LET'S GET IT ON! It's the ~~~ 1970s SOUL ALBUMS POLL ~~~ NOMINATIONS AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD

Can we have:

Them Changes by Buddy Miles.

dunno if I'll bother voting in this but imo fwiw the term/genre descriptor "soul" is 100% derived from marketing + commercial segregation (ie that wonderful American intersection of racism and commerce), so I have no problem with accepting the "music black artists made in the 70s" definition of "70s soul". There's no aesthetic criteria that you can credibly apply to delineate genre boundaries.

Well, obv this is for another thread and another time and level of discourse, but aren't there aesthetic boundaries between soul and funk and funk and slick American black music in the '70s? Between Isaac Hayes and Allen Toussaint, and weren't musicians aware of the boundaries when they made the music to fit the expectations of their audience and their own aesthetic standards? I don't think it's all about marketing, myself, though of course that enters into it. Chic isn't even "black music" in some ways, actually, though the rhythm section attack and the vocal blend derives from certain black models. I'm just advocating keeping musicians' intentions in mind when you're talking about slippery genre classifications/taxonomies.

aren't there aesthetic boundaries between soul and funk and funk and slick American black music in the '70s

they're pretty porous, is the problem - especially when we're talking albums that in many cases (Hayes and Toussaint being good examples) actually contain a range of aesthetic styles.

Which is not to say that your point about musicians' intentions and approaches is not a good one - but it would open the poll up to accepting, say, certain jazz artists' certain 70s records as being classified as soul (Eugene McDaniels? Les McCann?) and then people would bitch about that because those guys are JAZZ guys, that's the circuit and milieu they came out of.

So what matters more: the way the record sounds (taken in the context of other similar-sounding records)? Or the way the record was marketed, distributed, broadcast, etc.?

Yeah, I'm really not advocating any change in the poll itself. The poll already has for example Minnie Riperton. Come to My Gardenisn't a "soul" record; it's a pop jazz record. She doesn't sing in a gospel or blues style and the songs and arrangements derive from jazz and sophisticated '60s pop, like Bacharach and David. But the same producer, Charles Stepney, also made records with the Dells, which have some of the same oddball pop characteristics, but they're identifiable as "soul" because the Dells sing in a gospel-derived manner. I see this as a good example of the intention Stepney had for each project. The question of "sounds like" vs. "marketed, distributed, broadcast" is a good one. A lot of great Southern soul never got outside the South, but that doesn't mean that someone who liked Les McCann and Terry Callier might not also like Jimmy Hughes or Eddie Floyd and would take them as variants on a spectrum of sounds that would register as "soulful." I'd go with "sounds like." You're right, the boundaries are porous but only become so...in the late '60s and into '70s; in the '60s "soul" meant down-home stuff, Aretha and Otis, and only later, with the Stylistics and the Chi-Lites, and the Four Tops' later stuff and the Temptations, does it show the influence of Sly Stone and psychedelic music and the so forth. Seems that way to me, at least. But in the case of McCann or Eugene McDaniels, it's kinda like talking about Wes Montgomery on A&M--he was consciously remaking himself in the image of another kind of music so he could be marketed more profitably....

YESSSSSSS!!!! excited about this!

Glad someone nomed Caston and Majors. imo Frank Caston was one of the finest producers of the period, mostly working with Kendricks. Here's my fave from the C&M album which contains one of my favorite jamerson basslines:

