NEVER-ENDING
SONGS OF LOVE
Album Review of:
‘THE ORIGINAL DELANEY
& BONNIE & FRIENDS:
ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTE’
by DELANEY & BONNIE
(MAN IN THE MOON RECORDS)
We know the story, right? How this married duo end up as walk-ons on their own album. There’s Leon Russell’s spangly guitar and gravity-defying keyboards in synergy with Carl Radle’s chuntering bass in a full-to-busting 35-minute track-list built on girders of driving swamp-heavy Funk, with well-connected friends on speed-dial, Rita Coolidge, Jim Keltner, Bobby Keys and on, clad in thrumming propulsive horns. While half the songs are Bramlett originals, check the writer credits behind Bonnie – first blue-eyed Ikette, on her soul-stirring “When The Battle Is Over” to find Mac ‘Dr John’ Rebenneck, or the pleading testifying “Do Right Woman” from Chips Moman originally Dan Penned for Aretha. Then read the co-writer credits of the wailing “Someday” and there’s Jerry Allison in there, or the impassioned “The Ghetto” to find Homer Banks with Jimmie Haskell strings. All spine-tingling – if more for the ‘Friends’ than the headline duo. This 1969 album came in a three-way label battle, from Stax who’d issued the duo’s debut LP ‘Home’ barely three months earlier, to Apple via litigation onto Elektra – before they moved on to Atco for their Eric Clapton hook-up. Recorded in LA, and more critically-acclaimed and influential than it was a big-seller, D&B were innovative in opening up a genre-portal into steaming Memphis R&B.
Published in:
‘R’N’R’ Vol.2 No.64 July-August (UK – July 2017)
Album Review of:
‘SOME THINGS COMING’
& ‘MOBIUS STRIP’
by DELANEY BRAMLETT
(UP SOUNDS)
Published in:
‘R2: ROCK ‘N’ REEL Vol.2 No.46 (July/Aug)’
(UK – July 2014)
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