Anita Baker - The Songstress

Anita Baker was working as a secretary and singing in the group Chapter 8, when Beverly Glen, an independent soul label put out this, her solo debut in 1983.

To say it had high production values was an understatement. She had a supporting cast of top-notch producers, players and singers. She even got a gate-fold sleeve. No expense was spared.

How could an indie label do this? Crack, that’s how. The album was financed by “Freeway” Rick Ross, multi-million dollar dealer of cocaine and apparent fan of velvety jazz-soul vocals.

Otis Smith, who owned the label, was a bit of a spiv. He had promised Bobby Womack he could get a deal for him with Motown, but instead signed him to Beverley Glen, giving world wide distribution to Motown, but keeping the US rights to himself. The Poet & Poet 2 sold millions. Bobby never saw a dime - but it cost him a fortune to get out of his contract.

Anita Baker never got paid for this album and spent thousands (and a couple of years) trying to get out of her contract, so she could sign for Elektra.

By, 1985 even his law firm had sued him to get paid for their services.

I bet “Freeway” Rick Ross never had to send a solicitor's letter.

Once signed to Elektra, Baker became the epoch-defining singer of smooth Mum-soul.

I bought it in the Virgin Megastore in Piccadilly Circus on import.

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#BeverlyGlen

C.L. Blast - C.L. Blast

They used to call this type of stuff modern independent soul or deep soul. Nowadays, it seems to be just southern soul. Whatever you call the bluesy-gospel-soul out of the south, issued on indie labels, largely for the consumption of a broadly local black audience, produced in studios where they never asked “is that too much reverb, do you think?” I’m all for it.

C.L. Blast was from (the other) Birmingham. He wore his new shirt for the cover photo.

I bought this on import when it came out in 1984, on the strength of Lay Another Log On The Fire, as bluesy a soul tune can get before it becomes blues. The Muscle Shoals Sound sound is in full effect. It’s perfect.

The final track on the album is called Let Me Entertain You. Nowhere is it written that this was the inspiration for a more famous song of the same name, but I wouldn’t mind betting it was.

Also, TIL that 'Jody' is US military slang for someone who fucks your wife whilst you're away on active service. After all these years, I finally understand this song properly.

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#C.L.Blast
#Vinyl
#Soul

Johnny "Guitar" Watson - And The Family Clone

Johnny “Guitar” Watson was another one of those eccentric, genre-bending characters, who carried on churning out albums, and which I kept on buying. I’ve got a few JGW LPs.

This one, from 1981, sees Watson playing all the instruments (apart from the drums on one track) and doing all the vocals himself. It's got his mix of soul, blues, disco, funk and jazz, typical for this period of his work. He was fond of a vocoder too.

This was Watson’s last album on the DJM imprint, the label owned by Dick James, who had made his dough owning owning the Beatles publishing and signing Reg Dwight.

I saw Watson live once, at the Town & Country Club in Kentish Town, which the internet tells me was the 27th June 1987. I remember having a bit of a shit night, but that was down to who I was with, I think. A waste. Impressive, though, that he could still fill the T&C in 1987, despite having largely faded into obscurity by then. Also, probably the wrong venue for him at that time.

This is a really good album.

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#AndTheFamilyClone

Andy Hamilton & the Blue Notes - Silvershine

Andy Hamilton left Jamaica to come to Britain as part of the Windrush generation, bringing with him his sweet tenor style: think Lester Young with a Caribbean flavour.

The thing that is universally repeated about Hamilton is that he wrote the tune Silvershine for Errol Flynn. However, I think it's much more interesting that he recalled the tune whilst lying in a diabetic coma in the 1980s. But that's just me.

Hamilton played every Monday night upstairs at The Bear in Bearwood, accompanied by a mix of old-spars and young guns coming up under his mentorship. We used to go occasionally, and I was introduced to him once by our housemate, who studied under him. He was clearly a very important man; extremely charismatic and super cool.

Honestly, if he had moved to the US, or even London, rather than Brum, he would be much better known.

It seems unbelievable to me now, that we didn't jump on the number 11 bus and go to see him every week. What were we thinking?

This album, released in 1991, features some big names from British jazz from that time: Andy Sheppard and Steve Williamson, for instance. Graeme, his trumpet-playing son, features, as does Jean Toussaint, who features on one track, as does a pre-Stars Mick Hucknall ,who, despite my reservations, does a decent job. Yep, I said it.

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#Birmingham
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#Bearwood

Sylvester - You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)

I remember being in the teens' disco at Pontin's in Camber Sands in the summer of 1977. Disco was huge. We were dancing to this and my mate, Ricky, turns to me with a knowing look and says, "You know that Sylvester's a [insert epithet for gay man], don't ya."

