Texas Flood: Legacy Collects Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble Albums

The late guitar hero Stevie Ray Vaughan is getting an epic release from Epic Records and Legacy Recordings. On October 28, Legacy will unveil Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble: The Complete Epic Recordings Collection, a 12-CD box set compiling, for the first time, the entirety of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble’s official studio and live album canon at Epic. The box set will include the first commercial release of A Legend in the Making, a promotional recording of the band’s landmark 1983 performance at Toronto’s El Mocambo club, and will also feature two discs of SRV’s odds and ends.

The late Vaughan, who tragically perished in a helicopter crash on August 27, 1990, built his reputation on the Texas club scene in the 1970s as one of the most exciting and innovative guitarists around.   Younger brother of another blues great, Jimmie Vaughan, Stevie Ray played in The Nightcrawlers with Leon Russell’s onetime Asylum Choir partner Marc Benno and famed Austin singer/songwriter Doyle Bramhall, and joined Denny Freeman in The Cobras. But it was the Triple Threat Revue that morphed into Double Trouble, the unit with which Vaughan would set off a blues revival in, of all decades, the 1980s.

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble – Stevie Ray (guitar, vocals), Tommy Shannon (bass) and Chris “Whipper” Layton (drums) – caught the ear of David Bowie at the 1982 Montreux Jazz Festival, and the ever-astute artist enlisted the blazing guitarist for his Let’s Dance album. Naturally, word spread. Jackson Browne was impressed enough to offer the band use of his Los Angeles recording studio, leading to the recordings which found their way to a man who knew a little about the blues: venerable record man John Hammond, Sr. The elder Hammond played a major role in the careers of artists from Benny Goodman and Count Basie to Aretha Franklin and Bob Dylan, and he brought the Texas trio to Epic Records. The recordings were remixed and remastered, and Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble were off and running.

Executive produced by Hammond, the Texas Flood LP was produced by the band with engineer Richard Mullen. With both originals (hit single “Pride and Joy,” “Love Struck Baby”) and covers (The Isley Brothers’ “Testify,” Howlin’ Wolf’s “Tell Me”), Texas Flood caught on with record buyers. “Pride and Joy” reached No. 20 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, and the album made it all the way to No. 38 on the Billboard 200. Grammy nominations soon arrived, too, for the album’s title track and “Rude Mood.” Yet Texas Flood – beginning Vaughan’s series of gold, platinum and multiplatinum releases over the years – is actually the fourth album on this new box set, preceded by three live recordings.

Within the box, you’ll find:

• Disc 1: In The Beginning (KLBJ-FM radio broadcast produced by Wayne Bell, recorded April 1, 1980; Austin, Texas)
• Disc 2: Live At Montreux 1982 (July 17, 1982; Montreux International Jazz Festival)
• Disc 3: Live At Montreux 1985 (July 15, 1985; Montreux International Jazz Festival)
• Disc 4: Texas Flood (1983)
• Disc 5: A Legend in the Making—Live at the El Mocambo (recorded Toronto, Canada, July 20, 1983)
• Disc 6: Couldn’t Stand the Weather (1984)
• Disc 7: Live at Carnegie Hall (October 4, 1984)
• Disc 8: Soul to Soul (1985)
• Disc 9: Live Alive (1986) (Recorded July 16, 1985, Montreux International Jazz Festival; July 17-18, 1986, Austin, Texas; July 19, 1986, Dallas, Texas)
• Disc 10: In Step (1989)
• Disc 11: Archives, Disc One
• Disc 12: Archives, Disc Two

Collectors will note that Texas Flood and Couldn’t Stand the Weather have both been expanded for Legacy Edition releases; only the original album sequences are presented in this box set.  However, the bonus tracks from Disc One of the CSTW Legacy Edition can be found on Archives.  Family Style by the Vaughan Brothers isn’t here, but the contents of the posthumous outtakes collection The Sky is Crying have also found a home on Archives.

After the jump, we have more details – including pre-order links and the complete track listing with discography!

Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.: Esoteric Reissues David Sancious’ First Two Albums

When the members of Bruce Springsteen’s mighty E Street Band took the stage at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center earlier this year to accept their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, keyboardist David Sancious took his rightful place among them.  Asbury Park, New Jersey native Sancious, the only band member who actually lived on E Street, helped shape the band’s sound on Springsteen’s first three albums before decamping to begin his own musical journey.  Sancious’ first two albums – 1975’s Forest of Feelings and 1976’s Transformation (The Speed of Love), the latter with his band Tone, have both been recently revisited by Cherry Red’s Esoteric Recordings label.

