Lamont Dozier - Peddlin' Music On The Side

Lamont Dozier was one of the giant song writers of black music at the end of the last century. His solo albums are decent and he has a very good voice.

On this album, he's backed by The Crusaders and other jazz-funk luminaries, and Hugh Masekela helps out with production on Going Back To My Roots. You'd be tempted to think that this was a song about Pan-Africanism, influenced by Fela and Alex Haley's Roots (it being 1977 and all), but Dozier apparently swore down that it was about going back to visit Detroit after he'd moved to Los Angeles.

When Odyssey had their hit with the song, I remember thinking how funny it sounded to be 'zippin' up my boots'. A mental image quickly forms of exactly the style of boot he's talking about, because the only blokes' boots that had zips at the time were those thick-soled Chelsea boots much loved by frilly-shirted blue comedians, Sinn Fein spokesmen, or - as it happens - my dad. Nowadays, the zip seems to be the primary male boot fastening, even if the boot has laces as well (I'm thinking of the black cop-boot or the sand coloured tradie boot here.) Having never owned a zip-up boot of any kind, I have no idea how that all works.

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