Give It to Us, Baby: Rick James’ Motown Masters (and More) Are Digitally Reissued

Singer, songwriter, bassist, producer, partier, punk-funk pioneer – however you know him, one thing’s clear: he’s Rick James. (You’ll have to imagine the word that usually follows.)

Though the world lost the “Super Freak” hitmaker 10 years ago this summer, his legend continues: this week sees the release of his authorized biography Glow, written with David Ritz, and to celebrate, two labels are joining forces to update his killer catalogue in the digital domain.

From the earliest moments of his musical career, Rick James (born James Ambrose Johnson, Jr.) was a bad boy. That career actually started with a violation of the law: Rick failed to report for active naval duty and fled to Canada, forming a band called The Mynah Birds (whose lineup would include some amazing heavy hitters of rock and roll, including Nick St. Nicholas of Steppenwolf and Neil Young on guitar!). The Mynah Birds were signed to Motown, but Rick’s past caught up to him, resulting in a yearlong jail sentence and an album that remains unreleased. As Rickie Matthews, the artist began writing and producing for Motown in the late ’60s, then hopscotched around several West Coast bands before returning to the Detroit-bred label in 1977.

Even before Prince laced up his highest heels, Rick James – whether it was solo, with his Stone City Band or protegees like the late, great Teena Marie – was one of the first major artists to meld traditional black soul and pop stylings with traditional rock and roll, a style he’d come to call “punk funk.” Tracks like “You and I,” “Mary Jane” and “Love Gun” were sensations in dance clubs and among rock critics. It was his fifth album, 1981’s Street Songs, that made him a crossover star, thanks to the Top 40 hits “Give It to Me Baby” and “Super Freak (Part 1).” (The latter, of course, will never die thanks to MC Hammer’s rap smash “U Can’t Touch This,” released in 1990.) Rick partied hard and played hard, releasing 11 Top 10 R&B singles over eight years with Motown’s Gordy label.

Eventually, though, he’d fly the coop for Reprise, earning an R&B chart-topper in “Loosey’s Rap” with Roxanne Shanté. But his second album for the label, 1989’s Kickin’, was shelved, and the 1990s were a blur of cocaine addiction and legal charges. James returned to music making in the late ’90s, and got one last major exposure shortly before his death: a loving comedic tribute from Dave Chappelle, whose Chapelle’s Show featured an extended sketch about James (featuring Chappelle as the young musician and James himself recounting his abusive friendship with Charlie Murphy, brother of comedian Eddie, whose debut R&B album was produced by James) that made them both stars.

The celebration of James’ life leads us to two conjoined catalogue initiatives from both Motown/UMe and Reprise/Rhino – and the full specs are after the jump!

Review: The Sweet Inspirations, “The Complete Atlantic Singles Plus”

Real Gone Music and SoulMusic Records have dug deep into the Atlantic Records vaults for a trio of rarities-packed complete releases from The Sweet Inspirations, Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles and Irma Thomas! Right now, let’s take a look at the music made by Cissy Houston and co. as The Sweet Inspirations!

Today, The Sweet Inspirations might be best-remembered as Elvis Presley’s preferred onstage backup group, but The King was just one of a staggering number of artists supported by the group, among them Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield, Wilson Pickett, even Jimi Hendrix. But Atlantic Records rightfully believed in the group as headliners, too – hence, the Real Gone/SoulMusic co-production of The Sweet Inspirations’ Complete Atlantic Singles – Plus (RGM-0263/OPCD-8853).

The classic, pre-“Elvis years” Sweet Inspirations recording line-up of Cissy Houston, Sylvia Shemwell, Myrna Smith and Estelle Brown evolved from the Drinkard Singers/Gospelaires families that also famously included Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick (Houston’s nieces) and Judy Clay (Shemwell’s sister). After backing Atlantic’s soul royalty, Jerry Wexler ushered the girls into Atlantic’s New York studios in 1967 for their very own session. The group recorded five albums and numerous singles for the label between 1967 and 1971; all of those 45s and a smattering of previously unreleased tracks are collected here for the first time. Only one cut made the Top 40 of the Hot 100, though – unsurprisingly – many more of the group’s vividly impassioned, often gritty songs scored on the R&B chart. Though The Complete Atlantic Singles features songs from Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, The Brothers Gibb, Carole King, and Burt Bacharach and Hal David, The Sweet Inspirations turned pop into pure deep soul.

What’s most immediately evident on these 37 tracks (three of which are previously unissued, hence the title’s “Plus”) on 2 CDs is the unusually supple sound for a foursome. Estelle recalls in David Nathan’s superb notes that the group was “famous for…moving harmonies up and interchanging parts so that the background vocals sounded so full, almost like a choir.” Indeed, the members’ gospel roots informed every performance. Jerry Wexler, and later Tom Dowd and the team of Brad Shapiro and Dave Crawford, knew this and supplied the Sweet Inspirations with songs they could plumb for raw emotion.   Bert Berns, a master of desperation in song, co-wrote “I Don’t Want to Go on Without You” with Wexler, first recorded by The Drifters and also by Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles. It became the group’s first B-side, supporting a wrenching version of The Staple Singers’ “Why (Am I Treated So Bad).”

Wexler had a knack for importing southern soul sounds to New York (frequently by bringing bands north to Atlantic’s studios) but he sent the Sweet Inspirations directly to the source in Muscle Shoals, Alabama as well as Memphis, Tennessee. Producers Tom Dowd and Tommy Cogbill oversaw their spine-tingling version of Dan Penn and Chips Moman’s “Do Right Woman-Do Right Man” at the same 1967 Memphis session that yielded a dramatic take on Bacharach and David’s “Reach Out for Me.” Penn also scored the group its first and only Top 20 Pop hit with the Spooner Oldham co-write “Sweet Inspiration.” Naturally, the duo wrote it specifically for them.

The Sweet Inspirations’ sound wouldn’t have proven incompatible at Stax, and in fact, the post-Cissy Houston trio line-up recorded an album for the venerable Memphis label. At Atlantic, the girls recorded 45 RPM slices of Stax soul by Otis Redding (an intense “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long”), Isaac Hayes and David Porter (“When Something is Wrong with My Baby”), Booker T. Jones and William Bell (“Everyday Will Be Like a Holiday”) and Steve Cropper and the “Wicked” Wilson Pickett (the brassy, up-tempo groover “Don’t Fight It”).

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