40 Year Itch : A Specialist in Love Heart Surgery

Ann Peebles : Dr Love Power

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   Teaming up once again with producer Willie Mitchell and the Memphis Horns, Ann Peebles recorded this classic Seventies soul nugget ( with its Supremes "Come See About Me" quote) for the album Tellin It. Released as a single, "Dr Love Power" stalled at #57 in the R and B charts, failing to provide a cure for a rash of disco fever which had already taking the country by storm.

40 Year Itch: You Better Beware

Ann Peebles : Beware

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   If Al Green was the king of Hi Records then surely Ann Peebles was the queen. Peaking at just #69 on the R and B charts, "Beware" is one of three singles from her 1975 album Tellin It. 

40 Year Itch: Smooth and Raunchy

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   Years before Al Green came around, Willie Mitchell signed Ann Peebles to his Memphis based Hi Records label. Mitchell may have been drawn to her traditional feel for old school R and B but as soon as Al Green began his string of sensual hit singles and albums like I'm Still In Love With You and Call Me, he hoped Peebles would be a female version of Al Green. 

   It almost happened. The single " I Can't Stand the Rain" , featuring Al Green's musicians and producer,  hit the top 40 ( #6 R and B) and even John Lennon called it " the best songs ever".

The rest of the album is full of this kind of smooth soul. 

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Betty was a free spirit...who was a rocker and a street woman...she was raunchy and all that kind of shit

- Miles Davis

Briefly married to Miles Davis, Betty is credited with introducing the jazz master to the sounds of Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone. Sounds that would lead him to Bitches Brew. She too was open to experimenting with sounds and the result is three albums of unmitigated funk and highly sexualized songs.

They Say I'm Different is her second album.The debut had the benefit of Sly Stone's rhythm section.The sado-masochistic  "He Was a Big Freak", about a lover who liked being whipped,  is rumored to be about Miles. You may not be able to get past all the screeching "cat in heat" antics on this album, but you'll have to admit Betty Davis was an artist way ahead of her time. 

40 Year Itch: Sensational Late Summer Soul

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In August of 1973 Hi recording artist Ann Peebles released her biggest selling single " I Can't Stand the Rain", which peaked at #38 on the pop charts. She wrote it with future husband Don Bryant and a DJ named Bernard Miller.  John Lennon called it "the best song ever."

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Another great Hi recording artist, Syl ( "Is It Because I'm Black?") Johnson hit the R and B charts in 1973 with the title track from Back For A Taste of Your Love, an album produced by Willie Mitchell who worked on all of the Al Green masterpieces. In 1975 the Mitchell-Johnson team would record the classic "Take Me To The River".

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The most important thing about Rufus's low-key debut is the band's decision to record Stevie Wonder's "Maybe Your Baby." Wonder liked the way Chaka Khan sang it so much, he walked into the studio and presented them with "Tell Me Something Good". Their biggest hit would peak at #3 in 1974.

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Earth Wind and Fire's fourth album, Head to the Sky, features the transcendent "Evil", one of 1973's greatest singles in my opinion. The sister on the cover is singer Jessica Cleaves who would leave after this album and eventually join George Clinton's Brides of Funkenstein. 

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With Thom Bell producing, Ronnie Dyson recorded One Man Band which featured one of the Summer of '73's greatest love song " I Just Don't Want To Be Lonely" (#60 pop, #29 R and B). The Main Ingredient would make this a Top 10 hit in 1974.

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One of Aaron Neville's greatest singles is a laid back funk classic. Paul Weller covered this on one of his first solo tours. Like the horns?  They're a top of the hat to John Coltrane's "Minor Blues"

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The Four Tops had already left Motown and recorded their big hit "Ain't No Woman ( Like the One I Got)" in 1972. This follow-up hit #15 for ABC-Dunhill. It appeared on the Shaft in Africa soundtrack.

40 Year Itch: A Binder Full of Women

We just realized we didn't have enough great music here from the women of 1972 so we went to a number of women's groups and said: ‘Can you help us find folks,’ and they brought us whole binders full of women.

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Some women sing soft. Others sing hard. And then there are those who can do both. Though best known for the softer 1973 Top 40 hit "I Can't Stand The Rain", Ann Peebles could sing up a storm. Her 1972 Hi Records album Straight From The Heart is full of gritty vocals over smooth Willie Mitchell production. "Slipped, Tripped And Fell In Love" only made it to #42 on the R and B charts but the album scored an A- for its "pre-ideological feminist rage" from the dean of rock critics, Robert Christgau.

 

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In October of 1972 Rita Coolidge released her third album,  the laid-back and charming This Lady's Not For Sale. The following year she married Kris Kristofferson who wrote the title track.In a move far more progressive than you'd ever expect,  Rita streams all of her albums on her website.

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Nicknamed "the female preacher", Lyn Collins was part of the James Brown revue in 1972. The Godfather of Soul produced her album Think ( About It) with the JB's playing back up. The album features the oft sampled hit title track. We dig a little deeper for "Wheels of Life".

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Feel Good is gaining momentum as a cult fave but I found listening to the whole thing in one sitting a little tiresome. Tina sings in her full blown funky style all the way through. That's All. The. Way. Through. Check out "The Chopper"

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The "Queen of Swedish Hammond Folk Groove" (at least that's the title of one of her albums), Merit Hemmingson interprets old Swedish folk tunes by scatting them over jazzy arrangements featuring -what else?-a Hammond organ.