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I’ve been writing about jazz and blues for nearly 30 years, but when this 3 CD box of 70s soul landed on my desk, everything just stopped.
From the mod graphics of the box to the very cool photo of Ali Muhammad and Marvin Gaye engaged in apparently profound conversation found in the wonderful enclosed booklet, this is all about capturing the mood of the era. Sure the 70s was the disco era, but it was much more than a one-horse decade. In the black community there was a steady stream of great soul and R&B that ignored the trend and set its own agenda. This was all about dancing, but less about the big sparkling multi-mirrored globe of John Travolta. Having been a DJ in a Detroit club that catered to a mix of black and white, male and female, young and old and a wide spectrum of social and economic backgrounds, this stuff is in my core. I can still get completely blown away by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, with Teddy Pendergrass on lead vocals, ripping into “The Love I Lost,” or the O’Jays doing it to “Love Train” or “For the Love of Money.” If you were there, Marvin Gaye (“Got To Give It Up”), the Temptation (“Ball of Confusion”) and Stevie Wonder (“Signed Sealed Delivered”) would have been as exciting as Donna Summer (“Bad Girls”), LTD (Back In Love Again”) and Chic (“Good Times”) would become. The Emotions’ “Best of My Love” is one of the baddest dance floor tunes of all time, and I defy you to sit still for Natalie Cole’s “This Will Be.” I’m not crazy about every one of the 60 tunes here, but at least 50 of them are amazing: Curtis Mayfield (“Superfly,” “Freddy’s Dead”), Rufus (“Tell Me Something Good”), JB (“Get Up I Feel Like Being a Sex Machine“), A Taste of Honey (“Boogie Oogie Oogie”), The Jackson 5 (“The Love You Save”), EW&F ( “Shining Star” and “Boogie Wonderland”), LaBelle (“Lady Marmalade”), The Isley Bros (“That Lady” with that smoking Ernie Isley guitar), Aretha (“Rock Steady”), Al Green (“I’m Still In Love With You”), The Staple Singers (“I’ll Take You There”) … This is, you’ll pardon the cliché, the soundtrack of an era. If you were there, this will remind you. If you wonder what was so cool about it, this will explain. Cool stuff.
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