
From Cleveland to Cincinnati to Dayton, Ohio was famous for its funk bands in the 1970s. One of the many Ohio funk outfits that emerged during the decade was Cleveland’s Dazz Band, which was originally known as Kinsman Dazz. Like so many Midwestern funksters, the Dazz Band had a killer horn section. But in 1983, horn bands were quickly going out of fashion and a new style of electro-funk was taking over — one that favored keyboards and drum machines over horns and showed an awareness of hip-hop production techniques. The popularity of electro-funk put a lot of 1970s bands out of business, but the Dazz Band managed to hang in there and change with the times. On 1983’s Joystick, the Dazz Band is a lot more high-tech than it was in the late ’70s, but is still quite gritty. Tracks like “Straight Out of School,” “Rock With Me,” and the hit single “Swoop (I’m Yours)” find the Dazz Band meeting the demands of the electro-funk market with pleasing results — anyone digging Prince, Midnight Star, and the System in 1983 could easily get into the Dazz Band as well. While other horn bands had a hard time going high-tech, the Dazz Band pulled it off. Joystick isn’t the Dazz Band’s most essential album, and it doesn’t contain the group’s biggest hit, “Let It Whip.” But it’s a solid, respectable effort from an outfit that, in 1983, was making a valiant effort to avoid sounding dated.
Tracks:
1. To The Roof
2. Joystick
3. Swoop (I’m Yours)
4. Until You
5. Rock With Me
6. Straight Out Of School
7. Now That I Have You
8. Laughin’ At You
9. T. Mata (Instrumental)
**Listen**
3 comentarios
Septiembre 26, 2008 a 1:35 am (Electronic, Funk, Uncategorized)
Be My Lover (1984).
Tracks:
1. Lovelite
2. Be My Lover
3. You Gotta Use It
4. Go On And Cry
5. Breakin´Together
6. You´re Always On My Mind
7. Too Hot
8. Lady I Love You
**Listen**
2 comentarios
Septiembre 25, 2008 a 7:36 pm (Uncategorized)
It’s Your Thing: The Story of the Isley Brothers (1999)
The history of black American music is a story of self-reinvention, and nobody but James Brown has started afresh as many times and as successfully as the Isley Brothers. It’s Your Thing is the first time their entire 40-year career has been surveyed in one place, including 29 (!) chart hits. It spills over with innovation: rock & roll (“Twist and Shout”), tough R&B (“Shout”), rich Motown soul (“This Old Heart of Mine”), furious, hard funk (the original “Fight the Power”), and even the mellower lover-man crooning that occupies a lot of the third disc. They integrated guitar into their soul likemore… few others, and not only on the tracks here featuring Jimi Hendrix–after brother Ernie comes into his own as a guitarist on disc two, he gives the Brothers’ singles a distinctive, prickly edge. And the gospel singing traditions they inherited come out in their fraternal harmonies, in the very spiritual hope that powers their songs from the rawest to the sweetest.
Tracks:
Disc: 1 (1957-1970)
1. Building Up To Shout (Live At Yankee Stadium)
2. Shout (Parts 1 & 2)
3. Shout (Live From The TV Show Shindig)
4. Twist And Shout
5. Who’s That Lady
6. Time After Time
7. Move Over And Let Me Dance
8. Testify (Parts 1 & 2)
9. This Old Heart Of Mine (Is Weak For You)
10. Take Me In Your Arms (Rock Me A Little While)
11. It’s Your Thing
12. I Turned You On
13. Get Into Something
14. Freedom
15. Keep On Doin’
16. The Blacker The Berrie (AKA Black Berries)
17. Rockin’ McDonald
18. Don’t Be Jealous
19. Angels Cried
20. It’s Your Thing (Live At Yankee Stadium)
Disc: 2 (1971-1975)
1. That Lady (Part 1 & 2)
2. Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight
3. For The Love Of You (Part 1 & 2)
4. Brother, Brother
5. Work To Do
6. Lay Away
7. Cold Bologna
8. Midnight Sky (Part 1 & 2)
9. Hello It’s Me
10. Make Me Say It Again Girl (Part 1 & 2)
11. Summer Breeze
12. Live It Up (Part 1 & 2)
13. Fight The Power (Part 1 & 2)
14. Fire And Rain
15. Love The One You’re With
Disc: 3 (1976 – 1996)
1. Harvest For The World (Prelude)
2. Harvest For The World
3. Groove With You
4. For The Love Of You
5. Mission To Please You
6. Between The Sheets
7. Caravan Of Love
8. I’m So Proud
9. Smooth Sailin’ Tonight
10. Voyage To Atlantis
11. Take Me To The Next Phase (Part 1 & 2)
12. The Pride (Part 1 & 2)
13. (At Your Best) You Are Love
14. Footsteps In The Dark (Part 1 & 2)
15. Don’t Say Goodnight (It’s Time For Love)
Listen: **CD1** – **CD2** – **CD3**
2 comentarios
Septiembre 25, 2008 a 4:21 pm (Uncategorized)
Greatest Hits (2004)
Along with a number of very welcome Maze album reissues, in 2004 The Right Stuff compiled what is no doubt the definitive single-disc collection of the Frankie Beverly-led band, titled simply yet accurately Greatest Hits. The 18-track compilation rounds up the four-minute single edits of such hits as “Southern Girl,” “Joy and Pain,” “Before I Let Go,” “Never Let You Down,” and “Back in Stride,” among numerous others. Because many of these songs in their original states clock around seven or so minutes apiece, these single edits are preferable for a compilation such as this. This way you get as many hits as possible on the disc, and if you indeed like what you hear, you can always go and pick up the individual Maze albums, which are classics in their own right and mighty rewarding listens for lovers of late-’70s funk and early- to mid-’80s urban music. The Right Stuff, a division of Capitol Records, also went out of its way to license a few Maze songs owned by Warner Bros.: “Can’t Get Over You” (1989), “Silky Soul” (1989), and “The Morning After” (1993). These latter-day recordings weren’t quite as successful as the sort of songs Maze had been recording during the early ’80s, but they’re nonetheless great songs and an important part of the band’s long-running career. All of this amounts to a well-rounded portrait of Maze, even including two live songs: the audience-singalong version of “Joy and Pain” from Live in New Orleans (1981) and a version of the band’s signature “Happy Feelin’s.” You can’t ask for a better single-disc introduction to Maze than Greatest Hits. If this disc doesn’t turn you on to the band, nothing will.
