I think it goes back to what I said about the corporatization of soul music, and the "ghettoization" of the music by them. What that came down to is less radio exposure on pop radio, and less representation at retail level. Now, some people feel that it was better that way in order to preserve the integrity of the music, rather than trying to make in mainstream, which ultimately happened in 1983. What happened though, is the public coming around to the music rather than the producers and artists trying to force it into the mainstream by 'watering it down". But, with disco, a lot of R&B purists accused the labels or watering it down for disco anyway.
True. And in Davis's case, he was able to fail on multiple accounts. He never could get momentum as an R&B act who crossed over and when he signed to Columbia, he wasn't as pure R&B anymore and lost his fan base.
Johnnie Taylor fared a bit better. He got a #1 soul record on the pop chart on the Columbia label in 1976. But, I have no idea what happened after that. To the pop world, he seemed like a one-hit wonder. The "Eargasm" album is excellent. It crossed over while maintaining his artistic integrity. The thing about the next album is that, it did neither. He tried to pick it back up with his "Disco 9000" soundtrack, but by them it was too late. But, his core soul audience stuck by him. I have trouble picking out differenced in a couple of Tyrone Davis' songs. He did OK in the R&B world, but his records just didn't stand out. Maybe he should have used Don Davis, Taylor's producer.
As for Tyrone Davis, besides "Can I Change My Mind," I have just two other singles of his. One was the early 1972 release "I Had It All The Time," notable that it was Dakar's first single under Brunswick distribution after its Atlantic distribution deal ended. Another was "What Goes Up (Must Come Down)" from 1974, where each side was cut on a different Scully lathe at Columbia's New York studios. The Worst Rock & Roll Records of All Time, in rating Aretha Franklin's final Atlantic LP La Diva (1979) among their "Worst Rock & Roll Albums of All Time" (never mind that it wasn't even remotely rock and roll) wrote this: "For ever worthwhile new singer [disco] uncovered, like Donna Summer, it ruined the careers of one hundred soul and blues singers." Tyrone Davis and, ultimately, Johnnie Taylor, seemed hardest hit - and both at one time recorded for Columbia! The book singled out Aretha amongst those "ruinees," never mind her later '80's renaissance on Arista.
Yep. Eargasm was an excellent, coherent album. Yep, Taylor and Davis fell off immediately. I've heard all of those Columbia albums and they have a good song, but some of the work is gruesome. That new found pop audience ran away from him. Me? I didn't want to hear most of Tyrone Davis's Columbia sides, too watered-down, waiting for a pop audience that never showed up, ha. I like his gritty, heavily orchestrated work the best. Speaking of this, I have NEVER seen an early '70s Tyrone Davis LP in the bins, I don't own a Dakar/Brunswick album of his, although I have a few singles, had the Greatest Hits 8 track and presently have a nice UK compilation of his Dakar work. Yep. Tyrone Davis's disco work was awful, he had a song called "Get On Up (Disco)." Blech. There's probably some somewhat popular work, I don't listen, I feel sorry for him. Oddly enough, Bobby Womack was on Columbia at the same time--and failed miserably.
1970 was a great year for music in general, does anyone know why 'O-oh Child' made it higher on the pop charts that on the R&B charts, it seems very R&B of that era.
Probably too bubblegum-ish for the R&B audience (The 5 Stairsteps seemed one of the more underrated acts in that sense, though I prefer this one vastly to all other covers - especially one by the late Valerie Carter). Also, Buddah which released "O-o-h Child" was still steeped in their bubblegum rep at the time, though it would be awhile before they reoriented themselves towards more R&B and soul. But there were a few cases of R&B/soul records, over the years, scoring higher on the pop charts than on the R&B/soul charts.