Tom Werman of Epic Records wrote in the original liner notes for Forest of Feelings, “The music on this album (David’s first) is the result of fifteen years of playing keyboard instruments.  At age 15 he also took up the guitar and percussion…David, who is now 21, has given us an extraordinary album.  We at Epic wish him a 400-year lifetime.”  Indeed, music was part of Sancious’ life from an early age, beginning with classical piano.  In the fertile music scene of Asbury Park in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Sancious met Springsteen, his E Street Band comrades, and the likes of Southside Johnny Lyon and Bill Chinnock.  Sancious played with the future Boss in bands like Dr. Zoom and the Sonic Boom – also featuring Steven Van Zandt, Garry Tallent, Southside Johnny and Vini Lopez – and the original Bruce Springsteen Band, also with Van Zandt, Tallent and Lopez.  On Springsteen’s debut album, 1973’s Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., Sancious, Lopez and Tallent all appeared (along with a certain Big Man, Mr. Clarence Clemons).

Piano/organ/keyboard prodigy Sancious played a major role on Greetings, as well as The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, for which he not only handled keyboards and the pivotal organ solo in “Kitty’s Back,” but also the string chart and piano introduction for “New York City Serenade” and even the soprano saxophone part on “The E Street Shuffle.”  (He wasn’t involved in initial sessions for the album, but officially enlisted on June 28, 1973 in the group that would become known as The E Street Band, joining Tallent, Lopez, Clemons and Danny Federici.)  When drummer Vini Lopez left the band’s ranks in early 1974, Sancious recommended his friend Ernest “Boom” Carter as a replacement.  Though Sancious and Carter would both leave themselves in August of that year, they didn’t take off before performing on “Born to Run,” the single that would catapult Bruce Springsteen’s career to the next level.  It was the only track on the album on which they played.

Join us for a look at both of these recently-reissued albums after the jump!

Ace Soul Round-Up, Part One: Label Unveils Lost Treasures From Sounds of Memphis, Mary Love

When it comes to vintage soul, no stone is left unturned by the team at Ace and Kent Records.  A number of recent releases hit points from Miami to Memphis, and just about everywhere in between.  In today’s Part One of our Ace Soul Round-Up, we’ll look at releases from the Sounds of Memphis label and vocalist Mary Love!

Memphis is a long way from Hollywood, but the famous MGM lion adorned the releases of the Sounds of Memphis label, subject of Kent’s new More Lost Soul Gems from Sounds of Memphis.  The SOM story began in the early 1960s with entrepreneur Gene Lucchesi, whose family of independent labels struck gold in 1965 with a little song called “Wooly Bully.”  The Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs track caught the attention of the Hollywood giant, who picked the record up and guided it straight to the top of the charts.  Within the next couple of years, the massive success of the danceable garage-rocker had paid for Lucchesi’s Sounds of Memphis studio.  Top quality soul sounds were de rigeur for the studio; its house band was even lured away by Atlantic’s Jerry Wexler to become The Dixie Flyers.  Lucchesi’s studio right-hand man Stan Kesler used SOM as a home base for outside productions, and Lucchesi brought Dan Greer on board as the in-house producer and A&R man.    When Lucchesi and MGM entered into a deal in the early 1970s to team up, the Sounds of Memphis label took flight with releases from The Minits, Barbara Brown, the Ovations, Spencer Wiggins, and others.  When SOM and MGM went their separate ways, the label continued to issue smoldering southern soul from George Jackson, Billy Cee and The Ovations.

More Lost Soul Gems continues Kent’s definitive series reissuing (and in many cases, issuing for the first time) music from Lucchesi’s labels including XL and Sounds of Memphis.  Of its 22 tracks, all but four are previously unissued.  Those four tracks, of course, are genuine rarities: both sides of Carroll Lloyd’s Memphis-recorded single released on Capitol’s Tower subsidiary including a bluesy cover of Johnny Rivers’ chart-topping “Poor Side of Town”; Tommy Raye (later Tommy Tucker)’ s “You Don’t Love Me” as released on XL 101 in 1964; and Willie Cobbs’ 1973 “Hey Little Girl” from the Bracob label. The unreleased material – all recorded in the 1960s and 1970s – includes tracks from George Jackson and the group he produced, The Jacksonians (named for their hometown, not for George, on the Marvin and Tammi classic “If I Could Build My World Around You”), as well as Dan Greer, Stax and Hi veteran keyboardist Art Jerry Miller, and Barbara and the Browns (like George Jackson, subject of their own SOM anthology).  Billy Cee and the Freedom Express’ “Don’t Matter if It’s in the Past” is an Al Green-esque find.  The Donald O’Connor here is, of course, not the MGM star of days gone by, but a soulful singer with “You Don’t Understand Me.”  Dean Rudland has compiled and annotated this collection of deep soul treasures, which has been remastered by Duncan Cowell and includes a 12-page booklet.