Tracks:
1. Workin’ Together
2. Golden Time of Day
3. Feel That You’re Feelin’
4. Southern Girl
5. Running Away
6. Joy and Pain
7. Before I Let Go
8. Love Is the Key
9. Never Let Me Down
10. We Are One
11. I Wanna Thank You
12. Back in Stride
13. Too Many Games
14. I Wanna Be With You
15. Happy Feelin’s (Live)
16. Can’t Get Over You
17. Silky Soul
18. The Morning After
**Listen**
1 comentario
Septiembre 25, 2008 a 1:49 am (Uncategorized)
The Changing Of The Guard (1979).
The Changing of the Gard was an appropriate title for Stargard’s third album because it was, in some respects, a departure from the female trio’s two previous albums. With this LP, Stargard switched from MCA to Warner Brothers — and while Stargard and What You Waitin’ For were both produced by Mark Davis, The Changing of the Gard found Rochelle Runnells, Debra Anderson, and Janice Williams working with Robert Wright and Earth, Wind & Fire’s Verdine White. So, not surprisingly, Stargard becomes a bit more Earth, Wind & Fire-ish at times, and the Wright/White team gives the group a sleeker sound on gems like “Take Me Back,” the ballad “(Once in a Lifetime) Dream Come True,” and the exuberant single “Wear It Out.” But Stargard still has plenty of grit and passion; like EWF’s 1970s recordings, The Changing of the Gard manages to sound polished and gritty at the same time. Those who expect Stargard to provide uninhibited, extroverted party jams won’t be disappointed by “Footstompin’ Music,” “Put on Your Rollerskates,” and other funk smokers. Now for the bad news: this vinyl LP didn’t do nearly as well as it should have. While The Changing of the Gard is full of pearls that deserved to be major hits, this record didn’t receive as much attention as Stargard’s two previous albums. It goes without saying that justice doesn’t always prevail in the music world, and The Changing of the Gard is a perfect example of a fine album being a commercial disappointment.
Tracks:
1. Wear It Out
2. Once in a Lifetime) Dream Come True
3. Footstompin’ Music
4. Take Me Back
5. Runnin’ from the Law
6. BedTime Story/I Just Imagined You
7. Put on Your Rollerskates
8. Lowdown Dancing/Flashback
4 comentarios
Septiembre 24, 2008 a 3:27 am (Uncategorized)
Knights Of The Sound Table (1981).
Tracks:
1. Knights by Nights
2. Freaky Dancin’
3. I Never Knew
4. Use It or Lose It
5. The Sound Table
6. Don’t Be So Cool
7. I’ll Always Stay
8. I Like It
**Listen**
1 comentario
Septiembre 23, 2008 a 11:55 pm (Uncategorized)
Rattlesnake (1975)
When the Ohio Players’ Mercury smashes were burning up the charts in the mid-’70s, Westbound no doubt regretted letting the funksters get away and wished that it had been the label that released “Fire,” “Love Rollercoaster,” and “I Want to Be Free.” But since Westbound no longer had the Players under contract, it tried to cash in on their popularity by putting out material that it had in the can. Released in 1975 but recorded from 1972-1973 — when the Players were still signed to Westbound — Rattlesnake is a collection that only a hardcore Players fan would find of interest. Not that the material is bad; most of it is decent, if less than remarkable. Though Rattlesnake contains a few songs that had already come out on 1972’s Pleasure or 1973’s Ecstacy (including the funky “Spinning,” the infectious “Laid It,” and the sentimental ballad “Varee Is Love”), its main focus is previously unreleased material. And the material that Westbound pulls from its vaults ranges from the funky title song and the disco-ish instrumental “Hollywood Hump” (which would have been at home on a KC & the Sunshine Band album) to the jazz instrumental “Gone Forever.” Meanwhile, “Rooster Poot” is a mildly amusing funk tune that features the Players’ Granny character, which they retired for good after signing with Mercury. Although far from essential and not recommended to casual listeners, Rattlesnake is an interesting listen if you’re a seasoned collector.
Tracks:
1. Rattlesnake
2. Introducing the Players
3. What It Is
4. Rooster Poot
5. Gone Forever
6. Hustle Bird
7. Spinning
8. Hollywood Hump
9. Laid It
10. Varee Is Love
11. She Locked It
**Listen**
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