40 Year Itch : Long As it's Swinging

The O'Jays : I Love Music

[Purchase]

Debuting at #70, The O'Jays' buoyant "I Love Music" was the top new single of the first week of November, 1975. Penned by Gamble and Huff, with musicianship  by Philadelphia's TSOP and apparently Bill Cosby on bongos. "I Love Music" would top both the soul singles chart and the disco chart before peaking at #5 on the pop charts in early 1976. 

40 Year Itch : Sixteen Families

Future Billionaires Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975

[Purchase]

    From the disappointing Survival comes the O'Jays shoulda-been monster hit "Rich Getting Richer" which was actually never released as a single. Probably because it sounds like a call for revolution:

There's only sixteen families that control the whole world...

People like the Mellons, the Gettys, the DuPonts, the Rockefellers, Howard Hughes

    In the 1970's the top one percent earned about eight percent of all the income. Ridiculous right? 

   That's not the case anymore.

   

   Today it's more like 23.5%, more than the entire bottom 50%

40 Year Itch : Live Soul and Schwarz

[Purchase]

On June 19, 1974, Marvin Gaye released Marvin Gaye Live! which features one of the most spine-tingling moments of any live album ever recorded. It's the moment Gaye, vamping over "Theme from Trouble Man", suddenly breaks out into "Distant Lover" reducing the women in the audience into a mass of hysterical shrieks and screams. As a single, the live version of "Distant Lover" reached #28 in the pop charts and #15 in the R and B charts.

  The album was recorded January 4, 1974 at Oakland Coliseum in front of 14,000 fans. Gaye had been reluctant to tour since singing partner Tammi Terrell had collapsed in his arms during a 1967 concert. Terrell died three years later of a brain tumor. 

  Though sometimes undercut by the syrupy string section conducted by Gene Page, a going-through-the motions 11-minute medley of his early hits, and a truly awful song dedicated to his teenage girlfriend Janis Hunter, the live versions of his early 70's classics like "Inner City Blues", "What's Going On" and "Let's Get It On" make this a must-own album.

   Live, The O'Jays stretch out their best known material. There's an 8 minute version of "Backstabbers" and a 7 minute version of "Love Train". The highlight is the funky audience participation number "When the World is at Peace". The lowlight is the bewildering cover of Skylark's "Wildfire". Yep, that "Wildfire".

   Billy Paul's voice isn't strong enough to carry a live album but if you're a fan of his #1 hit "Me and Mrs Jones", you're in luck. Mr. Philadelphia's live version runs nearly nine minutes.

   BONUS

[Purchase]

Also on this date in 1974, Brinsley Schwarz performed  at Cardiff Top Rank where Nick Lowe and the boys played "What's So Funny 'Bout Peace Love and Understanding" from the forthcoming New Favourites of Brinsely Schwarz. The live recording is immaculate and can be found on the internet.

40 Year Itch : Somebody Bite The Whip

[Purchase]

       When it comes to socially conscious soul music, Stevie Wonder's Innervisions and The O'Jay's Ship Ahoy, released November 10, 1973, stand head and Afro above everything else released in 1973. On songs composed and arranged by Philadelphia International's Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, The O'Jays tackle corruption ( "For the Love of Money" #3Soul/#9 Pop), pollution ("The Air That I Breathe") black-on-black crime ( "Don't Call Me Brother") and slavery ( on the cinematic title track). 

Originally intended for the Shaft in Africa soundtrack, "Ship Ahoy" uses sound effects of creaking boards, wind, sea and cracking whips to take listeners to the Middle Passage of the Atlantic slave trade. Songwriter Gamble told Mojo Magazine the lyrics are inspired by a visit to West Africa that came several years before Alex Hailey's Roots.

Huff and I both went to Ghana, (to) the slave castle, We stood in the Door Of No Return that led you right to the slave ship and that was it for you, you were done… finished with your family, your children, your wife, just disconnected from life and you we were in chains and they sold you like you was cattle or a donkey or anything.

 Ship Ahoy also offers  plenty of sugar to attract record buyers. The first single, "Put Your Hands Together", has the same catchy, gospel feel as The O'Jays' 1972 #1 hit" Love Train". That song would peak at #2 in the Hot Soul charts and #10 on the Hot 100. 

     Then came "For the Love of Money" with its catchy bass intro and studio-engineered backwards spliced vocals. Thanks to Donald Trump, most people think the song glorifies wealth. It's actually a warning about that "mean mean green", quoting a Bible verse that reads "For the love of money is the root of all evil".

   "Now That We Found Love" became a  1978 European hit for the reggae band Third World. 

   Ship Ahoy is one of the indispensable albums of 1973. 

40 Year Itch: Blades Are Long, Clenched Tight

[Purchase]

Give it up for Canton, Ohio --home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and birthplace of Boz Scaggs, Macy Gray and The O'Jays, one of the most popular black vocal groups of the 70's thanks , in large part , to their association with the production and songwriting talents of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff.

Until they met Gamble and Huff in the late 60's, The O'Jays--made up of Eddie Levert, Walter Williams and Bobby Massey-- were on their way to giving it all up. But the combination of The O'Jays's harmonies and Gamble and Huff's social commentary and production skills led to eight #1 R-and-B singles from 1972 to 1978, including two huge hits from the first album on Philadelphia International, Backstabbers (released in August of 1972)

The title cut, which digs into the same barrel of paranoia as The Undisputed Truth's 1971 Top 5 hit "Smiling Faces Sometimes" ( and even quotes the song in the fade out), was the first big hit, peaking at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Among the lyrics:

 Somebody's out to get your lady

A few of your buddies they sure look shady 

Blades are long, clenched tight in their fist

Aimin' straight at your back

And I don't think they'll miss 

Robert Christgau called "Back Stabbers" the best song of the year, writing "A smooth, hard-rocking concoction, it mixes dozens of elements--Latin rhythms and faintly jazzy singing, mellifluous back-up and harsh lead, even strings and brass--into what can only be called the rock and roll of the seventies. The most musically compelling version of the smiling faces phase of an old black-music theme: Trust your brother, but not too damn much." 

The second single was "992 Arguments". 

The third was "Love Train" which hit #1  on March 24, 1973 displacing Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly With His Song".

Backstabbers is probably the best of the O'Jays's albums ( though there's a strong argument for the follow-up Ship Ahoy, featuring "For The Love of Money"). 

When Blues And Soul Magazine  put together their Top 10 of 1972 Backstabbers came in Number 8, but look at the company The O'Jays kept: 

 Favourite Albums Of 1972 Blues and Soul Magazine

 1. The Stylistics 

 2. Superfly (soundtrack) – Curtis Mayfield 

 3. Best Of – Otis Redding 

 4. All Directions – The Temptations 

 5. Still Bill – Bill Withers 

 6. A Lonely Man – The Chi-Lites 

 7. Understanding – Bobby Womack 

 8. Back Stabbers – The O’Jays 

 9. I’m Still In Love With You – Al Green 

 10. Be Altitude – The Staple Singers

(Albums in Yellow have already been covered this year on 1001Songs)

 Our deep cut is another piercing social commentary Gamble,Huff and Whitehead number called "Shifty, Shady, Jealous Kind of People". 

Sure it's  "Back Stabbers Part 2" but it's also bad ass.