(April 2022) Episode 401 is BARRY WHITE. “If chocolate fudge cake could sing, it would sound like Barry White” – the baritone-bass voice that catalyzed countless romances. Smooth, soulful, iconic.
Favorite album: Stone Gon’
Favorite song: Never, Never Gonna Give Ya Up
Favorite instrumental (could it get any more 70s in here?): Love’s Theme (credited to Love Unlimited Orchestra)
Compared to expectations: same
Recommendation: essential in any spin of 70s soul
(March 2022) Episode 391 of the “opus project” is ISAAC HAYES. You can’t top his early 70s albums for sensuous soul and hot funk. Man I love that stuff. Not to mention his contributions to southern soul at Stax, development of disco, soundtracks (Shaft!) and as an actor, and a Chef.
Favorite album: Black Moses
Favorite song: Good Love
Best enjoyed: Making sweet love by the fire, with Chocolate Salty Balls
Compared to expectations: same
Recommendation: essential funk and sexy soul
(June 2020) Episode 268 is SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE. Look up “ground-breaking” in the dictionary and there’s a photo of this band. The music synthesized trends of the late 60s — soul, rock, psychedelic and the San Francisco Sound — into a rocket of sound, with timely social commentary, reinforced by their composition as first fully integrated rock group. But Sly’s most lasting musical contribution may be as one of the Founders of Funk. As with anything, best when funky.
Favorite album: Stand!
Favorite song: Stand!
Best funk song: Loose Booty (just ask the Beastie Boys)
Compared to expectations: same
(May 2020) Episode 265 is CURTIS MAYFIELD including his time in THE IMPRESSIONS. I dig late 60s-early 70s soul/funk, a sound Mayfield helped create and mastered. That sweet falsetto is so distinctive. I began with his time in The Impressions to get a full sense of his evolution from R&B into soul and the strong social commentary that characterized his work. His quality dropped off after Superfly, into banal disco and then bland 80s adult contemporary soul.
Favorite album: Superfly
Favorite song: Freddie’s Dead
Compared to expectations: same
(April 2020) Episode 259 of the “opus project” is STEVIE WONDER. Everybody loves Stevie and knows his hits. But you should dig deep into his albums, particularly from his “classic” period of 1972-76, to really appreciate his (inner)vision and talent as a song composer and multi-instrumentalist. Those albums are essential listening — the diversity and mixing of styles, the integration of synthesizers, the social commentary. His early teenage prodigy recordings are dispensible; the late-60s, early 70s albums a mixed affair, and the 80s pop cringe-worthy.
Favorite album: Innervisions
Masterpiece: Songs in the Key of Life
Favorite song: Superstition
Worst song: I Just Called To Say I Love You
Compared to expectations: ↑
(May 2019) Episode 218 of my “opus project” is JAMES BROWN. The Godfather of Soul, the Father of Funk, the Supreme Showman — all this is true. But if you groove out to James Brown — and I recommend that you do — find a greatest hits album and avoid the regular releases. There is a LOT of filler among and within albums: recycled, regurgitated, rerecorded material, even whole albums without any discernible JB content other than his name on the cover. This was another looooong one (63 albums). As with anything, best when funky.
Favorite album: There It Is
Favorite song: Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine
Worst album (tie): The Original Disco Man, The Merry Christmas Album
Favorite period: 1969-73 (most funky)
Special sauce: Bootsy and Catfish Collins
Compared to expectations: same
(August 2018) I have completed episode 177 of my “opus project.” This edition: PARLIAMENT and FUNKADELIC. Of course I did the P-Funk together as two halves of George Clinton’s cosmic brain. Ironically, Parliament is funkier, but aptly, Funkadelic is more psychedelic. The copious output is rather eclectic – rock, soul, psychedelic, R&B, rap, and even a country song and a heavy metal song – but at its core, it’s classic funk. With his versatility, irreverence, raunchiness, prolific-ness, orchestration of rotations of talented musicians, and insistence on doing it his way, George Clinton reminds me of Frank Zappa.
Favorite Parliament album: Standing on the Verge of Getting It On
Favorite Funkadelic album: Mothership Connection
Favorite Parliament song: Red Hot Momma
Favorite Funkadelic song: Up for the Down Stroke
Best album title (perhaps of all-time): Free Your Mind … And Your Ass Will Follow
Best album cover (among the greats): Maggot Brain
Secret Sauce: Eddie Hazel (just listen to his work on the song Maggot Brain)
Compared to expectations: same
(January 2017) I have completed episode 107 of my “opus project,” in which I listen to a band’s full discography. This edition: EARTH WIND & FIRE. Classic funk, soul, rock and much else, always in a sunny and uplifting spirit. This was my go-to music whenever I felt depressed in high school (I listened to a lot of EW&F in high school). 70s is peak EW&F, 80s and 90s are pretty awful, but in the 00s and 10s they get their groove back.
Favorite album: All ‘n All
Favorite song: That’s the Way Of the World
Sentimental favorite song: In the Stone
Least favorite song: Boogie Wonderland
Compared to expectations: same
(November 2016) I have completed episode 102 of my “opus project,” in which I listen to an artist’s full discography. This edition: PRINCE. I now have greater appreciation of the depth and breadth (39 studio albums!) of his work (beyond the 80s albums). To me, the artist he most resembles is Frank Zappa: prolific, diversity of musical styles, idiosyncratic, social commentary, guitar virtuoso, but most of all, both successfully insisted on control of their music and business, and on doing things their own way. He was a genius. Best when funky. Best when falsetto.
Favorite album: Sign o’ the Times
Favorite song: Kiss
Favorite period: 1980-87
Best album you never heard of: The Truth (acoustic)
Compared to expectations: ↑
Opus Project 