I don't think pop audience ran from Johnnie Taylor, I think Taylor and the record company didn't care. Don Davis was also busy working with Robin Trower at the time, trying to get him an American hit. Tyrone Davis' music was decidedly R&B through and through. Interesting how both Davis and Taylor wound up on Columbia records after their respective labels, Brunswick and Stax, were acquired by CBS in 1975. They were victims of that corporatization and 'ghettoization" I was talking about. Also, the disco scene, and the renewed popularity of Black music, presented an opportunity for many Black artists in the 70s to regain some of theor pop stature that they enjoyed in the 60s. The problem is, the record labels screwed that all up by demanding they do disco. Disco alienated Black audiences, too.The truth is, and I think @Pickwick and others would agree that Black/soul/funk audiences weren't whole hog into disco. That European four-on-the-floor monotonous sound out them off. It was fine for a good tune here and there, but not to where the music went in 1978. By then, disco had no grit. "Disco Inferno" was one of the few that still did. "Le Freak" had just enough R&B to keep soul audiences interested. Even songs like "Shame" had a certain R&B element. It was in the bass line. Rhino and Columbia both have excellent CD comps of Tyrone Davis' hits. But, that's all I see, too. So that's what happened after to Bobby Womack after he left United Artists!
I never thought of "O-O-O Child" as bubblegum at all. I don't think of The Jackson 5 as bubblegum, either. I guess the embrace of these, and other soul groups by mature soul audiences made the difference. This is also why there wasn't a generation gap with Black people until the rap era.
Joe Tex and Bobby Rush recorded for Columbia subsidiaries around this same time. Oddly enough, those albums*** are quite good. I think it might be because they only meet the disco fad halfway instead of trying to swallow it whole. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ***Joe Tex released Bumps & Bruises and Rub Down for Epic. Bobby Rush had Rush Hour on Philadelphia International.
To me, the Jackson Five's early Motown songs were tailor-made for the bubblegum audience. The Stairsteps, for the most part, were straightforward soul songs that happened to be sung by adolescents. "I Want You Back" has been covered by quite a few adult artists; more often than not, it sounds awkward, like a 30-year-old wearing a 12-year-old's clothing. On the other hand, many grownups like Nina Simone and Laura Nyro have performed "Ooh Child" without making complete fools of themselves.
I think we're getting ahead of ourselves with the disco discussion. If ya'll want to talk about it more, there's a Disco thread that Grant started although with that going on, there might be little left to say when it arrives here!
After Tyrone had his first hit with "Can I Change My Mind," he had about a thousand followups that worked that same midtempo groove to death. Right up to his death in the 2000s. Me, I'm cool with it, but I can understand how several people thought he was in a rut. And then again, there was all that damn begging...
Yer right! This is what I meant when there are people who want to jump ahead. Maybe it's because the early 70s wasn't that interesting to them. But, I also think there will be lots of disco discussion and arguments up ahead. That said, i'll go ahead and post the next song in queue: Love On A Two-Way Street - The Moments The Moments were on the Stang label which was part of the All Platinum family of labels owned by Sylvia and Joe Robinson. Yup, that's the same Sylvia who would have a hit of her own three years later, and the same couple who owned the Sugarhill Records that were at the forefront of the rap phenomenon. In the 70s, their lo-fi sound was very identifiable and often annoying if you were an audiophile. The Moments had this, and a few other hits in the 70s, including one I really like that they did with another group called The Whatnauts. That song is "Girls". In 1980, they became Ray, Goodman & Brown and had a huge top 10 hit on both the Billboard pop and Soul chart called "Special Lady". The latter incarnation emphasised their three-part harmony even more.
He had a few sound-a-like hits with that annoying wah-wah guitar sound: "Give It Up, Turnit Loose", "Turning Point", and "There It Is". I guess he was trying to make records like Johnnie Taylor.
