Eddie Kendricks solo - RFI

eddie kendricks! this thread is good

This thread reminds me that in 2013 I wrote an obit for Leroy Fleming, a horn player for Eddie Kendricks and also for Chuck Brown.

In high school, Fleming joined The Young Senators. The group started as a
Motown-style soul combo, but gradually became funkier and went on to
release several singles. In 1972 the group was invited by former
Temptations singer Eddie Kendricks to back him on his People Hold On album
and join his tour. "Girl You Need a Change of Mind," a Kendricks/Senators
track, later became popular in New York City dance clubs and has been
since credited as a proto-disco classic. The Senators in 1973 added
backing vocals to Kendricks’ pop hit “Keep on Truckin’.”

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2013/03/21/remembering-leroy-fleming-soul-searchers-member/

people hold on... one of the best albums ever

otm

yes!! a big discovery for me last year

Girl You Need a Change of Mind achieves the rare double distinction of being beautiful and a total banger.

What an album. Date With the Rain both perfect and clearly not long enough.

I am a a sentimental old fool but if this was a poll, I'd go for Just Memories.

reposting the now blank youtube rtc was talking about five years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ1wAcNsm6g

oh cool... they did a pretty spankin cover of jimmy bo horne’s “spank” too

this is great
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GbDttkqlbk

"Goin' Up In Smoke" is probably the best despairing apocalyptic disco track ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=823mRp7XSOw

i've been obsessed with this guy for a while now. all the solo albums between "people... hold on" and "the hit man" are great. all produced by Leonard Caston and Frank Wilson

Trust your heart has been a recent favorite. i love how it's comletely built around this really simple Jamerson bass line
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duF7S67JqAo

self-titled > people hold on > boogie down is one of the alltime runs of 70s soul.

it really gnaws at me at how ignored this guy is. why on earth have these not been reissued? it's maddening.

for being considered one of the definitive soul labels, whoever handles the motown back catalogue sure has screwed the pooch. they're on spotify, so fine whatever. wish i had spotify twenty years ago when i was bidding on questionable $50 copies on ebay.

Confession time: Eddie was one of the first interviews I ever attempted, when "Keep On Truckin'" was huge. I was 15, and did not do proper research or prep, to say the least. Since that album is self-titled, I think my first question was along the lines of "how does it feel to have such a huge hit right out of the gate with your debut album?" He was really nice about it, laughed and gently reminded me that it was his third, and we started the interview over.

shoulda asked him when people hold on is getting a proper fucking reissue jfc

if I had a radio show, the intro music would be that extended Tom Moulton mix of “keep on trucking”

just put on the s/t, god this is so fucking fantastic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ptXopF1mjs

powerful

I'm digging that version of "Date With the Rain." So that's recent (and evidently an uncredited Dimitri from Paris mix?) There were no nine minute disco singles in 1972.

an ilxor named keith, who lived in pasadena at the time, made a mix for me with "date with the rain" on it and i've been a huge eddie kendricks fan ever since.

an ilxor named Keith, who lived in Pasadena
hated me for loving “Have You Seen Her”
he made me a mix
with Mr. Kendricks
and now I’m a huge Eddie leaner

lol

Please don't go away, written by Leonard Caston, has maybe my favorite chorus ever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5KN9AdrfdM

the same year Caston released an album with his wife, Caston & Majors, and they had a song that used a similar chorus - Let There Be Love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5KN9AdrfdM

oh sorry,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o1q1QIp110

Wow, I didn't know of Caston, but his father "Baby Doo" was a fine Chicago blues pianist who spent his final years here in Minneapolis before passing away in 1987.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sehPnjAi27c

Please don't go away, written by Leonard Caston, has maybe my favorite chorus ever

wow ;_;

the whole Caston & Majors s/t is fantastic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp1HdiRGA7Q

one of my favourite Eddie cuts

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

spring is for eddie kendricks

..... every track on boogie down is amazing

brad is this your first encounter with solo kendricks albums?

