Frankie Beverly's Raw Soul 'What Color?' (Brewerytown Records)
26th October 2021
Frankie Beverly's Raw Soul
'What Color?' / 'What Color? (Instrumental)'
(Brewerytown Records)
Straight into the number one spot as best release of the year in my opinion, just wow...WHAT. A. TUNE!
If heavy gritty raw funk/soul is your bag, then fill it with this nugget of the highest order from Frankie Beverly's Raw Soul. Originally released in 1971 as 'Color Blind' on the Gregar label, this version has been given so much love from every angle, remixed for sonic perfection by Tom Moulton, beautifully re-mastered by Peter Humphreys and housed in a beautiful sleeve design by Jeremy Zombie.
Musically, this has it all, a superb deep funk arrangement that injects raw soul and raw jazz in equal measure to create a sizzling, exciting and epic nasty-face slab of wax. There's no denying it when a band can combine crunchy breaks, solid horn riffs and wild solos, scritchy-scratchy guitar licks and all driven along by throbbing bass and the kind of vocal from Frankie that rivals the best soul/funk singers ever pressed to vinyl. There's no drop in energy, there's absolutely no smoothing of the required grit and the songwriting achieves that sweet spot where it sounds like it couldn't be anything other than what it is!
So that's the A-side! Flip this baby over for another never-before-released instrumental mix from Tom, notably making this special with an extended drum break, and who doesn't love that?!
What I'm saying is, in case you're unsure of my direction of thought, is that this record is pure fire. Don't miss out, buy it NOW.
