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I was very sorry to hear about the passing of Rudolph Isley. He was one third of the original Isleys trio with his brothers O’Kelly and Ronnie. In 1976, their expanded group released their 14th studio album Harvest For The World. The title track was a timely call for peace. RIP Rudy. Have a great week all.
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The opening track on Love Unlimited’s 1976 long player He’s All I’ve Got is disco bliss. Enjoy ‘I Did It For Love’ and have a good weekend.
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A midweek rocker to cut through the fog following a night of football celebrations. The seductive ‘Cowboy Song’ features on Thin Lizzy’s 1976 album Jailbreak. Bassist and singer-songwriter Phil Lynott did like to throw in some great soloing.
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I’ve always had a soft spot for the soft rock of Lou Reed’s album Coney Island Baby. ‘Crazy Feeling’, ‘A Gift’ and the title track make for no shortage of catchy hooks and lyrics. Today, I think that ‘Charley’s Girl’ needs a special mention for what Pitchfork called out as a mash-up of the ‘Sweet Jane’ guitar and the ‘Walk On The Wild Side‘ doo-doo-doo. I say hell yeah, why not?
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Far away from Zambia, ‘Hanging on the Telephone’ had been written by Jack Lee for his West Coast power pop group, the Nerves. The song appeared as the lead-off track on their eponymous 1976 EP. Despite being a commercial failure and the short-lived band’s only release, the song was given a new lease of life when Blondie discovered it on a mix tape they’d been given by their own number-1 fan, The Gun Club’s Jeffrey Lee Pierce. Blondie included a cover on their 1978 album, Parallel Lines.
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Good morning from sunny Seaton. In 1975/76, disco was taking hold. December 1975 was an inconspicuously important month in its making; Double Exposure had started recording their debut album Ten Percent, which would become one of Salsoul Record’s biggest selling albums to date. The title-track was chosen as the first single to be released from the Philly quartet’s debut album. Before its release, Walter Gibbons was given the song to remix. This was because the fledgling label had decided to put it out as the first commercial 12″ single ever released. Favoured by DJs due to its longer format and dance-floor friendly options, the 12″ debut single was successfully released in May 1976, complete with Walter Gibbons remix.
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Bootsy Collins’s funk credentials were unquestionable – a former member of James Brown’s J.B.’s, he had become an integral figure in the Parliament-Funkadelic collectives. Providing the bass for the majority of George Clinton’s trademark P-Funk, Bootsy had become a star in his own right. Albeit with Clinton’s production help, Bootsy’s Rubber Band spun off the collective and produced the album Stretchin’ Out in Bootsy’s Rubber Band in 1975. In 2016, Childish Gambino’s produced the album Awaken, My Love! as an homage to P-Funk. He selected the Rubber Band’s song ‘I’d Rather Be With You’ as the track that he would sample for the album’s standout single ‘Redbone‘.
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Better late than never – and this song needs no introduction. Have a great weekend.
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It’s the morning after another UK election. The country has been divided for too long. We need some ‘Love and affection’ and no better place to start than Joan Armatrading. The song features on her career-defining, eponymous, third album. You took me dancin’, Joan. Have a great weekend everyone else.
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It may not be cool, but it’s Boz Scaggs. Having first made his mark as a member of the Steve Miller Band playing guitar plus writing and singing a few songs on the band’s first two albums, Boz set out on his own path. He’s probably best known for the slick R&B hit ‘Lowdown’ from his breakthrough 1976 album Silk Degrees. Blue-eyed soul.
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As with their peers Big Star, Flamin’ Groovies’ mix of bluesy rock and power pop made them a go-to influence for bands that followed. Part of their cult appeal is their ability to create a timeless sound. If I couldn’t see their onstage clobber, I would place ‘Shake Some Action’ in the 1980s.
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I missed a post yesterday. Sorry. It’s the heat of the Easter break that’s been the distraction. The Samuel family are on a road trip to the coast with the rest of London. So today, I post a sound made for a sunny day on the tarmac. Silver were formed in late 1975 by John Batdorf. They were short-lived, but were able to release their eponymous album a year later and it featured the guilty pleasure ‘Wham Bam (Shang-A-Lang)’. Have a great weekend.
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‘Love in C Minor’ has been sampled numerous times over the years by all sorts, including The Avalanches and Neon Indian. But it’s another track that I’ve shown some blog love that revels in its orchestral string arrangement – Lifeforce’s ‘Dancin’ In The Key Of Love‘. Inspirational dancefloor sounds from Cerrone.
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To some, Wood, Brass & Steel’s ‘Funkanova’ is an archetypal jazz funk track. To others, it’s simply a disco instrumental. To the clubbers that continued to dance to its tune many years after the band disappeared, it is verging on proto deep house. In 19767, the band recorded one album, self-titled its release on the Turbo label, and then promptly broke up. Have a good weekend.
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As I start to think about the soundtrack to summer, I bring you the lounging groove of Delegation. Ricky Bailey, Ray Patterson, Len Coley were doing their thing at the tail end of the 1970s. They never surpassed the magic of ‘Oh Honey’, which deftly cutting a path between the dominant sounds of Earth Wind & Fire and Fleetwood Mac. On YouTube, I feature Majestic Casuals’s suitably named Poolside Edit. Have a great weekend.
Samuelsounds 