After the jump: the scoop on Mary Love, plus track listings and order links for both titles!

Look Through Any Window: The Hollies Mark “50 At Fifty” For Golden Anniversary

The rich harmonies of 2010 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees The Hollies will be celebrated by the Parlophone label on September 22 in the U.K. and October 21 in the U.S. with the release of 50 at Fifty, a new 3-CD career-spanning anthology of 50 songs originally released between 1963 and the present day (including one previously unissued recording).

The new anthology, officially announced on The Hollies’ website, includes material from the band’s various lineups as originally released on the Parlophone, Polydor, EMI, WEA and Columbia labels. The first disc handily chronicles the band’s classic line-up of Allan Clarke, Graham Nash, Bobby Elliott and Tony Hicks with bassists Eric Haydock and Bernie Calvert, with the remaining two CDs spotlighting the important contributions of future Hollies like Terry Sylvester and Mikael Rickfors. The collection kicks off with every one of the group’s U.K. A-sides between 1963’s debut single “(Ain’t That) Just Like Me” and 1974’s “The Air That I Breathe” save one: 1966’s quirky Burt Bacharach/Hal David film theme “After the Fox,” a duet with Peter Sellers released on the United Artists label. The first six A-sides are presented in mono; every other track on this set is in stereo.

“The Air That I Breathe” was the band’s final U.K. Top 10 hit until 1988, when the reissued “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” reached the chart’s zenith. So from that point on, 50 at 50 offers a selection of key A-sides, flips, live versions and album tracks including a 1976 live performance of “Too Young to Be Married,” Tony Hicks’ hit which wasn’t even released as a single in the U.K.; the reunion single “Stop! In the Name of Love” with Graham Nash and its comparatively rare New Zealand B-side “Let Her Go Down”; tracks from two recent albums featuring current (since 2004) lead vocalist Peter Howarth; and one brand new song, “Skylarks.”

After the jump, we have more details including the complete track listing with discographical annotation and pre-order links!

Don’t Stop The Music: A Big Break Bounty, Part Two

Welcome to the second part of our series exploring the bounty of summer offerings from Cherry Red’s Big Break Records label!

Big Break has a pair of releases from 1976 including an expanded edition of Earth, Wind and Fire’s Spirit. The 1976 LP was a major turning point for the band – with leader Maurice White assuming the producer’s chair following the death of Charles Stepney during its sessions – as well as one of its most successful records, peaking at No. 2 Pop and R&B on the Billboard charts and eventually going Double Platinum.  Spirit followed the back-to-back smashes Gratitude and That’s the Way of the World, both of which went to No. 1 Pop and R&B and established EWF’s brassy soul-funk supremacy.  Yet Spirit’s success is even remarkable considering that the tight (9 tracks in 36 minutes!), soaring and incredibly musical album didn’t produce a hit Pop single on the order of “Shining Star” or “Sing a Song.”

Its title track honored Charles Stepney, whose innovative work with Rotary Connection, Minnie Riperton and EWF (among others) brought a hip and psychedelic, yet musically sophisticated, sensibility to R&B and funk.  Stepney’s completed charts were joined by those of Jerry Peters and Tom Tom 84 for the LP.  The single “Getaway” arrived in advance of the album’s release and rewarded EWF with a No. 12 Pop/No. 1 R&B hit; “Saturday Nite” made a big splash on R&B (No. 2) but stalled just outside of the Pop Top 20.  Spirit today remains one of the most perfect examples of EWF’s art, combining pop, soul, funk and spirituality into a stirring whole.  BBR’s new edition features comprehensive liner notes from Christian John Wikane (drawing on interviews with Maurice White, Larry Dunn and Philip Bailey), remastering from Dickson, and a full complement of nine bonus tracks.  All five bonuses from Columbia/Legacy’s 2001 U.S. reissue have been happily retained, and four more have been newly added: the 12-inch mix and instrumental version of “Getaway,” and the single edits of “Saturday Nite” and “Departure.”  Spirit is housed in a Super Jewel Box.

