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

Parliament Albums:

Up For The Down Stroke
Chocolate City
Mothership Connection
The Clones Of Dr. Funkenstein
Funkentelechy Vs. The Placebo Syndrome
Motor Booty Affair

Ohio Players Albums:

Pain
Pleasure
Ecstacy
Skin Tight
Fire
Contradiction

I've heard like 1% of that list, so I'm not sure I'll be able to vote, but this sounds awesome. I would love to get deep into 70s soul.

70s soul and country have been my biggest digging projects over the past few years, so I'm totally down for this.

Is there a rule on live albums and/or '70s recordings released in later decades? Because I'd nominate James Brown's Love Power Peace.

Also, Aretha's Amazing Grace.

Great list. So many of my favourites are already covered. I'm ready to campaign hard for Syreeta and Minnie Riperton.

Donnie and Joe Emerson – Dreamin' Wild (1979)

Jesus fuck! Can we institute a ban on this album?!

I don't really think of P-Funk as a soul act. The Parliaments, yeah, but that was the 60s.

I mean, have 'em on the list and all, but they're a soul outlier at best.

Eddie Hazel - Games, Dames And Guitar Thangs
Graham Central Station - Ain't No 'Bout-A-Doubt It
Graham Central Station - Release Yourself
Mandrill - Composite Truth
Mandrill - Just Outside Of Town
Mandrill - Is
Mandrill - Mandrill
Mutiny - Mutiny On The Mamaship
Quazar - Quazar
Sweat Band - Sweat Band

funk is a sub-genre of soul!

you would need to lose half the noms if you dont allow funk!

got some nominations for you

Barbara Pennington - Midnight Ride
Evelyn Thomas -I Wanna Make It On My Own
Randy Crawford - Miss Randy Crawford

3/10

look at the master list and all the funk that's in there

OK, I asked the mods to update the original list with the P-funk albums and correct a few errors.

Is there a rule on live albums and/or '70s recordings released in later decades?

I added Amazing Grace and the nominations from Cosmic Slop and soref to the list (offline, will post an update every few days).

Will definitely vote in this--first poll that's interested me in a while--but I'm sure I'll have the same problem as a few other people: almost all my favourite '70s soul albums are compilations. But I understand why you wouldn't want to include them.

Hmm, another side poll?

Oh, Sweat Band was released in 1980, so you get an extra nom, Slop.

(xpost) Good idea.

That RYM list is pretty deep. Every rare/underappreciated album I initially thought of was already accounted for except for these:

Leon Ware - Leon Ware (1972)
Dee Dee Warwick - Turning Around (1970)
Nolan Porter - Nolan (1972)
Paul Kelly - Hooked, Hogtied & Collared (1974)

Is it ever easy to predict the winner of a big genre poll? I would think this one would be, although maybe I'm wrong.

Prob either What's Going On or Songs in the Key of Life, but who knows.

There's so many funk albums I want to nominate!

The Brothers Johnson:

Look Out for #1
Right on Time
Blam!

Bo Diddley – Big Bad Bo (1974)

Checking this out now. I didn't know there was this side to him. It's great stuff.

JF: I was thinking Riot, which won't vote-split.

the omnipresence of that Donnie joe album is starting to scare me... is there backmasking involved or something?

if you change the title btw to soul/funk then there will be no arguments :)

I dont know the Donnie and Joe Emerson – Dreamin' Wild (1979) what have i missed?

Rita Coolidge and Charlie Rich on this list seems weird, but eh (I like both of those albums, too).

I dont know the Donnie and Joe Emerson – Dreamin' Wild (1979) what have i missed?

It's a "long lost" (read: private press album nobody ever heard until a few years ago) that's some pseudo-Hall & Oates shit hipsters love.

What do others think about Elis Regina, Larry Jon Wilson and Stories? I wouldn't call any of them "soul" myself, but maybe I'm missing something.... Fantastic list!

Nominations:
Howard Tate Reaction 1970
Esther Phillips Burnin' 1970
Esther Phillips Confessin' the Blues 1976
Allen Toussaint Life, Love and Faith 1972
The Dells Like It Is Like It Was 1970
Mel & Tim Starting All Over Again 1972
The Miracles City of Angels 1975
Clarence Reid On the Job 1976
Charlie Whitehead Raw Spitt 1970
Junior Parker I Tell Stories Sad and True, I Sing the Blues and Play Harmonica Too, It Is Very Funky 1972

Rita Coolidge and Charlie Rich on this list seems weird
Good call, I removed them from the list.

It's a "long lost" (read: private press album nobody ever heard until a few years ago) that's some pseudo-Hall & Oates shit hipsters love.

― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Saturday, 17 September 2016 22:25 (fourteen minutes ago

ahhhh, ilxors

Updated nominations up to here.

What do others think about Elis Regina, Larry Jon Wilson and Stories? I wouldn't call any of them "soul" myself, but maybe I'm missing something....

