Listen to the Friends of Distinction

Why their 1970 album Whatever is a hidden gem

Welcome music lovers!

Every once in a while here, I like to spotlight albums that are hidden gems—the kind that were released, quickly fell out of print and linger out of sight in used-record stores and on streaming services. The Friends of Distinction’s fourth album, Whatever, is one such release. The group is remembered these days for two very big hits: a vocal version of Hugh Masekela’s ‘Grazing in the Grass’ and ‘Love Or Let Me Be Lonely.’ Whatever is an album-length statement that makes an argument for the group’s unique approach to vocal soul. I hope you enjoy the essay on the album and will share your thoughts as well.

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There’s a certain inevitability that an essay about the Friends of Distinction will eventually wind its way to a discussion of the 5th Dimension. Context is important, especially as both groups had startling similarities. Both included male and female singers on an equal playing field and both specialized in a kind of soul that was sophisticated and designed to have mass appeal. It was, more specifically, a kind of supper-club soul, modelled in a sense after the music Lou Rawls was making on Capitol with H.B. Barnum and David Axelrod.

In 1969, both groups enjoyed massive popularity. The 5th Dimension reached the peak of their success with massive-hit covers of ‘Aquarius’ and ‘Let the Sunshine In’ from Hair and ‘Wedding Bell Blues,’ written by Laura Nyro. The Friends of Distinction’s ascent was rapid with their cover of Hugh Masekela’s ‘Grazing in the Grass’ a top five hit on Billboard.

Afterwards, the 5th Dimension would sustain a cultural cachet at least until the mid seventies. The Friends of Distinction would score another major hit, the snappy ‘Love or Let Me Be Lonely,’ before fading from view. A few years ago, with the release of Questlove’s documentary, Summer of Soul, on the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, the 5th Dimension experienced a welcomed reclamation, an assertion that their cross-racial appeal was not at the expense of their meaning to the Black community. The Friends of Distinction, of course, have not been accorded such a moment.

The reasons for this are understandable, to be sure. The 5th Dimension best understood that their kind of vocal soul depended on both the individual and the collective, and how they could be balanced off each other to create performances that held both dynamic and dramatic interest. Added to this was an extraversion to their music. What that meant was that you could give a cursory listen and still get something out of the experience. The Friends of Distinction didn’t offer such instant gratification. They required a deeper engagement.

The group formed in 1968 and were discovered by football great Jim Brown. They were initially comprised of Harry Elston and Floyd Butler, who had both been in a group called the Hi-Fis with LaMonte McLemore and Marilyn McCoo prior to the 5th Dimension, and Jessica Cleaves and Barbara Jean Love.

‘Grazing in the Grass’ was their debut single, released on RCA. It’s both exhilarating—Jim Gordon powers the rhythm section and the group performs many feats of vocal gymnastics (“she can dig it, we can dig it / they can dig it, you can dig it / oh, let’s dig it / can you dig it, baby”)—and introspective. Elston takes the lead (he also wrote the lyrics to Masekela’s theme) and his voice exudes a smooth, whispering quality. He is not crooning here but he’s also certainly not mailing it in.

The sound of his voice is pleasant on the ears and one needs to bend them ever so slightly in order to hear it. The Friends of Distinction's best performances are the ones that almost creep up on the listener.

‘Why Did I Lose You?,’ from their second album, Highly Distinct, is another example. Here, it is Butler taking the lead. His voice has an affectedness to it, a precision in his diction and a lightness behind the weight of his timbre. Again, it argues—even demands—that one pay attention in order to be fully taken in by his sound and the sound of the rest of group harmonizing behind him.

The Friends of Distinction were more polished than the 5th Dimension and, arguably, more soulful. Their sound was often reflective of the harmonic progressions of Northern soul. ‘Going in Circles,’ from their debut album, Grazin’, is a good illustration of this dichotomy.

The verse and chorus move through a series of climaxes that approximates the song’s preoccupation with anguish. When Isaac Hayes recorded it in 1971 to conclude his epic double-album Black Moses, the sweeps upward and crashes downward became operatic. In the hands of the Friends of Distinction, everything is more measured. Here, the moments of forward momentum emphasize the harmonic and chordal movement within the song, affirming its soulful colouration.