(i'm envious, if so. i wish i could hear people hold on again for the first time.)

{sub-sub-post: if there was a drug that made you feel like you do after hearing an incredible album for the first time and then immediately deciding to play the album from the beginning again i would be addicted to that drug.}

albums, yes! i have known the big songs from people... hold on for ages but for reasons unknown to me for which i will never forgive myself i've never played the full record

that's rad man. unfortunately his albums don't stay as strong after boogie down. definitely some gems throughout though.

Nice to see this thread revived. I just listened to Slick last night which is the only one of his albums from the second half of the 70s that I really love. His first five are all classics with For You being the most underrated. As Heez mentions, Please Don't Go Away is a beautiful track. I get Shoeshine Boy stuck in my head a lot and there's some great tracks tucked away towards the end like If and Time In A Bottle.

"Intimate Friends" from Slick is about as Quiet Storm as it gets, even more Quiet Storm than Smokey's "Quiet Storm." Another example of a song that your ears can't separate from the later cover/sample version (Alicia Keys, in this case.)

"intimate friends" a very great, very classic track indeed. i always knew it from the first common album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV5syJ529Fo

(he was known as common sense at the time, of course)

A bit ot, as they're completely different singers, but David Ruffin's first bunch of albums are similarly underrated. Some of the covers are a bit rote (though things can't get TOO average with his voice), but... "The Double Cross" might be my all-time favorite vocal performance... Who I Am is a fantastic smooth disco album that is deep with great tracks and is way better than you're thinking a Ruffin album from 1975 would be... the unreleased album that Hip-O released 15 or so years ago is gold... plus gobs more. Ruffin + Kendricks + Temptations feel very underrated to me these days (in so much as it's possible for a legendary group to be underrated). How many others groups + solo have that many great tracks over so many years?

Ok, back to Kendricks:
Has anybody mentioned "This Used to Be the Home of Johnnie Mae" yet? Jesus, what a song.

Ruffin + Kendricks + Temptations feel very underrated to me these days (in so much as it's possible for a legendary group to be underrated).

this is a good point, and one i feel is relevant. so many motown acts were only ever considered great singles acts. i mean, think about it: when most people talk of classic albums on motown, they're thinking stevie or marvin — otherwise the group is only considered to have a bunch of classic songs.

this is all in my experience, of course. i hope we're wrong though, mr.raffles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z7cceAj3H8

anthem!!!!!

otm

i really enjoyed listening to he's a friend and goin' up in smoke, especially the latter!

I have always loved “He’s A Friend”, the song. Kendricks goes full-bodied Philly. I’m pretty sure it was the first song of his I heard as a teen back in ‘76.

badu’s flip of “intimate friends” for “fall in love” is one of the better moments of new amerykah pt 2

I want to say thank you for this revive, which prompted me to check out more of his (excellent) albums, but I also just put on People...Hold On for the first time in a while and I think it might actually be one of the best albums ever made

welcome, rob. the only decent thread i ever made, which is now unfortunately mostly broken youtube links, was inspired by Eddie and others doing similar things: lush post-1970 soul music from motown / tamala / atlantic is the best shit ever

Ooh nice, I will check that out. For some reason with soul I've gone deep on individual artists rather than broad on the genre or labels or even smaller scenes (which is sort of the opposite of my approach to most other genres) and have always meant to remedy that.

On a different note from that thread (I think), I'm tempted to start one for songs that sound like Eddie Kendricks' "My People...Hold On"

check out "just my soul responding" by smokey robinson. i think it has a similar vibe.

wow, this isn't quite what I had in mind (basically something a bit more avant/spiritual jazz-like), but it's really incredible, thanks!

It feels like the title track could be a nexus of a cracking playlist of like-minded/like-sounding stuff: Midnight Band/Sly/War/Archie Shepp/Terry Callier/Voices of Harlem/Philip Cohran/Art Ensemble.