From the same year, BBR has a reissue of Misty Blue from southern soul great Dorothy Moore.  The album’s title track took the Mississippi-born vocalist to the No. 2 spot on the Billboard R&B chart and No. 3 on the Pop countdown, crowning a career that had already found her as part of an Epic Records girl group (The Poppies) and singing backgrounds for Jean Knight and King Floyd on “Mr. Big Stuff” and “Groove Me,” respectively.  Those two hits were recorded by Jackson, Mississippi’s own Malaco Productions team, and it was the Malaco label which would release “Misty Blue.”  Moore promoted the smoldering slab of R&B on American Bandstand, Soul Train and The Midnight Special, and three months after the 45’s January 1976 release, Malaco issued the Misty Blue LP.

After the jump: more on Dorothy Moore, plus Phyllis Nelson, Yarbrough and Peoples, and The Waters!

They Shall Be Released: Bob Dylan and The Band’s “The Basement Tapes, Complete” Arrives In November

Come all without, come all within, you’ll not see nothing like The Basement Tapes, Complete.  On November 4, Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings will grant an official release to perhaps the most coveted collection of songs in Bob Dylan’s storied catalogue.  The eleventh installment of Dylan’s acclaimed Bootleg Series presents, for the very first time, six discs of The Basement Tapes – as recorded in the summer of 1967 by Dylan and the group that would later become The Band, and per the label, including “every salvageable recording from the tapes, including recently discovered early gems recorded in the ‘Red Room’ of Dylan’s home in upstate New York.”  In addition, this set – meticulously restored by The Band’s Garth Hudson and Canadian music archivist Jan Haust – is being presented “as intact as possible.  Also, unlike the official 1975 release, these performances are presented as close as possible to the way they were originally recorded and sounded back in the summer of 1967.  The tracks on The Basement Tapes Complete run in mostly chronological order based on Garth Hudson’s numbering system.”

In addition to the 6-CD, 138-song box set, a 2-CD, 38-song highlights version of The Bootleg Series Volume 11 will be released as The Basement Tapes Raw.  This iteration will also be presented as a 3-LP vinyl set.  All versions are due on November 4.

After the jump: a look further into the world of The Basement Tapes, plus the full track listing and pre-order links!

Review: Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, “Riding Your Way: The Lost Transcriptions for Tiffany Music 1946-1947”

“Pull another chair at the table,” comes the invitation that opens Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys’ Riding Your Way, the new deluxe 2-CD set from Real Gone Music (RGM-0244). “Make room in your heart for a friend,” goes the second song on this collection featuring 50 of the never-before-released Lost Transcriptions for Tiffany Music circa 1946-1947. You’ll want to pull up that chair, and make room for Wills, with this remarkable (and remarkably entertaining) historical find filled with good, old-fashioned cowboy music. Real Gone has given the royal treatment to the King of Western Swing.

Songwriter, fiddler and bandleader Bob Wills carved out his niche in the realm of western swing, playing the music before it even had a name and continuing to do so until his death in 1975. Wills and his band The Texas Playboys flourished in the era of Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Sammy Kaye, Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman. They fused acoustic and electric country-and-western guitars, fiddle and banjo with prominent steel guitar, drums, piano, horns and reeds to create music that combined the excitement of urbane big-band with the rural, downhome charm of country and folk – and above all, was danceable.

1940’s “New San Antonio Rose,” written by Wills, propelled his group to widespread fame.   A recording by Bing Crosby – onetime band singer for Paul Whiteman – sold over one million copies. Wills and the Playboys travelled to Hollywood to star in films like Take Me Back to Oklahoma opposite singing cowboy Tex Ritter, and challenged conventions by bringing horns and drums onto the hallowed stage of the Grand Ole Opry. In 1946 and 1947, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys recorded almost 400 full songs for Tiffany Music, Inc., a body of work that came to be known simply as “the Tiffany Transcriptions.” (Wills was a partner in Tiffany Music.) These recordings were distributed only to radio stations on 16-inch transcription discs, intended for airplay as part of a syndicated radio program featuring Wills and his band.

Recorded by the busy band on Mondays in between tour stops, these recordings consisted of largely on-the-spot arrangements of a wide variety of material from familiar Wills hits to standards, ballads, blues and swing instrumentals. In addition, the 16-inch, 33 1/3 rpm recording format allowed the arrangements room to breathe beyond the standard, three-minute limitation of the era’s typical 10-inch, 78 rpm commercial records. Many of these “Tiffany Transcriptions” were uncovered over the years. Vinyl LPs arrived from the Kaleidoscope label, followed by CDs from Kaleidoscope and Rhino. Then, all of the material on those discs was released in box set form by Collectors’ Choice Music in 2009. The 10-disc box, the label’s first, has since become so rare that a second-hand copy can’t even be found on the usually-redoubtable Amazon.com!

