Soul, Funk and Disco

What a cool debut album! At first glance (including the cover), “Just as I Am” seems so low-key, almost unspectacular, but once you get used to these songs, and when you consider this is almost forty years ago, you come to realize just how much sophistication this guy Bill Withers had back then when he decided to record his first album. And in spite of a respectable cover version of Let It Be, Bill Withers outs himself as a respectable songwriter. His music is as related to the Blues and the Soul tradition as it is to the Folk tradition of, say, a James Taylor. One of Bill Withers’ best records and still a great record. –Yofriend

Chuck Jackson must have been a really weird fit for Motown. Kind of like the Yankees acquiring Michael Schumacher; top brand aquires top talent, despite the obvious apples/oranges implications. His tenure at Wand was mainly filled with well-done Iceman ballad stylings with the odd Northern track (“Chains of Love”) thrown in for giggles. But just like the Iceman himself making a pair of brilliant albums in Philly, this album works extremely well. I would have to imagine that Chuck did something wrong in his interview with Berry Gordy. Maybe he didn’t seem too thrilled at the prospect of putting two white teenagers kissing on a beach on the album cover. Maybe he went on and on about how much he liked the new Isley Brothers single on T-Neck and how they’re doing so well now. In any event, Berry did not stack this album with songwriting talent. Two Smokey songs, one H-D-H, one Ashford/Simpson, one Stevie Wonder, and then some other guys. No producer’s credit either. Needless to say this does not sound like a 1969 Motown album.

The album starts off well enough with a Bert Berns song but then sidesteps into a big heaping pile of Jimmy Webb. There are a lot of Jimmy Webb fans out there; I am unequivocally not one of them. I like bits of the first Fifth Dimension album. Other than that, I think his songs are firmly in the schmaltzy pathos category and one of the worst things to happen to soul music (other than Bobby Womack) was the endless assembly line of “Witchita Lineman” covers. (Oh, you’re a lineman for the county? Shut up already and fix the power lines then.) Things pick up with a solid version of “Cry Like a Baby”. Side 2 is the real stormer, however. An interesting cover of Tyrone Davis’ “Can I Change My Mind” is great, even if the trademark jangly guitar is slightly buried. “I’d Still Love You” follows and, whoa, fuzz guitar! Ominous spoken intro leads into the best production on the album. Again, I would love to know who produced this cut, as it’s definitely not Norman Whitfield territory but it’s close. “The Day My World Stood Still” is a wonderful little sleeper that opens up into a dramatically darker bridge featuring swirling strings and woodblocks with an ersatz flamenco feel and a Chuck Jackson vocal that is certainly up for the challenge. It’s the kind of staggeringly effective minor key bridge that was more common to UK psych (just replace the ersatz flamenco with ersatz Middle Eastern). A baffling little excursion that I can’t get enough of.

Motown may not have given a lot of effort and attention to Chuck Jackson, but you should. Plus he looks pretty suave in that turtleneck. He certainly looks better than I do in them. –Mike

This self-titled debut (!!!) album is one of my all-time favorite records. I’ve played it thousands of times and know it by heart. Too jazzy for Disco fans, too “trivial” for Jazz fans, too remote from “roots” for the Soul/Funk division, this album was and is a dream-come-true for all those who don’t wear blinkers when it comes to music. All seven songs are jewels, and together, they’re a string of pearls. No matter from which angle – the compositions, the arrangements, the singing, the performance – always five stars. I can’t think of or play this album without fits of rapture. –Yofriend

This is the ultimate soul-chill album. Shuggie is extremely versatile and this album exploits that ability. He might take you through a blaxploitation-era-sounding L.A. street walk as in the opener and “Strawberry 23”, a dub-influenced Hammond organ tune in “Aht uh Mi Head”. “Happy House” almost sounds like a millennial drum and bass piece. “Sweet Thang” might be one of the best soul jams on a blues number I’ve ever heard (here he’s successfully aped Duane Allman on guitar). He tries for some experimental stuff on his beat machine but the songs that shine are when he allows his guitar to create the atmosphere. Shuggie’s excellence is extremely subtle due in part to his highly laxed and soft vocal style and his tendency towards quiet groove. But this IS a 2am come down lazy groove album in the best sense. Don’t give up on the album in the middle instrumental section which drops off, as the album’s second half picks up starting with “Strawberry 23”. The high point of the album is the groove he kicks on the second half of “Island Letter”. All this, and the fact that Otis was practically a toddler when he made Inspiration Information, set the tone for what is certainly one of the most underappreciated albums and artists of all time. –B

Curtis’s call to unity and peace is that we are all going to hell for being assholes; I absolutely love that. Here everyone is telling everyone to form a love train and hold hands and Curtis is saying that if things don’t work out now maybe we’ll get things right in hell. The music is just as revolutionary, an embrace of what was going down on the East side of the United States in the 60s and the music that has been going on in the western hemisphere since the 16th century. Dirty funk with prog-rock ascension (“(Don’t Worry) If There’s a Hell We’re All Going to Go”) and a Motown hit with a 5-minute jam (“Move On Up”), Curtis knows no limits and it’s all for the better; even simple soul like “Miss Black America” and “Wild and Free” feel like transcendent miracles of celebration with lyrical potency.

