Young-Holt Unlimited - 1973 - Plays Superfly

Fantastic! Young and Holt lay down a monster set of grooves from Curtis Mayfield's Superfly soundtrack (all the good ones -- like "Freddie's Dead", "Give Me Your Love", "Pusher Man", and "Superfly"), and they also get into some funky tracks of their own (like "Hey Pancho" and "Mystical Man"), and do a super-dope cover of "People Make the World Go Round". The album's nice and stripped down -- perhaps closest to their Oh Girl LP on Atlantic in feel, with loads of cool electric piano by Ken Chaney, laid out over the group's harder funky grooves! One of their rarest in the original, too -- and an essential bit of early G-funk!

01 - Freddie's Dead

02 - Give Me Your Love

03 - Pusher Man

04 - Superfly

05 - Hey Pancho

06 - Could It Be I'm Falling In Love

07 - (They Long To Be) Close To You

08 - People Make The World Go Round

09 - Mystical Man

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Eddy Senay - 1972 - Hot Thang

A heck of a great little guitar funk album -- one of two rare sides cut by the amazing Eddie Senay! The record's all-instrumental -- and Eddie's fuzzed-out guitar takes center stage over tripped-out arrangements that recall the best psychedelic funk of the early 70s -- bubbling along with just enough drums, bass, and keyboards to make for a chunky bottom groove -- while Senay wails over the top on guitar! The record reminds us of similar guitar funk albums from the time -- including the work of Dennis Coffey, Eddie Fisher, or Donald Austin -- but the groove's even more laidback and trippy, with a few nice breakway moments from the rhythm section.

01 - Just Feeling It

02 - Down Home

03 - Hot Thang

04 - Zambezi

05 - Jubo

06 - Reverend Lowdown

07 - Ain't No Sunshine

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Frank Owens - 1973 - Brown 'N Serve

A lost bit of mellow funk, and one of the few rare releases on the Encounter label -- which was sort of a doper, more soulful version of CTI! Frank Owens plays organ and keyboards, and the group includes Bernard Purdie lending his trademark soul jazz drums (a very welcome fixture on most of the albums that appeared on Encounter), Bad Bascomb on guitar, Rick Cutter on vibes, Norman Pride on percussion, John Helstone on violin, Julian Buck on viola, Kermit Moore on cello, and others. Purdie produced the session, which includes a nice version of "Freddie's Dead", plus "Everybody Is A Star", Aretha Franklin's "Rock Steady", "I Don't Need No Help", Galt MacDermot's "Suzie Moon", "Corner Of The Sky", Frank Owen's own "Brown & Serve", and more!

Bernard "Pretty" Purdie - Drums, Producer

Doug Bascomb - Guitar

Frank Owens - Organ, Piano

Hugh McCracken - Guitar

Julian Buck - Viola

Kermit Moore - Cello

Norman Pride - Percussion

Rick Cutter - Vibraphone

Selwart Clarke - Violin

01 - Freddie's Dead

02 - Brown 'N Serve

03 - Everybody Is a Star

04 - I Don't Need No Help

05 - Rock Steady

06 - Suzie Moon

07 - Corner Of The Sky

08 - Ben

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