Great stuff as always, Robert. I'm definitely going to give this a spin or two over the next few days!
I'm not sure if it's because I'm in Australia (far removed from the rest of civilisation) but the videos for 'Why Did I Lose You,' 'Going in Circles,' and 'Peaceful' are unavailable.
And good luck with the launch of paid subscriptions. I can't pledge at the moment (Substack isn't making it easy to change my card details) but I will be (among) the first to take out a paid subscription next Friday!
Nice breakdown of an overlooked soulful pop gem. I have 'Whatever,' and it is an LP that is relatively easy to find and, more importantly, cheaply (I paid less than $10 for a minty OG copy!
The biggest problem the Friends had was being on RCA, which, while it had some good soul artists (such as the Main Ingredient), didn't understand the market well enough to allow them to sustain a longer career. If, say, they had recorded for Motown, they might have had more hits and more people would know exactly who they were.
Other primarily white labels had this problem with Black acts as well. The Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose, for example, only had a small clutch of hits on United Artists when they could have had more.
Good point here - RCA had better luck capitalizing on the psychedelic movement (i.e. Jefferson Airplane, the Youngbloods) than with soul (the New Birth were another group on the label that didn't reach a mass, sustained audience).
Very cool — I'm hip to their two hits but little beyond that. I'll definitely give this LP a spin!
Awesome - let me know what you think once you've had a chance to listen to it.
Great stuff as always, Robert. I'm definitely going to give this a spin or two over the next few days!
I'm not sure if it's because I'm in Australia (far removed from the rest of civilisation) but the videos for 'Why Did I Lose You,' 'Going in Circles,' and 'Peaceful' are unavailable.
And good luck with the launch of paid subscriptions. I can't pledge at the moment (Substack isn't making it easy to change my card details) but I will be (among) the first to take out a paid subscription next Friday!
Thank you, William! Appreciate all your support of the work I do here (and, it goes without saying, I'm a fan of all the good work you do!).
Here's another link for 'Going in Circles' that may work down under: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2kwzUgLwxg
Nice breakdown of an overlooked soulful pop gem. I have 'Whatever,' and it is an LP that is relatively easy to find and, more importantly, cheaply (I paid less than $10 for a minty OG copy!
Thank you, Michael. I grabbed my copy for cheap too.
These are great songs that I've forgotten about! Thanks for the reminder!
You're welcome, Dan!
The biggest problem the Friends had was being on RCA, which, while it had some good soul artists (such as the Main Ingredient), didn't understand the market well enough to allow them to sustain a longer career. If, say, they had recorded for Motown, they might have had more hits and more people would know exactly who they were.
Other primarily white labels had this problem with Black acts as well. The Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose, for example, only had a small clutch of hits on United Artists when they could have had more.
Good point here - RCA had better luck capitalizing on the psychedelic movement (i.e. Jefferson Airplane, the Youngbloods) than with soul (the New Birth were another group on the label that didn't reach a mass, sustained audience).