BENTLEYFUNK@HOTMAIL.COM / 2025 / SINCE 2008: février 2025

jeudi 20 février 2025

Spargo – Good Time Spirit 1980

lundi 17 février 2025

Bruce Hornsby And The Range 1986 - 1990

There isn't a second of Bruce Hornsby & the Range's The Way It Is that suggests it's a debut album. On the contrary, the record sounds like the culmination of a band's efforts over many years. The group has a distinct sound of its own, often led by Hornsby's bright piano chords and elastic tenor, with cohesive and evocative arrangements; there is new age music here, as well as jazz and country, and the mixture is presented naturally by musicians who seem to have been playing with each other for some time. Similarly, the songwriting has its own flavor. Hornsby wrote seven of the nine songs with his brother John Hornsby, and they create their own world, a working-class environment of longing and loneliness set against the background of the Virginia Tidewater area. (The album cover displays a sepia-toned photograph of the band set over another photograph of the long Chesapeake Bay Bridge.) The lyrics are lightly poetic and restrained, for the most part. The exception is the title song (written by Bruce Hornsby alone), a brave if somewhat clumsily written attack on the heartless right-wing politics of the mid-'80s, as the U.S. suffered through a second Reagan administration determined to roll back civil rights gains. The boldness of the statement and the lovely piano theme more than compensate for the awkward writing, however, making the song one of the album's most memorable. And that's saying a lot when the competition includes the engaging "Mandolin Rain" and the appealingly romantic "Every Little Kiss" (Hornsby's other sole writing credit). Perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that the music is so accomplished. Hornsby was no teenage neophyte when he made it, having kicked around the music business and gotten into his thirties, and the band includes such veterans as David Mansfield, who may be remembered as a member of Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder troupe and the Alpha Band, as well as being a film composer. Sometimes a debut album just happens to be the first music most people get to hear by a mature talent, and that's the case here on the debut album of the year. (Bruce Hornsby & the Range went on to win the 1986 Grammy Award for Best New Artist.)

Aurra – Like I Like It 1985

Aurra – Live And Let Live 1983

Aurra – A Little Love 1982

Having created a stir with their debut, this eminently funky R&B combo was now ready to light the sky on fire. All fat bass and liquid guitar riffing, A Little Love was a nice combination of dirty and sweet, ballad and body-shaker. It was a smart concoction; the LP would give the band a Top Ten hit, while "Make up Your Mind" emerged a popular opener in its own right, giving Aurra their highest-ever chart hit. And it's no wonder. Among the best songs the duo ever recorded, "Make up Your Mind" was a complex slab of funked-up disco augmented by a superb classic rock guitar solo from Steve Washington, sandwiched within a fat bassline. But Aurra didn't let it go with that. "A Little Love" itself is a sweet song with a ferocious bite, the intro unleashing a heavy hook before the rest of the show, while "Thinking of You" remains the LP's best ballad. Stronger across some tracks than others, A Little Love is ultimately an uneven effort. However, when Aurra is in top form they are truly outstanding, and this LP is worth having because of that.

Aurra – Send Your Love 1981

A sextet, Aurra featured the vocals of Starlena Young and Curt Jones. Originally released in 1981, none of the set's nine cuts come in under four minutes, but then there are no nine-minute workouts either. The reggae-influenced "Kingston Lady" and their disjointed, disco hit "Are You Single" are the most memorable selections. Every song is pleasant, but often indistinguishable from the rest; if your mind wanders you have to consult the track listing to check what tune is playing and which one you just heard.

Aurra – Aurra 1980

For Slave fans, the release of spin-off group Aurra's self-titled debut in 1980 was a major event. While Aurra isn't the group's most essential release and wasn't their most commercially successful --1981's Send Your Love was the Aurra album that boasted the hit "Are You Single?" -- it's a solid funk/soul outing that has Slave written all over it. Indeed, the strong Slave influence is impossible to miss on such addictive cuts as "Who Are You," "When I Come Home," and the single "In the Mood (To Groove)." Those who had appreciated the rock influence in some of Slave's material should have no problem getting into "Too Much," a funk-rock gem that, in an ideal world, would have been a hit single. In 1980, however, "Too Much" stood little chance of finding radio airplay because it was too rock-minded for black radio and too funky for AOR programmers. The most disco-flavored song on the LP is "Got to Get My Lady Back"; while Slave and Aurra's albums generally had more to do with funk and R&B than disco, this Shalamar-inflected item was clearly aimed at the disco crowd. Aurra wasn't a chart buster, but among Slave's more hardcore devotees, it earned a lot of respect.