Thursday 28 February 2008

June Pointer - Baby Sister

Now here's an album that had always intrigued me until I recently first got to hear it. It was issued in 1983 between the Pointer Sisters' So Excited album and their mega blockbuster Break Out. Another Richard Perry production, I was wondering if it was in the fabulous synth overload style of the latter or whether it was in the more traditional pop style of the former. It's probably more reminiscent of So Excited. The sisters' own cowrite New Love, True Love recalls something of the energy of previous numbers they'd penned such as I'm So Excited and We're Gonna Make It. There's a whole lot of the Prince sound going on on I Will Understand following on from Sisters' carbon copy cover of I Feel For You from So Excited. There's also an interesting parallel to draw with sister Bonnie's late-70s solo albums in the Motown influence. Norman Whitfield cowrote and coproduced the opening track Ready For Some Action, where you can hear a Papa Was A Rollin' Stone thing going on, and there are also covers of I'm Ready For Love (Holland-Dozier-Holland/Martha and the Vandellas) and Don't Mess With Bill (Smokey Robinson/The Marvellettes; presumably a jokey reference to June's oft-thanked husband William Whitmore).

1. I'm Ready For Love
2. I Will Understand
3. To You
4. New Love, True Love
5. I'm Ready For Love
6. You Can Do It
7. Always
8. My Blues Have Gone Away
9. Don't Mess With Bill

READY?

Saturday 23 February 2008

Barry White - I Love To Sing The Songs I Sing

One of my favourite tracks from Barry White's late-70s work is the title track to his 1979 album I Love To Sing The Songs I Sing. It's a poppy number with a simple lyric ("I love to sing the songs I sing/And I sing the songs I love to sing!") and cooing back-ups presumably courtesy of the ladies of Love Unlimited. I read somewhere that much like Donna Summer's Back In Love Again from her I Remember Yesterday set, this is Barry's homage to the 60s sound of Motown. My only criticism of the track was that at just short of three minutes, it's over way too soon! So just imagine my disco delight when I found that it had been issued on a promo 12" in an extended mix!

I Love To Sing The Songs I Sing (6:12)

Tuesday 12 February 2008

Chaka Khan - Naughty


And here's Chaka's follow-up effort from 1980. Opener 'Clouds' sees Chaka pulling off another Ashford and Simpson disco stormer. Maybe it falls slightly short of the peaks scaled by 'I'm Every Woman', but hey...that's a hard act to follow. I first heard it as the EPIC Clivilles & Cole remix on 'Life Is A Dance'...what a track. Elsewhere Chaka does her own takes on 'Move Me No Mountain' as previously recorded by Love Unlimited and the Gregg Diamond Bionic Boogie groover (with one Luther Vandross on vocal duties) 'Hot Butterfly', here retitled 'Papillon'.

1. Clouds
2. Get Ready, Get Set
3. Move Me No Mountain
4. Nothing's Gonna Take You Away
5. So Naughty
6. Too Much Love
7. All Night's All Right
8. What You Did
9. Papillon (aka Hot Butterfly)
10. Our Love's In Danger

It's gonna RAIN

Chaka Khan - Chaka


We've been well overdue a bit of Chaka Khan, as promised ages ago. Here's Chaka's debut solo album from 1978 after five years of working with funk group Rufus. Everyone knows the Ashford and Simpson-penned disco stormer 'I'm Every Woman' and rightly so...it just doesn't get much better. Shame it's better known as Whitney Houston's vastly inferior cover version. The other dance hit here is 'Life Is A Dance' which pales in comparison somewhat but was given a new lease of life on the 1989 remix compilation that borrowed its title. 'Roll Me Through The Rushes' is a lovely ballad and I've got a soft spot for the impenetrable 'The Message In The Middle Of The Bottom'!

1. I'm Every Woman
2. Love Has Fallen On Me
3. Roll Me Through The Rushes
4. Sleep On It
5. Life Is A Dance
6. We Got The Love
7. Some Love
8. A Woman In A Man's World
9. The Message In The Middle Of The Bottom
10. I Was Made To Love Him

It's all in ME