Thursday, June 6, 2013

40 Year Itch : Right On, Right On, Summer Soul from '73



[Purchase]

Curtis Mayfield followed up his #1 Superfly soundtrack with more smoothly sung, politically conscious R and B. Back To The World, a Top 20 album, features the Superfly sound-a-like single "Future Shock" but the real treats are the title cut, about a disillusioned Vietnam vets return home to the US ( known as "the World" to vets) and the monster jam "Right On For the Darkness"--one of our very fave cuts from 1973.




To help promote the album, Curtis hosted The Midnight Special June 8, 1973.




[Purchase]

Velvet voiced Bobby Womack keeps it real on this follow-up to Understanding. Facts of Life, recorded in Muscle Shoals, may be Womack's best. The single, a cover of the standard "Nobody Wants You When You're Down and Out", came out a month earlier and peaked at #2 on the R and B charts.








[Purchase]

With the Brothers Johnson backing him up, Billy Preston continued his hit making roll with Music is My Life, featuring the future #1 hit "Will It Go 'Round in Circles". Most of the album is a mixture of feel good piano-based pop and songs celebrating God. The title cut sounds like an off the cuff autobiographical confession: "I may not be the best around/But I'm surely not the worst."


No comments:

Post a Comment