A hot one...

... hot on my turntable, at least.

Friday posts are back and now the "double headers" are back too. I thought I might have posted a Louis Curry 45 before, but a quick search seems to indicate not. As far as I can tell Louis Curry only had four 45 releases, - one on the Reel label, which is a rare record, and three on the Detroit based M-S label that all came out in 1968 and are none too common either. His first for M-S was the superb A Toast To You which was a sizeable regional hit. I picked up a copy of it a few years ago but it is not in fantastic condition. That 45 put Curry on my radar and I recently acquired a top copy of his final release on M-S.

There is almost no information out there I can find on Louis Curry. An old thread on Soulful Detroit offers some tantalising glimpses including a wonderful story surrounding the recording of A Toast To You. But there is little else tangible. I wonder what happened to Louis, his vocal ability certainly deserved more success.

As was commonplace with Sixties Soul 45s one side is a slow burner and the other is aimed more at the feet. God's Creation is a gem and has really got me hooked, it has a distinctive and quite complex arrangement; there is certainly nothing run of the mill about it.

This 45 would have been issued only a matter of months after Martin Luther King's assassination and the uptempo B(?) side I've Got To Get Away From Here demonstrates the change in the air that was sweeping through Detroit and black American music in general in the late Sixties, triggered to an extent by that terrible event. It has a noticeably funky edge and is lyrically more serious and aware, reflecting the particularly troubled times that were being experienced. You can sense the the tension of the streets in its grooves.

Louis Curry – God's Creation (Loves Me) 1968

Louis Curry – I've Got To Get Away From Here 1968