Before 2014, however, less than half of Wills’ transcriptions had been released. For Record Store Day 2014, producers Gordon Anderson, Patrick Milligan and Mike Johnson unveiled a limited-edition EP with ten never-before-released sides – yes, its tracks were never even pressed on transcription discs! Six of those songs appear on Riding Your Way, plus 44 more, drawn from thirteen sessions in 1946 and 1947. (Four songs remain exclusive to the EP, at least for now.) All are sequenced chronologically and grouped by session, with the sessions having taken place between March 25, 1946 and December 30, 1947.

Swing along with us after the jump!

Turn It On Again: New Genesis Anthology Features Greatest Hits, Solo Tracks From Collins, Gabriel, More

Earlier this year, the BBC confirmed plans for the feature-length documentary film Genesis – Together and Apart, chronicling the ups and downs of the 2010 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees.  On the heels of that project which featured the cooperation of Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford and Steve Hackett, Rhino (for North America) and Universal (for the rest of the world) have announced the September release of R-Kive, a 3-CD collection continuing the “together and apart” theme.  R-Kive will present a selection of Genesis’ greatest cuts alongside solo and band tracks from each member.  If you were ever looking for one compilation with “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway” alongside “Easy Lover,” this is the release for you.

R-Kive is culled from a 42-year period (1970-2012) in which the members of Genesis racked up 14 No. 1 albums in the U.K. alone, and some 300 million records sold worldwide.  The chronologically-sequenced anthology is the first to combine band and solo tracks, but the third overall for the band following 1999’s Turn It on Again: The Hits (reissued and expanded in 2007) and 2004’s three-disc Platinum Collection.  (Mention should also be made of Starbucks’ career-spanning Opus Collection volume, 14 from Our Past, which arrived in 2007 to coincide with the Banks/Collins/Rutherford reunion tour.)  It surveys the band’s entire prog-to-pop journey.

In addition to 22 songs pulled from all of Genesis’ studio albums, each member is represented with three “side” tracks.  From Collins, you’ll hear the hit Philip Bailey duet “Easy Lover” plus “In the Air Tonight” and more surprisingly, “Wake Up Call” from 2002’s Testify.  Gabriel’s solo catalogue has yielded “Solsbury Hill” plus “Biko” and “Signal to Noise.”  Hackett is represented with “Ace of Wands” (1975), “Every Day” (1979) and “Nomads” (2009); Banks with “For a While” (1975), “Red Day on Blue Street” (1991) and the collection’s most recent track, “Siren” (2012); and Rutherford with three songs from Mike and the Mechanics: “Silent Running,” “The Living Years” and “Over My Shoulder.”

Hit the jump for more details including the complete track listing and pre-order links!

Release Round-Up: Week of August 25

The Kinks, Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround: Deluxe Edition (Sanctuary/BMG, 2014) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. )

The Kinks’ 1970 classic is expanded with a second album – 1971’s Percy – plus an array of bonus tracks (many previously unreleased) on a new 2-CD set!

Mary Poppins: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack – The Legacy Collection (Walt Disney Records) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. )

Walt Disney Records’ deluxe Legacy Collection unveils its second release – a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious 3-CD expansion of Mary Poppins that promises to be the most comprehensive presentation of the Sherman Brothers’ score yet!

Randy Bachman, Vinyl Tap Tour: Every Song Tells a Story (ILS)

Randy Bachman of Guess Who and Bachman Turner Overdrive renown, is “shakin’ all over” with this new release of his 2013 hometown concert at Winnipeg’s Pantages Playhouse Theatre!  This greatest hits-centric set – featuring “Undun,” “No Time,” “Laughing,” “No Sugar Tonight,” “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet,” “Takin’ Care of Business” and more – updates a similarly-titled program of Bachman’s from over a decade ago, and melds music with Bachman’s stories behind the songs!  It’s available in a DVD/CD set as well as a standalone CD.  Features Bachman’s band including Marc LaFrance on drums and vocals, Brent Howard Knudsen on guitars and vocals, and Mick Dalla-Vee on bass and vocals.