Some may find the effect mellow or even anaesthetizing. I would call it dreamy. On the group’s cover of Kenny Rankin’s ‘Peaceful,’ they marshal their sound to crest on the refrain, using its softness to embody almost a Zen posture against the appealing, brass-heavy arrangement.

‘Love or Let Me Be Lonely,’ their second and last big hit that also leads off their third album, Real Friends, is another example. By the time it hit the Billboard top 10, Love was pregnant and temporarily left the group with Charlene Gibson taking her place (when Love returned, Gibson stayed and Cleaves left, eventually joining Earth, Wind & Fire). Gibson sang lead on the song and like Elston and Butler, her voice was firmly in the tradition of the soul that was seductive rather than supercharged. While the song verges into an almost lounge-lizard double time, it is redeemed by a passionate coda.

The Friends of Distinction were primarily a singles group with their first three albums a collection of individual performances. This is, of course, no surprise—at the time of their prominence, soul was only beginning to embrace the album-oriented perspective of rock, pop, folk and jazz. Accordingly, there is an inconsistent quality to them. For every ace track—a souled-up version of Bread’s ‘It Don’t Matter to Me’ comes to mind—there is a misstep—their interpretation of Nyro’s ‘Eli’s Comin’’ takes the cabaret aspect of her music to the breaking point and beyond. Their fourth album, Whatever, is another matter.

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Here, there was a conscious effort to put together a cohesive experience. On the back cover, side one is called the “top side” and side two is the “bottom side.” The record begins with a brief flourish, a signifier of purpose before the opening track, ‘You and I,’ begins. Religious symbolism abounds—the call to “let there be light” and of “baptizing anew.” ‘You and I’ is a call for renewal and of an ushering in of a better day. It forms the principal link throughout Whatever.

It’s hardly a unique sentiment on which to hang a piece of art and if the Friends of Distinction don’t necessarily find something new to say about it, they express the familiar sentiments around it in often unfamiliar ways.

They turn the Guess Who’s ‘New Mother Nature’ into a Civil Rights anthem and modify its most infectious melodic idea into an earworm-worthy chorale. It makes the following piece, the literally named ‘Soulful Anthem,’ seem too on the nose, however. Compare it to the Temptations’ ‘Ungena Za Ulimwengu (Unite the World)’ and ‘Soulful Anthem’ comes off as unimaginative until the extended ending that is built around its refrain. A fake ending that leads to the Friends of Distinction and the musicians supporting them pushing on at full volume is undeniably thrilling,

A slow-building version of Jim Webb’s ‘Didn’t Me,’ with Love singing lead and navigating Webb’s song with impressive control, can be interpreted as a requiem of the losses of the Civil Rights movement in the sixties; principally, the assassination of Dr. King. Admittedly, to try to graft a political message to what is essentially a very lovely song is arguably taking imagination too far. But, still, it seems right to consider that there may be something more here. It segues into ‘Great Day,’ a flirtatious duet between Love and Elston and the musical peak of Whatever.

Other messages on Whatever don’t require such leaps of logic. A cover of Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield’s ‘Time Waits for No One’ is a call to seize the day. It’s also the best example on the album of the group’s blend, particularly on the transition from the verse to the chorus. It is of a lightness where harmony serves as a balm, the sweetness of the sound acting to heal, to help reorient the listener to something more beautiful. It perhaps lessens the bite of the cutting sentiment of ‘People Talkin’ and Sayin’ Nothin’,’ but also properly positions the Friends of Distinction as a progenitor of Quiet Storm along with groups like Blue Magic and Bloodstone, and artists like Al Wilson.

At certain moments, Butler sounds a lot like Wilson, whom by the time of Whatever was known for his hit recording of Oscar Brown Jr.’s ‘The Snake,’ such as some of the phrasing he employs on ‘Willa Faye.’ The song conveys an eloquent argument for authenticity—urging to not “bury the price of your past” and a gentle reminder to “don’t be ashamed of a soulful name.” It is built slowly and methodically, and sets up the album’s concluding message to ‘Bring Us a Better Day,’ linking, through a reference to the “Book of Life,” to the album’s beginning.

Whatever is the kind of album whose mark is made only to those who stumble upon it, play it and dig it. It contained no hits and was only added to streaming services relatively recently. It’s the kind of album I would pull whatever strings were necessary in order to license it if I were running a reissue record label just so others could more easily listen to the Friends of Distinction and see what they may discover in the music.