There is no greater musical achievement than soul. Unless you like polka, in which case, get up and get me a cabbage roll. Jazz swings and rock rolls, but soul is to-the-bone convincing. You can play it on the dance floor and the boudoir, and it works like medicine. From the blues comes the pain and from jazz and rhythm come all the zest. If you have to ask what soul is, you work for a giant cartel and like it.
Sometimes you might have the blues. Life is like that. We find that blues don’t cure the blues, soul does. Light up and dance as Sam Cooke sings “the cokes are in the icebox.”
The cover is the epitome of cool. Marvin, standing pensive in the rain, in a groovy leather jacket, thinking about God, war, mankind, and Womankind and whatnot. He is so good-looking it is movie star time. Marvin Gaye had been a soul star for years, the fair child at Berry Gordy’s Motown (he even married the boss’s sister), that amazing label that dominated the charts. But he got depressed after Tammi Terrell died, and then the Supremes took over his top spot with their unstoppable hit machine. He needed a change. Obie Benson from the Four Tops saw cops beating an antiwar protestor at the People’s Park riot in Berkeley, and it inspired him to react with “What’s Goin’ On.” He took the song to Marvin Gaye, and Marvin reworked it into his own thing. It was a hit and from there Marvin made his opus. The songs form a free-flowing soul symphony. The beat evolved from jam to jam, but the theme is one of love and togetherness. “What’s Goin’ On” and “Inner City Blues” lay down the law. Berry Gordy did not dig it on first hearing. He was confused by the word ecology in “Mercy Mercy Me,” as are all people who don’t believe in global warming. Being a record boss, he was not overly concerned with a movement that was trying to save the natural environment. Gordy thought everything could be solved with a tambourine and background singers.
Now Gordy claims it is the greatest album ever released on Motown, which is a big jump. If there is a soul symphony that catches the love and dread of the late ’60s, it is this record. Race riots, the Vietnam War, heroin use, and the civil war between the generations were blazing all over America. Marvin Gaye had the grace and taste to take it all on and make something groovy and beautiful. This album shouldn’t be on wax. It should be chiseled in marble. Painted in the sky by turquoise birds. Or maybe strung on a wreath of flowers.
The Ohio Players did not sit down and write songs; they got up and jammed them. Normally greatest-hits collections are not all that, but if you want it funky, this rips. Sugarfoot, the guitar player and singer, is the St. Sebastian of funk. His jacked-up teeth, two-necked axe, and beaded denim hat announce the cool. Tortured by fine ladies in skintight britches, unprepared for the heat of lovemaking, overwhelmed by the motion of the “Love Rollercoaster,” his cries of “Ow,” “Yow,” and decisively “Say what” will prove what many had simply guessed at: the funk can and will preside. “Love Rollercoaster” features what were thought at the time to be the screams of a Woman being killed in the studio; subsequently, we have ascertained this was not true (and at the least is a faulty business model). “Sweet Sticky Thing” is a slow jam you can coalesce to, if you follow my innuendo. Take the opportunity and make your life better. And if this all doesn’t sell you, many Ohio Players albums feature a naked lady on the cover artfully arranged. Say what, indeed.
Blaxploitation was a movie genre in the ’70s. They were low-budget action pictures written, directed, and starring black people. This was very new to American cinema—movies about black people that had content and real situations. Black men and Women as heroes and white people as ruthless bad guys. After decades playing maids, butlers, and eye-rolling comic relief, it was a pivotal moment for movies. Suddenly, the pictures had to catch up to the changing face of America. One of the best parts of any blaxploitation picture, aside from the plaid and tan coats and maxi jackets and huge cars and wild hats, is the soundtrack. Marvin Gaye did Trouble Man, James Brown did Black Caesar, Willie Hutch, The Mack, Bobby Womack, Across 110th Street, and so on. Curtis Mayfield was an established star when he did this score. Propulsive and urban and hip and all about life in the ghetto. Our hero, Priest, is a handsome drug dealer who is complicated like Shaft but wants to pull one more score so he can live his life. His theme is “Superfly.” The cops and the gangsters are out to get him, and he loves a Woman, but it is all so complex. Curtis Mayfield’s soundtrack echoes all the action and hits all the emotions of the characters making this movie like a gangster operetta set in back rooms and streets with burning trash cans. Superfly is not the best blaxploitation movie, but this score is. Timeless. We can deal with rockets and dreams, but reality—what does it mean?
She is a torrent of song, a mighty diva, activist, superstar, and maybe the greatest singer ever. She is the link between Ella and Whitney, between Esther Phillips and Chaka Khan, Odetta and Beyoncé. She did it all for herself and carries on being one big diva who earned the right through great work and sheer awesome vocal talent. It is hard to pick one Aretha Franklin album. Indeed, there cannot be a list of soul records without her. A church-trained singer with her sisters, her father was a minister and family friends with Dr. King. She had been recording since she was a teen. This record follows I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, which had the tide-turning smash hit “Respect,” the soul song she purloined from Otis Redding and turned into an enduring international anthem of female empowerment. The shouted “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” bridge and “Sock it to me” were her and her sisters’ ideas. Lady Soul has much to love with funky-stomping “Chain of Fools” and the breathtaking “(You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman.” She takes the most anodyne material and, like Ray Charles, reinvents it.
There has never been a cooler group. Ever. Polysexual, pansexual, funk-rock, psychedelic gospel with groovy multiracial positivity all up in the place. They had Women playing and singing, black people and white people throwing down together shortly after desegregation. Sly pioneered fur boots and giant goggle shades, the Family Stone sports capes and plumed Musketeer hats. Rose, his sister, shouts at the world under a series of electrifying wigs, and Cynthia is the first black Woman to start at trumpet in the majors working a vest and a tight Afro. They changed how everyone from Herbie Hancock to Diana Ross to the Jackson 5 made records. All of a sudden it was de rigueur to push the beat and share the vocals. Social issues and personal worth get a big going-over, and you are in rock church the whole while. The easiest-listening band that don’t play easy listening. Never mind the drugs and paranoia that befell Sly, they glow and shine and pull on your heart. Of everything The Smartest Book insists upon, this is the one suggestion you will never regret taking. “Dance to the Music” propels you onto the floor, “Stand!” puts you in front of your destiny, “I Want to Take You Higher” forces you to make some calls to some dudes you haven’t felt like calling in a while, “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” is a call to all to shake. Every jam will have you dancing and singing along—isn’t that what music is for, to cure your lame ass?