www.musicweek.com PRODUCTREISSUES
JAMES BROWN • SONNY & CHER • PHILADELPHIA INTERNATIONAL • PETER TOSH JAMES BROWN • Gravity (Big Break CDBBR 0126)
Arguably the best album James Brown made in the last 20 years of his life, Gravity
was released in 1986, at a time when he appeared to have lost his way. Written and produced by the team of Dan Hartman and Charlie Midnight, it affectionately parodies and updates his sound to great effect – the title track was as funky as anything he’d released in years, and the classic Living In America became his biggest UK hit. The remainder of the album is of a similar standard, with the excellent Let’s Get Personal surprisingly crediting a third writer, Alison Moyet – under her real name of Genevieve Moyet – who also gets to ad-lib a few exchanges with Brown at the song’s climax. For me, however, the best song is the exquisite How Do You Stop, a tango-tempoed
ballad, that draws a gruff but passionate vocal from Brown and was so highly-rated by Joni Mitchell that she performed it as a duet with Seal on her 1994 album Turbulent Indigo. Newly remastered, Gravity comes with half a dozen bonus 12-inch mixes and an informative booklet.
SONNY & CHER • The Collection (Music Club Deluxe/Rhino MCDLX 535)
Former session singers for Phil Spector, Sonny & Cher hit paydirt when they
signed to Atlantic Records in 1965, and immediately started churning out sunshine pop classics with a Spectoresque edge. All of their eight US Top 40 hits for the label and 32 similarly styled confections are included on this comprehensive collection, which includes the classics I Got You Babe, The Beat Goes On and Little Man. Most were written by
Sonny Bono, but the lovey dovey husband and wife team weren’t averse to covering the work of others, and it is interesting to hear their take on The Kinks’ Set Me Free, Tim Hardin’s Misty Roses and Don & Dewey’s I’m Leaving It All Up To You, later a hit for Donny & Marie Osmond.
VARIOUS • Philadelphia International Records: The 40th Anniversary Box Set (Harmless HURTBOX 001)
To mark the 40th anniversary of its birth, Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff’s
Philadelphia International label is suitably celebrated by this handsome 10CD box set, which features 175 of its most revered recordings in freshly remastered recordings, with a playing time of nearly 800 minutes. The most complete and comprehensive survey of the label ever produced,
it includes key tracks from The O’Jays, The Jacksons, Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, The Intruders, MFSB, Lou Rawls, The Three Degrees, Billy Pal, The Jones Girls, Frantique and a host of other players key to making Philadelphia International a major label. Writing and producing at a prodigious rate, and overseeing a 30-piece in-house band, Gamble & Huff shaped and defined the label’s sound, and when they were otherwise occupied the likes of Gene McFadden, John Whitehead and Bunny Sigler were there to take up the slack. Its output smooth, sophisticated and soulful, Philadelphia International has achieved legendary status, and this stunning release – which retails for little more than £40 at some online stores – does it proud. In addition to the music, there’s also a fact-filled 60-page booklet, which includes short descriptions of every track, and a fully comprehensive discography. Awesome.
PETER TOSH • Peter Tosh 1978-1987(EMI 6441762)
A core member of Bob Marley’s Wailers for more than a decade, Peter Tosh went
on to release a fine body of solo work, and this six-CD set upgrades, expands and anthologises his output from 1987 to his death nine years later. It includes his output for the Rolling Stones’ label and EMI in its entirety, with a generous helping of alternate and extended versions and a superb BBC concert recording from 1983, that was previously unreleased. Bush Doctor – Tosh’s first album for Rolling Stones Records – is perhaps the best on offer here, his style meshing neatly with those of Sly & Robbie, with the stand-out track being a cover of Smokey Robinson’s (You Gotta Walk) Don’t Look Back performed as a tasty duet with Mick Jagger.
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