
...my HHT is bleeding right on over into my Friday funk feeling, so I'll slap this on right now...Long before Nicole came along, Lionel Richie and his boys were laying down "the real skinny" with tunes like this, the title track to the Commodores' first proper LP...initially this album got no play on pop radio (a good thing, hindsight 20/20) but was on heavy rotation over on the R&B side of the tracks which was where I lived when I was a crumb-snatcher...it still amazes me how much great tunage was created by groups like this who sonically strolled right on out to the proverbial ledge that Hunter S. Thompson was talking about but eventually got diluted by the suits (and greed) instead of rowing away from the rocks...other greats-turned-grouses include the Ohio Players and Kool & the Gang (at one time they were considered "edgy", believe it or not)...this album, which hit the streets in the summer of '74 held tight slices like "I Feel Sanctified", "The Bump" and "The Assembly Line"...

...those who got into mining record store bins for rare grooves eventually caught up to it decades later-- I tripped when I caught this track being used as incidental music on films such as Boogie Nights which was, at least a cool movie but that's neither here nor there...next to Stevie Wonder's early work, this classic Commodores instrumental showed my young arse how funky a clavinet could really be...you might've heard it already...but maybe you haven't...FONK!!!
Comments (11)