If something really sticks out I can always remove it, no problem. On the other hand, if it doesn't feel like soul you can just ignore it when voting starts.

The RYM chart was just an easy way to get this poll started.

Discovering Southern Nights last year was a revelation.

yeah that list has just about anything you could want, really. only thing i can think of to add is "mystic syster" by the equals which is, you know, not something i expect to get a hell of a lot of votes.

if we're talking about culling the list, i love that kim jung mi album but it's _not_ when i think of when i think "'70s soul". but if anyone else was planning on voting for "ga na da ra ma ba, my loving korean alphabet", you know, pipe up.

I have one nom left then but got loads I'd like to nominate but I guess we need some Cameo in here

Cameo - Cardiac Arrest

Hope somebody will nominate James Brown's Sex Machine since I managed to miss it.

Could we not have 25 noms or something? you said you could be bribed..... :)

Hold on, I'll PM you my Amazon wishlist.

Why don't you post some YouTubes? They might inspire someone else to nominate your stuff!

Well I'm pretty sure the Betty Davis albums will get nommed at least

is it really necessary to have nominations when you've already curated a list from which people can choose?

just have people vote for their 25 or however-many favorite from this list (or, if they really want to, another record) and count the votes

nominations are needed so everyone has the same correct spellings of the albums otherwise tabulating is a nightmare

Will follow this thread closely I think. I finally read Turn The Beat Around early this year and the chapter on 70s soul (as a precusor to disco) was maybe my favourite section.

it's not a nightmare, it's just ... There are ways to make it not a big deal. But it's more fun to list

How hard could it be to just look out for misspellings, it's not like there are hundreds of ballots, argh why do I care

Oh, and rushomancy: the word about 'Mystic Syster' is spreading. From the Eddy Grant thread:

Mystic Syster: holy shit!
― hardcore dilettante, Tuesday, September 27, 2016 6:37 AM (nine hours ago)

I'm only listening to the namesake album for the first time, but this track is just gorgeous:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HhV3Slqtvw

Best thing about 'Peek-a-boo' is the way they put the emphasis on 'boo-hoo' instead of on 'pea-heak', which is what you (or I at least) would expect.

Last night, I was just reading about Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes in John A. Jackson's A House on Fire: The Rise and Fall of Philadelphia Soul. I liked this quote about how Gamble & Huff picked the right material for the groups the produced:

The surprise success of the Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes album stemmed from the stirring combination of the voices of the group, the arrangements of Bobby Martin and Thom Bell, and the production of Gamble and Huff. It was also due in part to Gamble and Huff’s uncanny knack of recognizing what type of music a certain artist, and a particular set of circumstances, warranted. In this instance, it meant eliciting an entire album of ballads from a group that thrived on the varied repertoire of song styles offered in their stage act. “Imagine that!” marveled Bernard Wilson thirty years later. “We wouldn’t have done it like that.” We Blue Notes, he said, “didn’t know we were a ballad group” and would have put several “fast tunes” on the album. Most surprising, Wilson claimed that if the group had chosen the album’s songs, “If You Don’t Know Me by Now” would not have survived the final cut. “Shows you how much we knew!” chuckled the singer.

That book comes highly recommended BTW.

After reading about the sad fate of Billy Paul I want to give a shout-out to the opening track of Going East:
https://youtu.be/lFIfzOy0v7Q
(unfortunately the rest of the album didn't grab me the way this one did).

I also really like his cover of 'Your Song':
https://youtu.be/DbgYUj3jQoI

"Oh, and rushomancy: the word about 'Mystic Syster' is spreading."

glad to hear it, though not surprised- once you hear the record it basically sells itself. :)

Soul and Funk is impossible to choose... I'm going through the 'deeper' cuts in my collection and everything sounds good... I don't think I'll ever complete a top 100... Top 500 mayhaps and that's without counting all the treasures in the genres which I don't know about.

I understand why there's so many house and techno tracks... it's usually a one man job and you don't need studio time to make and release music whenever you want, but how in the hell are there so many soul and funk singles in the 60s and 70s!? Distribution wasn't that easy back then and you definitely need a studio to record soul and funk. There's still lost albums and singles from the decade coming out today and they sound expensive! Thousands of garage rock gems being found doesn't surprise me, they might as well be demos that noone heard but when I hear a lost soul track from the 70's it rarely sounds cheap or homemade. I dont get it

Those Thom Bell groups are really special. Part of it is due to William Hart, Russell Thompkins and Bobby Smith being the best ad libbers in the game.

Album cover of the day:
http://i.imgur.com/tzpcquJ.jpg

And a few good full albums I found on YouTube the last couple of days:

Marlena Shaw ‎- Who Is This Bitch, Anyway

Atlas - Atlas (also an awesome cover!)