CD/DVD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Blu-ray:  Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Esther Phillips, Black-Eyed Blues/Capricorn Princess (Soul Brother) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Two of Esther Phillips’ CTI/Kudu LPs – including the long out-of-print Capricorn Princess – are combined on one CD from the U.K.’s Soul Brother label!

High Inergy – Turnin’ On / Switch – Switch (BBR)

High Inergy: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Switch: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Big Break continues its series of Motown reissues with 1977’s Turnin’ On from High Inergy and the self-titled 1978 set from Switch!  Full rundowns of both titles are coming soon!

Dimitri Tiomkin, Wild is the Wind: Music from the Motion Picture (La-La Land)

La-La Land is now shipping its 2-CD expansion of the original soundtrack to the 1957 Hollywood drama, and this set features both the original film recordings composed by Dimitri Tiomkin and the re-recorded Columbia Records soundtrack release including the title song performed by Johnny Mathis!

The Criterion Collection: All That Jazz (Dual-Format BD/DVD Edition) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

The Criterion Collection has a lavish new edition of Bob Fosse’s 1979 film All That Jazz on tap!  The deluxe BD/DVD edition includes a variety of special features illuminating just how the innovative director/choreographer/auteur turned the movie musical on its ear with the shocking, and shockingly autobiographical, motion picture.

You Gotta Have Faith (Hope, and Charity): Real Gone Reissues Lost R&B Gems

Real Gone Music is moving to the sound of a disco beat! In conjunction with SoulMusic Records, Real Gone has tapped the vaults of RCA Records to present two world-premiere CD reissues, both with rare bonus tracks.

Perhaps no other genre has inspired as many songs imploring listeners to suppress their inhibitions and put their dancing shoes on as disco has. “Let’s Go to the Disco/’Cause I feel like dancing tonight/Let’s go to the disco/Where the music is outta sight!” The call to arms “Let’s Go to the Disco” opened the self-titled 1975 RCA album by Faith, Hope and Charity, which was produced, arranged, conducted and largely written by Van McCoy. Brenda Hilliard (“Faith”), Albert Bailey (“Hope”) and Zulema Cusseaux (“Charity”) first teamed as The Crystals (not those Crystals) and then as The Lovelles before canny producer Bob Crewe (The Four Seasons, “Lady Marmalade”) rechristened them Faith, Hope and Charity. They first worked with McCoy – in his days as a top purveyor of sophisticated, sultry soul, pre-“The Hustle” – in 1970, and their hit “So Much Love” gained them entrée to the Top 20 of the U.S. R&B chart and the Top 100 Pop. McCoy took the trio from Maxwell Records to Sussex Records, and although Zulema split from the group in 1971 after a couple of albums, the remaining two members stayed in contact with the producer. (Bailey and Hilliard had even sung on McCoy’s Disco Baby LP, from which “The Hustle” was drawn!) With the addition of new member Diane Destry filling the role of Charity, Hilliard and Bailey reteamed with McCoy and snagged a deal at RCA just as disco was continuing its ascent in the mainstream.

The gleaming, upbeat Faith, Hope and Charity followed the lush, string-laden orchestral disco approach that developed out of the Philadelphia soul sound emanating from that city’s Sigma Sound Studios. McCoy wrote or co-wrote seven of the album’s nine tracks, with the remaining two slots going to cover versions. Each cut found the arranger-orchestrator at the top of the disco game, surrounded by top NY session pros including Steve Gadd on drums, Eric Gale and David Spinozza on guitars, and Leon Pendarvis and Richard Tee on electric piano and clavinet. George Devens filled the Vince Montana role on the vibes.

Like “Let’s Go to the Disco,” “Disco Dan” reveled in the very sound of the new dance music, unabashedly celebrating it: “Disco Dan/He’s the latest, he’s the greatest…Makes you wanna move your feet and clap your hands…The man is really something!” Faith, Hope and Charity also found room to revive classic songs in disco versions. “Disco-fying” songs, from standards to recent hits, was par for the course; in 1975, Gloria Gaynor famously took The Jackson 5’s “Never Can Say Goodbye” to the Top 10. For FH&C, McCoy remade two vintage R&B hits. Both “Rescue Me,” Fontella Bass’ 1965 hit, and “Just One Look,” Doris Troy’s 1963 classic, featured lead vocals from Brenda Hilliard and respectably updated the beloved songs. Hilliard also lent her urgent vocals to the uptempo “Find a Way” from McCoy and his songwriting partner Charles Kipps, Jr.

After the jump: more on Faith, Hope and Charity, plus The New York Community Choir!