Reissue

Delaney & Bonnie Home AUDIO CDBRAND NEW & FACTORY SEALED Stax Records STXCD-8626-2 UPC | 025218862622 1969, 2006 TRACK LISTING 01. A Long Road Ahead 02. My Baby Specializes 03. Things Get Better 04. We Can Love 05. All We Really Want To Do 06. It's Been A Long Time Coming 07. Just Plain Beautiful 08. Everybody Loves A Winner 09. Look What We Have Found 10. Piece Of My Heart 11. A Right Now Love 12. I've Just Been Feeling Bad 13. Dirty Old Man 14. Get Ourselves Together 15. Pour Your Love On Me 16. Hard To Say Goodbye Long before the term “roots music" entered the American musical lexicon, there was the music of Delaney & Bonnie. In the late 1960s, singer/guitarist/songwriter/producer Delaney Bramlett (b. 1939), and his then-wife, singer-songwriter Bonnie Bramlett (b. 1944), cooked up a flavorful stew of rock 'n' roll, blues, country, gospel, and roadhouse R&B. But the duo’s specialty was deep-fried Southern soul, and they came to the right address—Memphis—to record most of Home, their superlative second album. Backed by such heavyweights as Booker T. & the MGs, the Memphis Horns, vocalist-songwriter William Bell, and keyboard aces/future superstars Isaac Hayes and Leon Russell, Delaney & Bonnie were completely in their element. Whether singing solo or harmonizing in a way that was at once gritty and self-assured. D&B were at their peak on such stirring items as “My Baby Specializes." “Everybody Loves a Winner," "Things Get Better," and Bonnie’s knockout feature, “Piece of My Heart." Now re-sequenced and expanded to 16 selections. Home is where the heart is for any and all fans of savory Southern soul. ҉ Racial profiling is neither new nor confined to law enforcement. It has been an unmentioned presence on the music scene for too long and its damage to both creativity and careers has been enormous. It has also, unfortunately, restricted the very availability of the music, denying fans of all races from hearing music they would embrace and enjoy, if only given the opportunity. Few acts ever suffered the magnitude of misfortune that befell the soulful, colorblind aggregation of hippies known as Delaney & Bonnie (and Friends) because of such sonic stereotyping. Delaney & Bonnie had the best of intentions and an awesome array of abilities to transform their dreams into musical realities. But timing was something they didn’t have. Delaney & Bonnie were simply at the wrong place in American music history at the wrong time. White musicians in an era of newfound Black pride were secondary, if not suspect, to the traditional soul audience. A few cover bands were tolerated, but barely. Delaney & Bonnie, however, were not just parroting the sound; they were personalizing it with their own honest emotional expressions. In short, they were making soul music. At the time Bonnie Bramlett and the band were caught up in the music, too devoted to spreading the communal joys of their all-inclusive sound, to totally comprehend what they had accomplished, as well as why there was a backlash to their success. "We crossed a huge color barrier, but we did it in reverse,” she explains. "We didn’t stop and think about it, or why it upset some people. But after a while we knew we were being penalized for doing it by the very people who should have been enjoying it. Delaney & Bonnie kept on doing what they did best, mixing black and white to come up with something bright, colorful, and saturated with sweet Southern soul. And by following their muse they opened a door that a generation of superstars would ultimately rush through. Their influence is as enduring as it is significant. According to Kevin Phinney, author of Raising the Roof: White America's Obsession with Black Music, "They were true trailblazers who never get enough credit for their accomplishments. They were very popular with a wide cross-section of fans, some of whom had probably never heard real soul music before. They were also very influential on acts, black and white, here and overseas, that had massive subsequent success. It all started here, on Home. This release of that seminal recording is more an upgrade than a simple reissue since it contains a half-dozen additional songs. It also has been creatively re-sequenced for a more effective flow, one that gives a subtle rhythm of passage to the proceedings. The music is mostly provided by Booker T. & the MGs, although there are additional Delaney & Bonnie fans and friends involved, most notably Leon Russell, Isaac Hayes, Carl Radle, and William Bell. All of it emanates both the unshakable Stax soul sincerity and the unique atmosphere of the late Sixties when all seemed possible. Every song, each clocking in concisely for radio airplay, reveals much about the creative team behind the music. The most instructive example of Delaney & Bonnie's atypical-for-the-time musical approach is a Summer of Love standard, the Big Brother & the Holding Company hit “Piece of My Heart” that was the finale of this album in its original form. D&B don’t attempt the primal-scream Janis Joplin version, although Bonnie does have some wonderful wailing at its conclusion. Instead of overpowering the song with volume and vocal histrionics D&B let it unfold in a natural way, substituting keyboard work by Russell and Booker T. for Big Brother’s painfully out-of-tune guitar solo and having horns accent and empathize with the vocal. It’s a classic lesson in the differing sensibilities of soul vs. rock and it’s such a solid sonic success that even the most fervent Joplin fan can enjoy it without reservation. Other highlights include “My Baby Specializes," another fine and funky Hayes/Porter tune, complete with some soul-clapping and a William Bell backing vocal, recorded with Steve Cropper in charge of the session and the final version. “It’s Been a Long Time Coming” was the original opening cut and it still stands as an enlightening introduction to the Delaney & Bonnie musical method, while “All We Really Want to Do” carries intriguing echoes of both Otis Redding and Tina Turner. Most of the songs benefit from horn arrangements but "Dirty Old Man” and “Get Ourselves Together” are simple quartet numbers with Hayes, instead of Booker T, at the keyboard. But it all works and it does so without sounding like work at all. That may be a result of the unusually strong musical bond between the soulmates who sang the music. Delaney got out of his native Mississippi by joining the Navy. He remained in Los Angeles after he had served his stint and began to carve out a name for himself amongst soul insiders. Part of the Delaney legend focuses on how, through persistent pressure and powerful persuasion, he converted Eric Clapton from guitar god to complete musician by insisting he sing. He did likewise when producing soul saxist supreme King Curtis. But he didn’t have to coax Bonnie Lynn O’Farrell into making the most of the microphone. He also didn’t have to romance his future bride very long as the pair, sensing kindred musical spirits, were married the week they met in 1967. Bonnie, with a background including work with Ike & Tina Turner as a white Ikette—and that’s paying some dues—was much more to the music than just the female voice in the band. She was actively involved in the sound, especially in the songwriting, a fact reinforced by her co-writing seven of the songs on this recording. Bonnie, whose expansive career arc has since included participation in everything from gospel albums to a television sitcom, is philosophical about the original reception of the group’s sound, realizing the unusual confluence of socio-political attitudes the time generated. But she’s also fervently hopeful the music will finally get its fitting and proper recognition now that it’s available to a less color-conscious audience, one that has grown up with the cross-cultural creativity the group pioneered. “Maybe people will hear it now and recognize the trail we blazed for white artists who were gifted with the ability to be as honest in their expressions as the black artists have been for so long,” she says. And how could they possibly do otherwise after hearing the color-blind brilliance of the music Delaney & Bonnie brought forth to share with the world? ~ Michael Point, Austin, Texas (April 2002) SHIPPING TO USA ONLY Buyer Pays Shipping $3.99 1st CD $3.99... each additional $1.50 CDs will only be combined with other CDs or DVDs To qualify for the combined discount, all items must be purchased together, paid for with 1 payment, and shipped all together in 1 shipment. Please use the add to cart feature, once you have ordered all your desired items, proceed to checkout to complete your order with the combined total.