Soul Funk Disco / Brothers & Sisters / Volume Three 1972 – 1976
1972 - 1973
1 DENISE LA SALLE / Trapped By A Thing Called Love / Trapped By A Thing Called Love January 1972
2 JACKIE MOORE / Darling Baby / Single A Side February 1972
3 ARETHA FRANKLIN / Rock Steady / Young, Gifted And Black February 1972
4 THE JIMMY CASTOR BUNCH / It’s Just Begun / It’s Just Begun March 1972
5 BOBBY WOMACK / Harry Hippie / Understanding April 1972
6 LUTHER INGRAM / If Loving You Is Wrong / Single A Side May 1972
7 THE O’ JAYS / Backstabbers / Single A Side July 1972
8 CURTIS MAYFIELD / Superfly / Superfly Soundtrack August 1972
9 THE TEMPTATIONS / Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone / All Directions August 1972
10 STEVIE WONDER / Superstition / Talking Book November 1972
11 WAR / The Cisco Kid / The World Is A Ghetto November 1972
12 CYMANDE / The Message / Cymande December 1972
13 THE TEMPTATIONS / Law Of The Land / Masterpiece March 1973
14 WILLIE HUTCH / Brothers Gonna Work It Out / The Mack Soundtrack April 1973
15 CURTIS MAYFIELD / If I Were A Child Again / Back To The World June 1973
16 SLY & THE FAMILY STONE / If You Want Me To Stay / Fresh June 1973
17 THE DRAMATICS / Beware Of The Man / A Dramatic Experience July 1973
18 STEVIE WONDER / Higher Ground / Innervisions August 1973
19 HAROLD MELVIN & THE BLUE NOTES / The Love I Lost / Single A Side September 1973
20 KOOL & THE GANG / Hollywood Swinging / Wild And Peaceful October 1973
21 24 CARAT BLACK / Ghetto-Misfortunes Wealth / Ghetto-Misfortunes Wealth November 1973
1974 - 1976
1 BARRY WHITE / Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love Babe / Single A Side February 1974
2 ANN PEEBLES / I’m Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down / I Can’t Stand The Rain April 1974
3 CREATIVE SOURCE / Who Is He And What Is He To You / Creative Source April 1974
4 THE METERS / Just Kissed My Baby / Rejuvenation June 1974
5 THE O’ JAYS / Ship Ahoy / Ship Ahoy June 1974
6 BETTY DAVIS / They Say I’m Different / They Say I’m Different July 1974
7 BOBBY ‘BLUE’ BLAND / Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City / Dreamer August 1974
8 LABELLE / Are You Lonely? / Nightbirds September 1974
9 CHAIRMEN OF THE BOARD / Finders Keepers / Skin I’m In October 1974
10 AL GREEN / Take Me To The River / Explores Your Mind November 1974
11 HAROLD MELVIN & THE BLUE NOTES/ Wake Up Everybody / Wake Up Everybody May 1975
12 THE ISLEY BROTHERS / Fight The Power / The Heat Is On June 1975
13 BANBARRA / Shack Up / Single A Side December 1975
14 THE BAR-KAYS / Too Hot To Stop / Too Hot To Stop April 1976
15 CANDI STATON / Young Hearts Run Free / Single A Side May 1976
16 JAMES BROWN / Get Up Offa That Thing / Single A Side July 1976
17 PARLIAMENT / Give Up The Funk / Mothership Connection July 1976
18 STEVIE WONDER / Pastime Paradise / Songs In The Key Of Life October 1976
19 THELMA HOUSTON / Don’t Leave Me This Way / Single A Side December 1976
The early to mid seventies were jammed with artists deconstructing, then rebuilding soul music into new shapes and forms. The move to funk saw danceable rhythms start to replace the singer and the song: Al Green, seen by many as the standard bearer of the classic soul sound, continued his struggle between the pleasures of the flesh and the ecstasies of the spirit; the once driven Stax empire collapsed in a confusing mess and Motown checked out of Detroit for LA and was never the same again. Of course, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and The Temptations made some remarkable ground breaking records, but Motown no longer had the touch. They became just another record company, albeit a very big and successful one. One remnant of classic soul that did remain was Southern soul but with a new female twist. During the sixties most women had been mere puppets but following Aretha Franklin, Denise La Salle, Jackie Moore, Ann Peebles, Betty Davis and Candy Staton, injected the long suffering female soul persona with a real rage.
The last major movement of the classic soul era to have any real impact was Philly Soul, dominated by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff’s Philadelphia International. Gamble and Huff embodied the contradictions that were threatening to tear black America apart in the mid seventies: Gamble was a cultural nationalist, but his music helped pave the way for disco; they preached about ‘cleaning up the ghetto’, but aimed their records at the new hi-fi systems of the emerging black middle class; and they wrote paternalistic message songs that often criticized masculinity.
The sound of Philly symbolised the struggle of all popular seventies soul. It was a sound trying to move forward and aspire to something greater while still clinging to its soul roots. But it was those differences that made Gamble and Huff’s vision the most fascinating. Their greatest success came with The O’Jays and Harold Melvin, who enjoyed big hit singles while filling their albums with Gambles heavy message songs.
Philadelphia ruled the charts in 1974 but as the disco behemoth emerged from the shadows, the hits dried up almost instantly. With a pre-history cast from ‘Law Of The Land’, ‘The Love I Lost’ and Barry White, disco didn’t truly arrive until Thelma Houston’s version of ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’. It was the ultimate disco record and took the genre around the globe. No-one knew it then, but soul music had already changed forever.