Marie Queenie Lyons - Soul Fever

Yvonne Fair - The Bitch Is Black

Roy C. - Sex And Soul

2nd Resurrection by the Stairsteps is pitched somewhere between Riot (murky and distant) and Talking Book (silly and pretty) but it might actually be better than both. Criminally underdiscussed.

I'll be voting for 2nd Resurrection. It's a masterpiece.

noms:

Free Life - s/t (1978)
Heatwave - Too Hot to Handle (1976)
Pleasure - Get to the Feeling (1978)
Pleasure - Future Now (1979)
Wood, Brass & Steel - s/t (1976)

5/10

I see I made a mistake in the date in my first post. The voting thread will open on Monday morning, October 10. So you have the whole weekend to sneak in any last-minute nominations.

Kool & the Gang - Wild and Peaceful (1973)
Kool & the Gang - Spirit of the Boogie (1975)
WAR - Galaxy (1977)

8/10

Bee Gees - Main Course (1975)

9/10

Someone please campaign for an oddball hidden classic along the lines of 2nd Resurrection or Dr. Buzzard while there's still time. If there are any of course.

Some of my favourite oddball hidden classics.

Milton Wright – Spaced
Greg Perry - Smokin'
Lou Ragland – He Says 'Understand Each Other”
Brick - Brick
The Voices of East Harlem – The Voices of East Harlem
Ace Spectrum – Inner Spectrum
Bloodstone – Bloodstone
Leroy Hutson – Love Oh Love
Rasputin's Stash - Rasputin's Stash

Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!

Sure. Also, I'm not sure if it counts as an oddball hidden classic as it is kind of well known, but if you don't know it I'd check out Stevie Wonder Presents Syreeta. I already mentioned it earlier on this thread. It's likely to be my number one.

Couldn't see these on the nominations list:

The Jimmy Castor Bunch - It's Just Begun
The Jimmy Castor Bunch featuring The Everything Man - E-Man Groovin'
Beautiful Bend - Make That Feeling Come Again!
USA-European Connection - Come Into My Heart
Caress - Caress
First Choice - So Let Us Entertain You
Pleasure - Accept No Substitutes
Pleasure - Joyous
Fern Kinney - Groove Me
Donna Summer - Bad Girls

xxp I always lump Syreeta in with Minnie Riperton as a sort of spiritual soul that's just not for me. But I will relisten to that album before voting for sure. Digging Lou Ragland and Ace Spectrum from that list. Inner Spectrum is moving up the ranks of my hyperfalsetto favorites.

~~~ Nominations updated ~~~

I've given up on trying to listen to everything, because there's just SO MUCH good music here. I'm happy to have found some great albums already because of this thread, and voting hasn't even started!

Speaking of voting: I'm thinking of ballots with a minimum of 25 and a maximum of 100 albums.
Would it be OK if the top 25 of every ballot was weighted (say, #1 gets 30 points #2 gets 29... all the way to 6 points for #25) and everything below that unweighted, so that all the other votes on a ballot get 5 points?

I'm not sure what the consequences would be for the final results, but it would make counting definitely easier for me. Any thoughts?

Fine with that. Ranking after 25 in genre polls usually is sort of random. I like voting only for core favorites so the initial plan was to go just top 10 but I can see now that core favorites in this case really is 25 at minimum.

On the other hand, larger ballots might mean boring results. Don't know.

Yeah, larger ballots mean people will put consensus "classic albums" in the lower ranks instead of just listing their personal favourites... And with votes from everyone the consensus albums will rise to the top, and #1 will probably be "What's Going On", which does sound boring (and wrong).

Well, that happens with every big poll: the bottom 75% is usually much more interesting than the top 25%. And by having a minimum of 25, the people who only own five classic soul albums won't be able to vote.

I'm going to set up the voting form right now. Nominations close in less than an hour!

It's going to happen... Here's the

~~~ ILM 1970s SOUL/FUNK/DISCO ALBUMS POLL ~~~ VOTING THREAD

I feel bad that I didn't get back here to nominate James Brown's Hot Pants. Great album. :(

Three more days to send in your ballot! Voting closes Sunday night.

VOTE HERE

And we're rolling:

PEOPLE... HOLD ON. It's the ~~~ ILM 1970s SOUL/FUNK/DISCO ALBUMS POLL ~~~ results thread!

I know there were only a handful of original members there, but I really enjoyed the Valentines Soul Jam concert I saw February 12th with the Stylistics, Dramatics, Harold Melvin's Blue Notes, and Intruders. Oh I got there a bit late and missed Cuba Gooding Sr.

Some great falsetto, harmonies and group choreographed dance moves. Stylistics and Blue Notes were the most impressive.

TRAX POLL

After the emo poll is done, OK?

sweet :)

And here it is:

Papa was a POLLING STONE: It's the 1970s SOUL/FUNK/DISCO ~~~ TRACKS POLL