In hindsight, this is interesting for a couple of reasons: firstly, that the signifiers of queerness were lost on people. Really? That man wearing make-up and a dress and singing in a falsetto vocal is not heterosexual? Mind blown. Even years later, I remember older relatives refusing to countenance that Danny LaRue might be gay.

Secondly, at the time, disco was all the rage, due in large part to the film Saturday Night Fever. Whilst I'm quite the fan of the film, it completely elbows out gay culture from the art form, and replaces it with a preening-peacock form of toxic masculinity.

Why am I going on about this? I don't know really, other than I heard I Feel Love in the supermarket this morning and it got me thinking how much times have changed. My kids' generation are really clued-in about sexuality and homophobia is quite unusual and a bit...ick. I think this is one of the major cultural shifts in my lifetime.

I played this (twice) whilst I was putting away the shopping. I was surprised how acoustic and roomy the drum sound is. What a fucking tune though.

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#Sylvester
#Disco

Alive! - City Life

You know, playing this today reminded me of how hard it was to hear tunes you loved back in the old days. To hear this tune, for instance, I had to go out to hear a DJ play it, or listen to a pirate radio show that might play it. If I knew what it was called, I could go to one of a few specialist record shops who might have it or if I didn’t know the name, I could hum it to them - either way, I’d pay top dollar. It’s so easy now. But not necessarily better.

This is one of those records I would have loved to have had in the old days. I never knew what it was called until I looked it up on the internet and bought a copy a few years back.

It almost goes without saying that I bought this album for Skindo Le Le, a tune (TUNE!) which immediately takes me right back to the jazz rooms of the early eighties. That intro, that build, that climax! It still gives me a visceral response. And, honestly, this is my preferred version over Viva Brasil’s original.

And God, how we loved an alto sax in the 80s.

It was a staple of West Coast and Japanese jazz. Of course, this album, out of the San Francisco Bay area, is thick with it. And scat.

I never realised until today that Alive! were an all-woman group.

The rest of the album’s a bit meh. Very meh, in fact.

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#Jazz
#Music
#Alive!
#CityLife
#SkindoLeLe
#Scat

Rufus and Chaka Khan Live - Stompin' At The Savoy

Considering that, for much of their career, they couldn’t stand being in the same room, it’s odd that, in 1982, only a year after their last flop of an album, and whilst Chaka Khan’s solo career is flying, they got together to record some live shows, to be recorded for a live in concert film. Tony & Toni from Peep Show vibes.

The film was shelved by Warner Bros. (until its eventual release on home video), but the audio recordings formed three sides of this album, the fourth being studio stuff.

They smash through their big hits, plus one of Chaka’s solo tunes. This version of Bobby Womack’s Stop On By is one of my favourite pieces of music ever. I can still remember hearing it being played on Robbie Vincent’s Saturday afternoon Radio London show.

The studio side has Ain’t Nobody on it, and it became the biggest hit of any of their careers.

Funny old business.

I picked up this US pressing (cut-out) at Victor Harbor market one Sunday.

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#Stompin’AtTheSavoy
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#Soul

John Spithead

2025-08-01 02:19:19

You live in a quandry

Rufus - Camouflage

This was Rufus’ final album for MCA. The band and Chaka Khan reunited to knock this one out to meet their contractual obligations to the label. After this, Khan was free to pursue her solo career, which she did, instead of promoting the album. She’d fallen out with the rest of the band (again) and had recorded separately from them (again). The album disappeared without a trace.

Having said all that, it should be shit, but it’s actually OK.

It falls just at the tipping point between disco and post-disco/boogie and most of the up-tempo tunes reflect that.

Suffice to say, none of their big hits are on this album.

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#RufuswithChakaKhan
#Music
#Soul

Swamp Dogg - Cuffed, Collared & Tagged

I have a few Swamp Dogg records. I reckon I got into him in the late eighties by picking up the Total Destruction To Your Mind LP secondhand because I liked the bonkers sleeve and I was hooked from there.

There’s a lot to like about Swamp Dogg: his barely-contained anger at politics, racism, the music business, and anyone else whom he believes has wronged him; he wears his heart on his sleeve; he is an unbridled eccentric, with total faith in his own genius.

To be fair, he is a prolific songwriter of some aplomb. When you hear one of his songs sung by someone else, you know it. On balance, he’s also made some shite.

