Friday, March 20, 2015

Hiding in plain sight


In the never ending search for my next soul fix it's too easy to go off in pursuit of the obscure (not easy at all to find the obscure of course, but you will get my drift hopefully). Too often I tend to overlook the catalogs of the relatively well known and more prolific artists. Gene Chandler is a case in point.

I was probably first aware of Gene Chandler through his late Seventies hits which started with the Disco smash Get Down (one of my early 12” purchases - in pink vinyl), and followed with When You’re #1, and an enduring favourite Does She Have A Friend? I couldn’t help, also, to be aware of his early hit Duke Of Earl. I have never really thought before to explore his output between those singles – i.e. most of his career!

This single I picked up recently at an occasional little record fair that’s in town – the one where contrary me can be found digging for soul in a sea of early rock & roll, teen, hillbilly and the like. Not bad for a pound I think. It spurred me on to explore more of Gene Chandler’s later Sixties releases, and I have discovered a few more that are now installed on my want list. They were hiding in plain sight all the time.


Unmistakably Chicago – don’t you just love those strings?



More of a Southern feel to this one. 

4 comments:

Charity Chic said...

More of a Southern feel - no bad thing!

drew said...

His version of There Was A Time is a belter and I also rate Mr Big Shot

Darcy said...

That's funny Drew, I was bidding on a copy of There Was A Time. It ran away form me though (I almost invaribly get a nosebleed when the price rushes into double figures!).

george said...

No Peace No Satisfaction is a fine record. He had a very interesting career did Gene Chandler.