Thursday, December 19, 2013

40 Year Itch : Some Late Season Soul





   On December 6, 1973 Al Green released his second Gold album of the year with Livin' For Your Love. Though not as indispensable as Call Me or I'm Still in Love With You, Livin' For Your Love does contain the #1 Soul single in its title cut, "Let's Get Married" ( Soul #3) and , best of all, an 8-minute improvisation called "Beware" which must be heard.




                                                                     {out of print}

  The last Norman Whitfield production for the Temptations is a rarely heralded psychedelic soul classic.  A clash of egos can rarely be good for art and The Temps didn't appreciate being turned into studio instruments by Whitfield. That said, Motown really needs to put out a box set of the Whitfield years. Like Masterpiece, All Directions and Solid Rock, 1990 is another huge seller that is out of frickin print.









Some of the hardest drivin' funk of 1973 came from the home studio of Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones. Jones produced and arranged and played some down and dirty bass on Madeline Bell's first solo album in 5 years. ( She'd been singing with Blue Mink)  One listen to this puts Led Zep's Houses of the Holy, and especially "The Crunge", in a whole new light.






1 comment:

  1. I´ve been listening The Crunge for years from another point of view,... everything changed for me when long ago I met James Brown... I agree with You, ... One of my favourite Zepp records is Houses Of The Holy, I think They oppened windows to different worlds in that record

    Greetings for your blog ...and sorry for my poor english :(

    ReplyDelete