There’s The Last Poets who were looking at all the failures going on and then there was Isaac Hayes looking at a bright future, but both were either too cynical or scarred to look at each other. This is Curtis standing up aware of the shortcomings of black society in the late 60s (“Don’t accept anything less than 2nd best” he sings in triumphant glory) and looking up at the bright days behind the gloomiest haze of despair in the album’s centerpiece “We the People Who are Darker than Blue”. Curtis knows there is no point in pondering what could have been of Africa had it not been ravaged and he knows there is no use in lying about black people coming on top. There is no black and white, there is only poor or rich and lucky or unfortunate. You can only embrace those small moments when things are looking up in your life and you make a connection to the history that binds you to that moment. This is what Curtis accomplishes for forty minutes and it’s a beautiful thing. –Allistair

There is absolutely nothing like it. I could spend the entire review spouting off fawning superlatives, but suffice to say this is my favorite album of the 70’s, and my favorite non-jazz album of all time. From the opening chords, Stevie envelops you in a new type of funk; dark, complex and intense. “Too High”, “Higher Ground” and especially “Jesus Children of America” exemplify this sound, and they are what immediately grab you about the album. There is also gorgeous, emotional soul (“Golden Lady”, “All in Love is Fair”) and one track that lies in between (“Living for the City”). “Visions” is perhaps the most startling song, however. It isn’t really soul at all, and it’s definitely not funk. It’s a haunting and heart-felt meditation on the blindness of hatred that metiphorically contrasts it with Stevie’s own sightlessness. Just writing about this album gives me goosebumps, and if you’ve never heard it, you need to get on that, right now. –Lucas

I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard this debut because it couldn’t be further from the glossy disco I was used to associating with the group. Instead it is a bare bones, no nonsense funky affair not unlike early Tower of Power or Sly and the Family Stone. There are also nods to rock in the tough drumming, and jazz fusion on the weirdly titled closer “Bad Tune”. The peace and love lyrics get kind of grating, as does the “banter” in between songs, but these are small grievances on an otherwise still fresh sounding album. –Neal

Sometimes, less is more. Sometimes, a skeletal backbeat, some whisper-thin organ and a barely audible moan can trump a mighty wail over lush, swelling orchestration. If you were to put any of the tracks off of Call Me on a soul compilation next to Aretha Franklin or, say, Wilson Pickett, they’re going to sound out of place. Compared to most soul or R&B artists, there is no muscle, not in the music or the vocals. It isn’t that Al Green doesn’t have a voice to shatter mountains (he does), it’s just that he chooses not to deploy it here. And while you might be able to resist his spell for 3 1/2 minutes at a time, the effect of all of these tracks taken together is delirious and intoxicating. Instead of coming to you, Al never raises his voice. He makes you lean close, really pay attention. He teases and seduces and withholds gratification until even the slightest breath is devastating. “Have You Been Making Out O.K.” is aimed at an ex-lover, and designed to buckle her knees by the end of the first verse. The two country standards lose none of the heartache of the originals, but are completely re-conceptualized in a soul setting so that they’re sexy and barely recognizable. Even “Jesus Is Waiting” is a sultry come-on to examine your faith. Bottom line, this is a classic. You need this album. –Lucas

In the sixties there were thousands of soul sides produced, however, the market was singles driven, so finding a period soul album playable start to finish is tough. I know you might reckon, “What about Motown?”! If you own enough sixties era Motown albums you know exactly what I mean. Being the biggest soul label during the sixties they were VERY guilty of using “filler” tracks to pad the albums, often reusing backing tracks or having their artists sing standards. Well, fortunately, the genius of Mr. Larry Williams and Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson defies the cliche’! Two For The Price Of One is a wide open, pedal to the metal…SOUL album…it’s exactly what you’d expect from this infamous pair…nothing but DANCERS! In fact, TftPoO is so danceable half the albums tracks are Northern Soul classics (biggest being “Too Late” and A “Quitter Never Wins”). This is what an album of soul oughta be…you ain’t heard NOTHING till you’ve heard this! –Nipper

Niles Rodgers said that he formed Chic as a kind of black disco version of Roxy Music. And, in turn, the slick syncopated grooves with those art-deco grand piano splashes wound up influencing everything from early rap (the riff from “Rapper’s Delight” is taken straight from “Good Times”) to Madonna. Perhaps it’s their use of minor keys but Chic’s tunes all have this melancholy air about them – a bittersweet portrait of the swinging, hedonistic 70s and all that followed in its wake. It’s beautiful music — none more than the sensual “Warm Summer Night” with its circular structure punctuated by “Papi!” — from a gritty decade. –Singer Saints