This was his third album, released in 1972. It contains covers of John Prine’s Vietnam War veteran’s lament, Sam Stone,The Beatles’ Lady Madonna and Joe South’s Don’t It Make You Wanta Go Home. Musically, it falls in between the southern soul and country rock stools. It has a cast of thousands playing on this album (including the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, for Christ’s sake), showing that someone (still) saw some commercial value in all this and was willing to chuck dollars at him.

This is a US promo, which – according the the price written in marker pen on the front, had found itself in a 50c bin. I must’ve bought this off Discogs.

In an interesting indication of how times have changed since 1972, the ‘suggested cuts for air play’ sticker on the front lists Your Last Dirty Trick, a song where the protagonist commits intimate partner murder, going into more detail than is probably necessary, and doesn’t feel at all bad about it because, even though he’s now doing porridge, at least he’s no longer concerned whether the victim will late home. Interesting that you can go from railing against violence committed against soldiers of an invading army (albeit one disproportionately made up of black and working class men) and reveling in the violence committed against women in six short songs. It was a different age.

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#Soul
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Curved Air - Second Album

I picked this up in a charity shop in Romford (where I grew up) in the eighties. I was pleased to find it, because I liked Back Street Luv a lot, because my mate’s dad had the single and we used to listen to it.

I didn’t realise until just now that Sonja Kristina, Curved Air's singer, came from Brentwood, which is basically next door to Romford (and is a bit posher!)

Kristina has a great prog voice, kind of white and folky, verging on the operatic. She gives off really bored customer-facing role vibes, but gets away with this by being smoking hot.

The band’s two main characters, Darryl Way and Francis Monkman were experiencing musical differences at the time, which led them to split the sides of the album between them, a split which continued to widen as time went on.

For what it’s worth, I think Way’s side of the album is better.

Back Street Luv is a fucking masterpiece. Florian Pilkington-Miksa’s drumming is so good, the keyboards are throbbing, the guitar has lots of fancy little licks. It’s a perfect backdrop to Kristina’s voice.

Fun fact: Stewart Copeland (Klark Kent, The Police) cut his teeth in a later version of the band. I think you can hear the influence in his later work. He was also married to Sonja Kristina for many years.

The UK version has the die-cut sleeve of die-cut sleeves. It has a kind of cover-booklet-fold out thing going on. Total prog folly, but quite marvelous in its own way. It must have cost them a fortune to make.

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#CurvedAir
#SonjaKristina
#Romford
#Brentwood
#StewartCopeland
#ProgRock
#SecondAlbum
#Music

Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & the London Symphony Orchestra – Promises

Another album that came out in covid times. I remember buying this on pre-release and waiting absolutely ages for it to come out. In my head, it’s a piece of work as completely associated with that time as Tiger King or Love Island. I have really no idea why I bought it, other than I think there was a fair amount of buzz about it. And, you know, Pharoah Sanders. Other people I know own this too, and I see it in shops a lot, so it must’ve sold heaps. Turns out it was Sanders’ final album.

I haven’t played it much, because it’s mostly just a bit too ambient for me. I’m not one to frequent yoga studios, or, I dunno, independent garden centre cafes, but if they were playing this it wouldn’t be so out of place, and would make me more likely to frequent yoga studios or independent garden centre cafes. Also, the main refrain makes me think of Summer (The First Time) and I get that stuck in my head every fucking time. Honestly, I have had to make a concerted effort to banish Bobby Fucking Goldsboro from my head whilst playing this today, and still found myself unconsciously singing it along with it.

The string arrangement reminds me of Paddy McAloon’s I Trawl The Megahertz in places, which is no bad thing. On the second side, the strings come to the fore and this really is the highlight for me. Amazing.

180g vinyl, die-cut fancy sleeve, US edition...not really helping the push towards net zero here.

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#PharoahSanders
#LondonSymphonyOrchestra
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#Promises
#Lockdown
#Music
#BobbyGoldsboro

Prince Phillip Mitchell - Top Of The Line

Of all the Prince Phillips who have been around during my lifetime, Prince Phillip Mitchell is my favourite. He really should be better known.

He wrote a couple of biggies: Starting All Over Again for Mel & Tim (one of my favourite Stax tunes), It Hurts So Good for Millie Jackson (see also Skinhead Reggae classic of my childhood years, Hurt So Good by Susan Cadogan, bearing the sticky ganja fingerprints of Lee Scratch Perry), mixed in all the right circles (Hi Records, Muscle Shoals), has produced people like Archie Bell & the Drells and has a decent set of vocal chords, with a stylistic nod towards Marvin Gaye at times.

I picked this US promo up a few years back when I was buying lots and lots of soul, more than I could ever do justice to by playing, really. It’s remained largely unplayed. However, this morning, old mate Phil's luck changed and he was the winner of a record shelf lucky dip.