Sylvia was also the second half of the "Mickey and Sylvia" duo that scored in 1956 with "Love Is Strange." There, I said it. The East Coast copies were from a New Jersey plant I've never been able to identify, but some of which metalwork bore cryptic letters that turned up over the next several years on many a Superior Record Pressing-made copy of a Motown LP or 45. West Coast pressings were by Monarch. When they started out 2-3 years before ("A Dear John Letter" as by The Dixie Drifter [Enoch Gregory] was their first offering), RCA pressed for the combine, and in 1971 many 45's on those labels were turned out by Decca's Gloversville, NY and Pinckneyville, IL plants. Columbia never pressed for them, and I've seen no evidence that selected LP's put out by All Platinum, Stang or Turbo were offered by Columbia's profitable record club (which, about a year after this, became Columbia House). The cutting engineer at Bell Sound (still Dominick Romeo at this point?) did work to bring this up to something resembling "audiophile" status on the mono 45 issue of this. Amazing, considering how the BBC Grampian Feedback cutterheads Bell Sound was still using at that juncture made everything sound grittier and more brittle than, say, a mono record cut on a Westrex 2B cutterhead. I've heard this number on the radio with an audio quality that, on badly aligned stereo, would be characterized as "swishy," not to mention "phasey." Both it and its B side, "I Won't Do Anything," were previously recorded by an All Platinum artist, Lezli Valentine, on two different records with two different flips. I wouldn't be surprised if the same instrumental backing tracks were used for The Moments', especially given the budgets on the All Platinum stable of labels. It was also amazing the Robinsons got away with naming their rap label Sugar Hill, given that the year before (1978), two people in Durham, NC, named Barry Poss and David Freeman, bestowed that name on a new label they were starting up devoted to country and bluegrass music. That label, now based in Nashville and part of the Welk Music Group, still survives today. Joe and Sylvia's Sugar Hill, after a few years in the sun, is now dust in the wind, with only the music the sum of their legacy. What was even more amazing that the Progressive Label & Litho Co. of Brooklyn, NY, which typeset for both Sugar Hills, didn't mix up the label designs. I have a serious question, though. On many matrix numbers of All Platinum/Stang/Turbo product is the suffix "-GM," while a few have "-NO" matrix suffices. Has anybody ascertained what those initials stood for?
Love On A Two-Way Street was omnipresent on the radio over here but other than this and a later hit Look At Me (I'm In Love), that's the extent of my Moments knowledge. It's similar to what The Delfonics and Stylistics were doing so I liked it a lot, low-fi or not. Special Lady grated on my nerves for some reason. I also liked Stacey Lattislaw's slavish cover in the 80s. Enough time had gone by to make the song sound fresh again on the radio.
Then there was "You Wouldn't Believe," which was the B side of at least three 45's - among them "I Had It All the Time" and "There It Is."
Yeah, I forgot about that one. Just barely. Ya gotta remember, in those days if the radio didn't play it then it might as well not have existed.
I had never heard her version, only version I knew was Lulu's which I always loved, until I got her Rhino box set in the 90s. The intro to me is incredibly appealing. The song itself is one of my favorites ever and Aretha's take is probably the best I'll ever have a chance to hear. To me this song is about as good as Pop gets, I don't understand why it isn't praised more.
That song is Tyrone at his pleading best. Storyline: his wife wants to end it after ten long years, claiming he's been "do(ing) wrong." Ty has several airtight arguments against it - he comes straight home from work, he shows her his pay stub, etc. Wifey isn't having it. Personally I'm rooting for Tyrone - that line about the damned pay stub gets me every time...she doesn't deserve ya, TD!
Love on a Two-Way Street is another of those mellow early '70s soul songs that aren't really up my alley but which I like anyway. Can I Change My Mind wasn't bad either, although it's been decades since I heard it.
Don Davis was working with Robin Trower? What Davis was busy with the Dramatics too, he was a good producer. Yep. A lot of dyed in the wool R&B fans didn't like disco, thought it was silly. "Disco Inferno" of course is Philly soul too, Norman Harris, etc and R&B fans always liked that. Bobby Womack signed to Columbia in 1976. I'm a big Bobby Womack fan and both of those Columbia albums are awful. He didn't make good work again until 1979's Roads of Life, for Arista. I haven't heard Rush Hour but that Joe Tex album is excellent, yep most of Bumps and Bruises is southern R&B with a bit of disco. The album is a classic.