https://youtu.be/6o1q1QIp110

The Blackbyrds - The Blackbyrds
The Blackbyrds - Flying Start
The Blackbyrds - City Life
Commodores - Machine Gun
Commodores - Caught in the Act
Commodores - Movin' On
Slave - The Hardness of the World
The Meters - Rejuvenation
Cameo - We All Know Who We Are
Cameo - Ugly Ego

~~~ Nominations updated ~~~

If The Stylistics and Otis Redding belong to the same genre than there's place for Sly and Chic in there too imo.

excellent nominations by turrican

*then obviously

It's hard to find albums that haven't been nominated and someone might conceivably vote for! Lou Bond, Margie Joseph, Undisputed Truth,...they're all there!

I got one:

The Supremes - High Energy

Can we do a tracks poll too at some point? I know we did disco a while back but...

Boz Scaggs - Silk Degrees
Van Morrison - Moondance
David Bowie - Station to Station

7/10

Some Delaney & Bonnie albums are probably worth discussing as well. Station to Station is pushing it but Boz and Van are legit imo.

Boz Scaggs - Slow Dancer

i'm really anticipating others proselytizing for the noms on (presumably) the voting thread. besides stevie + (imo) the delfonics 3rd and (imo) dramatics "what you see", i'm pretty ignorant of other masterpieces. i know bits and pieces..

the meters' fire on the bayou is a recent discovery that made me go "wow!". only heard it once, though.

winter of america, too, that's a recent discovery that hit me hard.

i suppose i'm still in love with you is just about perfect, too.

I don't think I have ever knowingly heard a Boz Scaggs song

something about that name just makes me think... nope

you should check his first album out, self-titled, muscle shoals dudes, duane allman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlaOblu34Wk

sorry bout the embed, Cosmic Slop

My ballot will probably end up being just Thom Bell stuff.

To Bonnie from Delaney and Motel Shot are great '70s Delaney and Bonnie. Also in the white-soul dept., Frankie Miller's Toussaint-produced Highlife, 1974.

This has got me going back to Terry Callier's 70's albums and. . . holy hell, that guy was something else.

Occasional Rain will most likely be very high on my ballot.

I don't know that much about Eugene McDaniels but the Headless Heroes album is definitely soul and damn good at that.

I think the polemic about Jorge Ben is that he's not really 'soul' but 'Samba Soul', him and Tim Maia were pioneers in mixing funk and soul with Brazilian rhythms, it's still 'soul' I think but the latin rhythms makes it very distinct to the point it feels like a completely different genre than 'soul'.

There are other samba soul artists in the 70's influenced by both... top of my head: Marcos Valle, Di Melo, Banda Black Rio, Dom Salvador. Here's the albums (think all of these are on the noms list) if you want to take a side-dish to hear how soul and funk were appropriated down there.

Di Melo - s/t
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7xwo7HW9g8

Luiz Melodia - Perola Negra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efg8Th__apc

Marcos Valle - Garra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMUkfEvaH80

Can we do a tracks poll too at some point? I know we did disco a while back but...

i'm really anticipating others proselytizing for the noms on (presumably) the voting thread.

Thanks for those Brazilian picks, Moka. I only discovered Jorge Ben a few weeks ago through Pitchfork's 70s list, and everything I've heard so far sounds great.

I always thought of a 1920s blues singer when I read the name Boz Scaggs :)

I will update the noms list after I take the kids to school, but Moondance? Really?

I woke up with Madeline Bell's 'Picture Me Gone' in my head. Too bad it was released three years too early. Is anyone familiar with her albums from the 70's? She's not yet on the list.

re: Terry Callier, AllMusic has a terrific Thom Jurek review of Occasional Rain:

(...)The other classic tune from this session is the title cut. This beautiful and startling psychedelic soul tune is unlike anything else in Callier's catalog. Stepney adds multi-channel sound effects, tiny little organ tones that float through each channel beginning at the end of certain lines seemingly randomly. As an acoustic guitar plays atop a church organ which swells in the middle eight to fill out a shelf underneath Callier's voice, it feels like an entire universe floating between one channel and the next (especially on headphones!). It can even be startling, as those sounds, even though they are expected, are kind of a shock -- you'll need to listen through it a couple of times to get the full meaning of the Callier's gorgeous songwriting.(...)

And if you need any more reasons to listen to this guy, here's the awesome cover of his next LP:
http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_500/MI0001/924/MI0001924115.jpg

I always love it when I discover the source of a well-known sample by accident. I just found the "See what's happenin'" bit in the Beastie Boys' 'Get It Together', in Eugene McDaniels' 'Headless Heroes'.

~~~ Nominations updated ~~~

Moondance is pretty uncontroversially described as a blue eyed soul landmark no?

Well, all Van Morrison albums are blue-eyed soul albums, mostly all good.
There are also a lot of Brazilian records from the '70s that are influenced by soul. Jorge Ben's stuff is more like samba mildly flavored with something approximating American funk rhythms, but really they have little to do with North American music. He's like the Brazilian Richie Havens but more melodic--plays the same guitar lick in every song.

Edd, did you listen to the Di Melo album Moka posted upthread? The vocals make it sound exotic, but otherwise it's almost pure soul.

And I'll add Moondance to the list in my next update.

Dusty Springfield - A Brand New Me

I don't think Ben really belongs in this poll, but "the Brazilian Richie Havens" is a pretty outrageous characterization

Best discoveries of the day for me:

The Human Zoo - 'Gonna Take Me a Ride'
I've seen them described as 'garage soul', but on headphones this sounds like it was recorded in an attic, with the singer in the middle of the room, a transistor radio playing the backbeat on the far left and a few musicians on the right.

Lou Bond - 'For the Establishment'
One of those songs that could go on for hours and I wouldn't care. Those repeating four trombone(?) notes in the last five minutes, just massive.

Excellent picks Arch. This is going to be a hard poll, I think I'd actually prefer to have a tracks poll to highlight stuff in small doses. Too many great albums in here it's impossible to go through them all.

Btw fans of Terry Callier: The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier is probably one of my favorite albums from the 60's but I haven't listened almost anything he released in the 70's. Where should I start?

Shit had no idea he was still alive and making music that 2008 album is sounding great.

Oh wait he died in 2012. Still, had no idea he continued making music...

Listening to 'What Color Is Love" and it sounds very much like Nick Drake but cooler? The orchestration and rhythms are way better and there's some sexy vibe that Nick Drake never had, must be the soul.

The folk/soul and even opera elements are very original... any other artist that had this sort of sound back then?

Check out "Dancing Girl" from the same album, Moka.

Lovely Uncle Terry. I've got a print of What Colour is Love on my wall.

I think that and Occasional Rain are the two to go for, initially at least. The latter is more a suite and more abstract. It's got a pretty stellar cast - Minnie Ripperton's trills on the title track are quite astonishing. Damn the weather man...