The cover is a proper soul treat. The front cover is a photograph taken on a verandah against a dusk sky background and has Phil in the foreground, clad in fur coat with popped collar over cream two button box jacket with popped collar, over-accessorised - I would argue - with THREE necklaces, and a pair of Deirdre Barlow glasses with clear frames with white trim – oof!

Behind him are five be-suited men, one of whom is holding the lead of a Great Dane (dead now!). The men are all wearing sunglasses, despite the failing light, to show, I think, that they mean business and don’t need clear night vision to carry that business out.

The rear of the sleeve shows Phil with the dog alongside him. Phil looks happy, so maybe all the blokes on the front cover were engaged in the business of returning his missing dog, or were an elite dog-walking squad with no fear of trip-hazards.

Anyway, as Phil is now shown in full-length, we can see revealed that his cream box jacket is matched with a pair of light brown (matching the jacket’s buttons, which is a nice touch) slacks (perhaps even Farahs), and cream semi-pointed shoes. Class.

Anyway, it’s a classy album. The real killer cut, if you like, is I’m So Happy, a super slice of danceable modern soul and the reason I bought the album. But there’s quality throughout this album: recorded at Muscle Shoals, and featuring The Jones Girls, whose swooping backing vocals pervade and elevate the album.

The final track, Let's Get Wet, contains both sex noises and an open drum break of epic proportions.

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#TopOfTheLine
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#1979
#FarahSlacks
#DeirdreBarlow
#TheJonesGirls
#MuscleShoals

Steve Arrington - Dancin' In The Key Of Life

Steve Arrington was a legend where I grew up. His period with Slave was widely considered to be their best work, and Slave were, like, deep-cut superheroes of the soul/funk scene. Arrington has a voice like no-one else. And whilst his previous two Hall Of Fame albums had been perhaps a bit left-field for most, the excitement around the arrival of this album, in 1985, was palpable.

The album’s three bangers, Feel So Real, Dancin’ In The Key Of Life and Turn Up The Love sounded MASSIVE on a club soundsystem. In fact they sound MASSIVE in my kitchen this morning.

Feel So Real has a trumpet solo by Freddie Hubbard, no less, and Paulinho Da Costa lays a patina of beautiful tippy-tappy percussion across the whole album.

Lyrics frequently verge into the sneaky gospel and are generally uplifting, although Willie Mae is the bleak story of the death of a child.

On the 12th July 1985, Steve Arrington played the Hammersmith Odeon (thanks again RaysGigs). I was there. I was disappointed. He played the album, jammed with the band for a bit then fucked off home. I had a letter published in Blues & Soul magazine whingeing about it, which I feel a bit embarrassed about now. But this was like, I dunno, Elvis coming over and playing just his Moody Blue album (yeah, I know he died soon after it was released, but you get my point.)

I’m very glad to see Arrington has experienced something of a revival in recent years, with Thundercat, particularly, featuring him. His voice is still incredible.

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#Vinyl
#SteveArrington
#DancinInTheKeyOfLife

Miles Davis - Tutu

This arrived yesterday.

It’s the 2024 fancy-bollocks re-issue on 180-Gram vinyl, cut from the original masters by Kevin Gray at Cohearant Audio, an Optimal pressing, limited edition, numbered...good for what ails ya.

It would be tempting to suggest that none of that stuff actually makes that much difference, but it does. It really does. It sounds magnificent.

Also, the artwork on this album is stunning: monochrome portraits of Davis, by veteran Vogue photographer, Irving Penn. The actual cover material is really high quality as well, which makes the artwork really stand out.

This is a polarising album. You’ll either love or hate its Marcus Miller production, which at times sounds like an explosion in a vintage synth warehouse. I fucking love it. And he puts that muted trumpet right up front.

Davis covers Scritti Politti’s Perfect Way, which I’d swear I’d never heard before I played it on YouTube at work the other day.

And the title track reminds me of Gil Scott-Heron’s Angel Dust.

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#Viinyl
#MilesDavis
#Tutu
#MarcusMiller

Miles Davis - The Man With The Horn

This arrived in the post this morning. A beautiful quality Japanese pressing to boot, albeit sans obi strip.

I really cannot fathom what is going on with the sleeve art work.

I’ve tried listen to this with my 1981 ears on, as well as my 2025 ears.

Alright, worst first:

To be honest it’s no surprise that the album's two low-points were the ones where Randy Hall was involved.

In the context of 1981, the dancey instrumental Shout sounds in-keeping with the crossover output of other horn players around that time, Tom Browne, Donald Byrd, or Herb Alpert, for instance. Of course we kind of expect more of Davis.

