As good as the song is, you can hear that by 1975 the Disco sound had already started to permeate the living hell out of R&B. 1975 had such a different sound than the stuff from 1973.
Good point! The early to mid 70s had some great sounds with R & B, Motown, TSOP (as a thing, not just a song), etc. Disco, much of which I like(d), was the musical equivalent of a black hole, consuming virtually everything in its path. When you think about it everything changed after that. For the better?
As good as the song is, you can hear that by 1975 the Disco sound had already started to permeate the living hell out of R&B. 1975 had such a different sound than the stuff from 1973.
Good point! The early to mid 70s had some great sounds with R & B, Motown, TSOP (as a thing, not just a song), etc. Disco, much of which I like(d), was the musical equivalent of a black hole, consuming virtually everything in its path. When you think about it everything changed after that. For the better?
Gamble and Huff (and Thom Bell) were geniuses, and remain underrated to this day. IIRC, Gamble and Huff only received a Grammy when that "Simply Red" group covered "If You Don't Know Me By Now" sometime in the late '80s-early '90s.
I was pleased beyond belief when Tarantino made great use of The Delfonics in what I consider his best film, Jackie Brown. I don't know if many from my generation even knew or cared about early '70s Soul and R&B music because my dumb generation never references the early '70s, which seemed like an eternity ago when we were kids in, say, 1979. Watching a Partridge Family rerun looked every bit as ancient to us as I Love Lucy. Culturally speaking, the 1970s were definitely of two halves--more than any other decade, save the Sixties.
As for that cultural shift we discussed previously, in addition to Disco, there was also the R&B sub genre known as "Quiet Storm." It was quite a different thing than the kind of R&B that was dominant in the early '70s:
I love THE STYLISTICS. I remember them from AM Radio back during the early 70s. I have a couple of their CDs. Ah, the cool, mellow sound of Philadelphia...:-)
