Raise All Kinds Of Candy To The Stars

The “jazzman” King was talking about was Ray Charles’ saxophone player Curtis Amy, and on the record he’s portrayed by L.A. rep reliable Tom Scott. However, this is my kind of music; the lyrics were written by David Palmer, the man who sang lead on Steely Dan’s “Brooklyn (Owes The Charmer Under Me),” which a lot of the time is my favourite song, and “Jazzman” demonstrates a similar proud and patient majesty, rearing its head in the direction of life and inspiration like a sprig of lavender welcoming the blue in the air. I love how the old Brill Building handclaps are still in place, together with chord changes which I would call Rundgrenesque had Todd not borrowed a lot of King’s patented harmonic modulations for “Hello It’s Me.” Think of Lisa and Bleeding Gums jamming in the hospital and I’ll see you in early September. Date Record Made Number Two: 9 November 1974 Number Of Weeks At Number Two: 1 Record At Number One: “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet” by Bachman-Turner...

This isn’t quite the last piece of music I’ll be writing about before taking a long break from writing this blog (and most other things) – there’s one more song tomorrow that I’ve been persuaded to write up before I disappear – but the situation is this; I am imminently due to go into hospital for major surgery to treat a long-standing and hugely-annoying hernia. This should have been sorted out years ago but for reasons too tedious to document it’s only being sorted out now. It is going to be a long, fairly complex and in places possibly pioneering procedure. I am being operated on by world-class surgeons whom I trust implicitly and there has been much liaison between my local hospital (where I’ll be going) and the hospital where I myself work to enable this to happen. However, I have to warn you that the procedure carries a fairly high risk of what medical people call “morbidities,” mainly to do with breathing and cardiac issues, for which I will be closely monitored in I...

It was the group’s last Thom Bell collaboration, their last American top ten hit and probably their most famous record. Bell then concentrated on working with The Spinners, leaving The Stylistics in the merciless candyflossed hands of Hugo and Luigi, under whose direction they went on to score most of their biggest hits in Britain (because of Britain being Britain). Originally appearing in its full length on their third album, 1973’s Rockin’ Roll Baby , a slightly edited version was deposited in the middle of their fourth album, 1974’s otherwise Hugo and Luigi-dominant Let’s Put It All Together , and promptly put all else on that record to shame. I have really nothing more to say about the record except to note in passing that here we have two very carefully-enunciating voices which sing different parts of the same song but never connect – hence, the voice is both ego and id , Cupid and Psyche – and that a somewhat clunky lyric sung with serene but truthful conviction wi...

It is fair to say that in 1974 Motown had little idea what to do with, or about, the Jackson 5. In fact one could say that in 1974 Motown had little idea what to do about anything; I recall a doom-laden piece by Bob Edmands in the NME at the time which bandied about words such as “Hubris” and “Nemesis,” while the optimistically-titled Motown Chartbusters Volume 9 included three reissued oldies from the sixties. Nevertheless “Dancing Machine” is the second consecutive Motown single to appear in this list so they must have remembered how to do something, and indeed the J5’s first US top ten hit since 1971’s unfortunately-titled “Sugar Daddy” – in Britain they had a few more hits, including two top tens with the tune-free “Lookin’ Through The Window” and their bizarre cover of “Doctor My Eyes,” but the hits dried up altogether after 1973 and when they resurfaced in the charts a few years later they had signed to Epic Records and become The Jacksons. Actually disco suits ...

People…Hold On was Eddie Kendricks’ second solo album; released in May 1972, it is a strikingly assured piece of work and is generally regarded as the first true disco record. The reason you don’t know anything more about it is in part due to Motown’s typically ham-fisted approach to its own back catalogue – a “limited edition” CD reissue (presumably limited to about thirty copies, all purchased by middle-aged men named Spike who subsidise their record collecting with the proceeds from drug-dealing) appeared in 2016 to no fanfare whatsoever. I suspect that this situation would not have come about if the album had been recorded by, say, David Bowie or Rod Stewart - let alone the lavish repackaging of records by even the most minor of eighties pop stars. The inherent racism of the music industry and music consumers aside, the record’s acclaim ensured that Kendricks got the best solo start of any ex-Temptation. “Keep On Truckin’,” the first single from his fourth album, Boogi...