What I particularly love about quality soul music - any style of music, to be fair - is it's timelessness. A re-release from 1967, 1975 or 1983 can be as fresh as any new release that you hear new today IF handled properly! This particular album is definitely in that league. Better still is the exquisite quality of the remastering - from master tapes. This is a pre-requisite for me. Music like this demands total quality and this, folks, is what you're getting here. MCB comprised of Aaron Mills and Thomas "T.C." Campbell of Cameo fame and they carried on their impressive caliber of work for this single set for Epic in 1983. MCB were a prized possession on quality radio at the time, and the superb "I'm The One, You're The One" was, rightly VERY popular - even being included on the very popular Street Sounds Edition 5 compilation nestled in with contemporaneous giants such as Oliver Cheatham's "Get Down Saturday Night" and Terri Wells' "You Make It Heaven". Here we are 27 years later and this track STILL does the business big time. See? Timeless.The tender ballad, "Close To You" is another classy effort. It has a footing, I would suggest, in the classic Philadelphia balladry of Harold Melvin / Teddy Pendergrass and the sweet strings and piano keeps my mind on that train of thought. Belita Woods also adds an extra special something to this song - again harking back to the Philly area. The Rare Groove phenomena of the late 1980s saw the KILLER "Time Is Right" release on the short-lived Three-Way records...the title song, of course, being the KILLER inclusion from this set. Funky, groovesome, summery and essential in every way this highly sought after gem is now available in all it's glory on CD for the very first time. The slap bass, rhythm guitar and trumpet....simply delicious. This is awesome enough - to use current US parlance - but please check out the KILLER floater "Bring It Back (To The Music)"...sax, horns and slap bass atop a great Bar-Kays / Dazz Band / Con Funk Shun type groove. Anyone who is mad enough to dismiss 80s soul music as synthetic ought to wrap their ears around songs such as this. Far superior to anything released today, albums like this really should be given as much promotion and airplay as possible for once a goodie ALWAYS a goodie!
Barry Towler
The Vibe Scribe
The Vibe Scribe
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