SOUL COLLECTOR
Columbus, Ohio’s Prix label was the brainchild of Mississippi-born
Air Force Pilot Clem Price and West Virginian out-of-work attorney George Beter. It never managed a hit in its short lifespan (1969-1973) but like its neighbour Capsule, it was nevertheless bursting with talent and steadfast belief as borne out on the compilation Eccentric Soul:the Prix Label (★★★★ Numero Group), which is getting a repress this month. It provides a snapshot of the label with highpoints including Marion Black’s haunting 1972 jazz blues Listen Black Brother – a James Baldwin-esque social comment – and The Royal Esquires’ Our Love Used To Be, a piece of folk soul like Terry Callier was creating at Prestige. Eddie Ray and the
OFS Unlimited, meanwhile, look to the more obvious influence of Stax, the former’s tumultuous Wait A Minute, built around a similar groove to Eddie Floyd’s Things Get Better.
SMOKEY ROBINSON & THE MIRACLES’ What Love Has Joined Together/a Pocket Full of Miracles/ One Dozen Roses/flying High Together (★★★★ Soulmusic Records) spotlights the group’s last four albums with Smokey at the helm and while little celebrated, all are worthy additions to the Motown canon. 1970’s What Love Has Joined Together is short at just six tracks and is also the first to consist solely of covers including the title track, which penned by Smokey et al was first recorded by Mary Wells in 1963 plus affectionate renditions of The Beatles’ And I Love Her, Stevie Wonder’s My Cherie Amour and Bacharach and David’s This Guy’s In Love With Her. The same year’s A Pocket Full Of Miracles veers into psychedelia with their rendition of The Temptations’
Get Ready borrowing from Cream’s Sunshine Of Your Love to great effect. 1971’s One Dozen Roses includes the sublime I Don’t Blame You At All and The Tears Of A Clown and 1972’s Flying High Together, the last Miracles album to feature Smokey before
Billy Griffin replaced him, yielded the group’s last US Top 40 hit with We’ve Gone Too Far to End It Now, which also made the R&B Top 10.
Martha Wash and Izora Rhodes Armstead backed Sylvester then as the duo TWO TONS O’FUN made two albums, their 1980 self-titled first
(★★★★ Southbound) – receiving its first re-press on vinyl since its original issue here – and the same year’s follow-up Backatcha. Working with Sylvester’s producer Harvey Fuqua of Moonglows/motown fame, the pair mixed church honed raw powerhouse vocals with hi-energy and a pop sensibility captured best on singles Earth Can Be Just Like Heaven, I Got The Feeling and Just Us. Later they became the Weather Girls hitting with 1982’s It’s Raining Men and Wash voiced hits for Black Box in the 90s although was uncredited.
Over an irresistible glitter ball groove with soaring strings and chicken scratch guitar, Tina Charles sings sweetly: “Oh I love to love, but my baby just loves to dance, he wants to dance, he loves to dance, he’s got to dance.” The song, I Love To Love (But My Baby Loves To Dance), of course, was written by Jack Robinson and James Bolden and produced by disco pioneer Biddu. Issued in 1976 on CBS, it took the charts by storm, hitting the UK No 1 and should have made her the UK disco pop queen. It wasn’t to be but TINA CHARLES’ The CBS Years 1975-1980 (★★★★
Cherry Red), which collects her four albums for the label (1976’s I Love To Love; the same year’s Dance
Little Lady; 1977’s Heart’n’soul and 1980’s Just One Smile), is evidence she’s ripe for rediscovery.
THE WHISPERS’ One For
The Money/open Up Your Love/ Headlights (★★★ Robinsongs) collates the group’s 1976, ’77 and ’78 releases over two CDS. The first two named were originally issued on US promoter and Whispers’ manager
Dick Griffey’s Soul Train label, which he co-founded with the TV show of the same name’s creator and host Don Cornelius. One For The Money, produced by Norman Harris at Sigma Sound, is full of signature Philly creamy sounds: see the title track which returned them to the US R&B Top 10 for the first time since 1970’s Seems Like I Gotta Do Wrong and album tracks Put Me In The News and Sounds Like A Love Song.
Recorded in Wally Heider Recording Studio and the Sound Factory in Los Angeles and selfproduced with Griffey and Cornelius, Open Up Your Love expanded horizons with the Cornelius-scribed jazzy You Never Miss Your Water (’Til Your Well Runs Dry) while soon to be Soul Train label staff writers Wayne Bell and Malcolm Anthony penned the title track and I Fell In Love Last Night (At The Disco) respectively. It was their cover of Bread’s Make It With You, though, that gave them another Top 10 R&B hit.
In 1978, Griffey and Cornelius parted company. The latter focused on his role as writer, producer and host of TV show Soul Train while Griffey rebranded the Soul Train label as Solar (Sound Of Los Angeles Records). Headlights, the first of 11 albums The Whispers released on Solar, was recorded at Westlake Audio, Los Angeles and spanned the disco funk groove of Griffey’s title track to the quiet storm splendour of (Olivia) Lost And Turned Out. It also includes The Planets Of Life, a reworking of a song from their 1969 Soul Clock debut album, Whispers.