George Faith - "Midnight Hour - Ya Ya" and "I've Got the Groove" from To Be a Lover (1977)
Hoping to see another comeback like in the 2004 ALCS, me and a million other Red Sox fans are trying real hard to "keep the faith". Until the game tomorrow night, let's just keep the mood light with a couple rare gems from an under appreciated classic from George Faith. Once again, I'll let David Katz's always insightful People Funny Boy take it from here:
"George Faith and Perry fashioned eight crucial tracks together during this period, all cover versions of American soul and pop hits re-done in a thick syrup of Black Ark rhythm. George noted that Perry suggested which songs to cover, hand picking numbers he felt the singer would excel on; he then re-shaped the standard ballads into something entirely other through his individual visionary treatments.
"Scratch gave me these songs to do because I do covers so good and Scratch gave the musicians a lot of work; he's a very technical guy. You can be playing a drum pattern and he say, 'Play that upside down.' His way of working is very unique: his rythms have a different sound, the mix is totally different from everybody else; he does percussion different from everybody else too. He might bring in the garbage pail, play a few instruments, then in a certain spot, he just kick that dirt bin. When he mix all the sound together, you get some way-out kind of sound. You see, Scratch is a genius. Working with Scratch, you learn a lot of things too. Scratch is really the type of producer who was deep into the music."
The album was recently reissued in limited numbers by Hip-O Select, a really cool label that has released some classic Scratch productions as well as some other great stuff.
I just realized after typing this that Katz also wrote the liner notes for this release and you can read it all here.
Ok- LET'S DO THIS, RED SOX
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