Labelle: Something Silver CD Track Listing

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Labelle Something Silver
PRESSURE COOKIN' - LABELLE\nAt this point, Labelle sound like they clearly understand their niche: fastpaced funk-rock and overwrought ballads. The title track gets things off to a furious start, leading up to the album's masterpiece, a medley of the light, lazy Something In The Air with Gil Scot-Heron's proto-rap The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, searingly rendered by all three singers. Everything else was written by Hendryx, except for Stevie Wonder's so-so love song Open Up Your Heart, which receives a fine full-voiced treatment from the vocalists. The record sort of runs out of steam near the end, thanks to some generic pop tunes (Mr. Music Man, Let Me See You In The Light ), before closing with the excellent ballad Last Dance. Produced by Vicki Wickham; this was a one-shot deal with RCA that didn't produce commercially. (****)\nDBW\n\nPressure Cookin' was one peak, fronting a relaxed but airtight R&B band and covering an amazing range of material, including a marvelous medley of Something In The Air and the Revolution Will Not Be Televised.\nJS, Rolling Stone\n\nCHAMELEON l LABELLE\nThe last of the original Labelle albums, and it covers a lot of ground, from the lovely ballads Come Into My Life and Going Down Makes Me Shiver to the frantic political challenge Who's Watching The Watcher to the eerie Latinized Gypsy Moths. Although Hendryx is at her songwriting peak here, the only two tracks she didn't write were both released as singles: the funky dance track Get You Someone New (with the Tower Of Power horns) and the overlong ballad Isn't It A Shame. The band is Budd Ellison (keyboards), Carmine Rojas (bass), Eddie Martinez (guitar) plus James Gadson on drums, Wah Wah Watson and Ray Parker Jr., Leon Chancler and Jose "Chepito" Areas on percussion, and Tom Coster on synth. Produced by David Rubinson & his infamous Friends, and he keeps the backing tracks interesting while allowing the vocalists plenty of room to do their thing: LaBelle is on record considering this the group's best vocal performance, and I believe it. (****)\nDBW\n\nNIGHTBIRDS l LABELLE\nA brilliant but erratic Seventies group., his trio of magnificent women vocalists included the high pitched histrionics of Patti Labelle, the hard-edged belting of Nona endryx an the sultry soul belting of Sarah Dash, who had earlier performed as Patti LaBelle & The Bluebells. In a way their problem was they were too good: they were capable of accomplishing so much that Labelle never developed a consistent focused style. The commercial highpoint was the Allen Toussaint-produced Lady Marmalade from Nightbirds, but Toussaint couldn't find the handle outside that brilliant single, and subsequent attempts found Labelle floundering through a number of unsatisfactory strategies. Eventually this lack of direction led to the trio's dissolution. \nJS, Rolling Stone
This rock cd contains 15 tracks and runs 63min 17sec.
Freedb: df0ed30f
Buy: from Amazon.com

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Labelle: Something Silver CD Track Listing

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