The cringe-inducing ballad, which is the title track is a contender for the worst ever Miles Davis tune. Hall's lyrics are just awful:

Smooth, suave, debonair,
Describes a man so rare.

The good bits:

Mike Stern’s guitar solo on Fat Time is ridiculously good.

Marcus Miller’s bass playing is wonderfully understated.

The distorted guitar sound on Back Seat Betty is delightfully odd.

The stand out track by a country mile is Aïda, not least because of Al Foster’s spectacular drumming.

Just waiting for a copy of Tutu to arrive now.

#NowPlaying
#Vinyl
#music
#Jazz
#MilesDavis
#TheManWithTheHorn

John Spithead

2025-06-30 02:03:10

Getting Randy

Randy Hall - I Belong To You

Randy Hall once played with Miles Davis. How do I know this? It’s mentioned first and foremost in everything that has been written about ol’ Randy ever since. Mind you, fair enough – if I’d once collaborated with Miles, I’d have it tattooed on my forehead. And carry a big sign around with me.

I was inspired to drag this one out of the racks of wax by this post, which features Randy’s old band (before he collaborated with Miles Davis). This album comes about 4 years after he collaborated with Miles Davis. It’s produced by Ray Parker Jr, who was schmokin’ hot at the time, what with his Ghostbusters theme and all.

Randy has obviously had his hair done and gone clothes shopping for the cover shoot. Nice to see he made an effort, despite having the bona fides of having worked with Miles Davis.

I remember buying this on US import from JiFS in Chadwell Heath. I reckon it cost seven pounds fifty, just before the price of imports went up to eight quid.

Honestly, musically, I don’t mind it. It’s of an age.

Lyrically, though...fucking hell.

I’ve Been Watching You (Jamie’s Girl) tells the tale of Randy pursuing his best mate’s girlfriend (possibly – but this isn’t mentioned in the lyrics – by telling her that he once collaborated with Miles Davis), before old mate Jamie finds out, offers him outside for fisticuffs, which Randy wins, then gets all gloaty over his double-victory:

Ain't no sense in goin' home, Jamie, I got your girl and gone

A Gentleman is a lesson in non-toxic masculinity which has aged so badly, it could come from the 19th century:

Don’t forget to tip your hat – a gentleman is where it’s at.

Are you listening, Andrew Tate?

Intergenerational relationships are celebrated in a totally modern and non-kink-shaming way on Older Woman, Younger Man:

Its the new thing today, so baby if you’re able, come on and rock my cradle.

With the name Randy Hall sounding like a luxury swingers' club, it's no surprise that things get a bit hot under the collar and the album comes to its sticky climax with I Want To Touch You, essentially a slowjam singalong about finger-banging, which has more sex noises than are required in a song. (Possibly a recording of Randy looking at the sleeve notes of Miles Davis’ The Man With The Horn.)

Oh and in the thanks list on the back cover, the first name after the big G and Randy's fam is ‘Miles’.

I’ve really enjoyed playing this album this morning.

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#Vinyl
#RandyHall
#IBelongToYou
#MilesDavis
#Boogie
#music
#RayParkerJr

Miles Davis - Star People

I went through quite a rigmarole getting hold of a copy of this. I ordered a copy off Discogs, and received a message from the seller saying they won’t be able send it for a few weeks, because they’re away, is that OK? Well, no. Got a refund and ordered another copy from a different seller. This seller contacts me this morning to say they’re out of town and would I like to come and collect it from his wife, who lives about 20 minutes away. Sure. I drive over and pick it up from a closed down shop. Looking past the wife into the store, it looks like a fucking treasure trove. Just as well they didn’t invite me in for a look, because I’d have left a few dollars lighter.

This album is Davis’ last before the big synth sounds and drum machines which prevailed on his eighties work had fully emerged. It's an album where they use the blues as a reference point throughout.

Two guitarists, John Scofield (his debut with Davis) and Mike Stern (formerly of Blood, Sweat & Tears) slug it out over a rhythm section of bass players, Marcus Miller (in his absolute pomp around this time) and Tom Barney (currently the bass player for The Lion King on Broadway, apparently), Mino Cinélu on percussion, and Al Foster (the John Bonham of jazz). Bill Evans is on here, but had a lot of his solos cut apparently (burn!), and Davis plays his horn and Oberheim synthesizer, sometimes at the same time.

There was an old British sketch comedy show, called The Fast Show, which had a regular feature called 'Jazz Club', which was a very accurate parody of jazz. The opening track on this album, Come Get It, is as close as you will get to Desolate Shore.It’s gone straight into my top ten favourite Miles Davis tunes. Niiice.