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The Anthology 1961-1977
Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions: The Anthology,' a two-CD, forty-song set, is a remarkable document. Lovingly assembled by Chicago-soul authority Robert Pruter, this collection connects a decade's worth of gentle Impressions singles with the power and invention of Curtis Mayfield's solo career. The side-by-side pairing presents a stunning picture and casts Mayfield's often-undervalued solo work […]
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Deep In The Night
Once, when I was fourteen, I bought a copy of "My Dearest Darling" by Etta James, a record I'd heard as an oldie on a local station. The song haunted me, and I played it obsessively, day in and day out. "My Dearest Darling" had a special sort of emotional pull; it was demanding and […]
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All 'N All
At their worst, Earth, Wind and Fire indulge in some of the most pretentious excesses in current black music. As on past Earth, Wind and Fire records, All 'n All is filled with leaded brotherhood platitudes, Star Trek sci-fi and stiffly poetic love songs. This sounds overwrought and depressing (and maybe it is). But there's […]
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Foot Loose & Fancy Free
There's something to be said for the New Wave rebellion against (to borrow a phrase from the not-so-young-himself Willy De Ville) "old meat." Even if this reaction is mostly confined to England, it seems very healthy. There are a lot of kids in England who don't care what kind of fashionably gauche trinkets decorate Rod […]
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Live! At The London Palladium
Along with Van Morrison, Marvin Gaye must be considered one of the most reticent pop performers. This is his second live album in three years, a period bridged by only one studio effort, the disappointing I Want You. Gaye has been admittedly ill at ease as a live performer. Interviews have revealed his obsessiveness with […]
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Have a Good Time
If his records are any indication, Al Green is a troubled, no, haunted man. Imagine the spiritual afflictions that prompted the theme of "Keep Me Cryin'," Green's latest single and a song from Have a Good Time: "Well I pleased all the people/But I couldn't please the crowd/So I got down on my knees and […]
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Tales of Kidd Funkadelic
What you see on Funkadelic album covers is what the band is about: "The saber-tooth, slippery tongued & most nastic mau-mau bootybusters of noxious neegrow humpanotical, moldy metal, marching noise music." These guys are no spring chickens — they've been playing psychedelic-tinged black music for almost eight years and were an early source of inspiration […]
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Spirit
The songs of Earth, Wind and Fire combine pure urban fantasy with the type of facile brotherhood messages that also crop up in the music of Stevie Wonder and the O'Jays. But Earth, Wind and Fire wraps its sermons on universal love in fashionable mysticism. One has only to look as far as the cover […]
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Live Report: The Meters
At Paul's Mall in Boston, Massachusetts on September 6th-12th, 1976
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Children of the World
From mushy pop ballads through late-Sixties psychedelia and low-key rock, the Bee Gees have demonstrated a chameleonlike ability to adapt to disparate pop trends. These days, as they said on the Tonight Show in their best Cockney accents, "Rhythm & blues is what's happening." Audacious, right? Well, not exactly. Some of their stuff is really […]
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