The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Arts & Entertainment => Topic started by: pmcd9 on December 20, 2003, 06:10:02 am
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I do a lot of my CD shopping at the Pawn shop. At $1.75 per disc it's an affordable way to check out artist you otherwise would pass on. My latest excursion yielded a curious collection of early sides produced by Barry White for the Bronco label out of Los Angeles.
Apparently before BW became the soul crooner we all know and love he was the house producer for Bronco records. Along with cuts from the man himself are tracks by Johnny White, Felice Taylor, and Viola Wills. Never heard of them? Well neither had I before yesterday.
According to the sleeve: "In 1966, Bob Keane created BRONCO RECORDS, a new DEL-FI imprint, to make L.A. as big a name in R&B as Detroit's Motown Records. It was Keane who gave Barry White his first opportunities as a Producer, Engineer, Songwriter and A&R man." It didn't mention if he had to also sweep out the studio and wash Bob Keane's car. Judging from this collection Bronco's plan to be as big as Motown involved putting out music that was exactly like Motown in every way. Not just stylistically, but personality wise and even individual songwise. Every one of these artist are a poor mans version of a Motown counterpart. Felice Taylor is the Martha Reeves doppleganger and Viola Wills is Diana Ross. Johnny Wyatt plays the Temptations role and BW is Bronco's answer to Marvin Gaye. All of the songs can be tagged to a Motown counterpart as well. With a little effort I could identify which Motown track they are copying in every case, but the most glaring example is Johnny Wyatt's 'Everybody's Going Mod' which so closely mimicks 'I'm Losing You' I had to check the sleeve to see if it was perhaps the same song with different lyrics. All of these songs save two were written by Barry White.
In spite of the rampant unoriginality I can't say I didn't enjoy it. In fact it's quite entertaining. They obviously used good source material and Barry White is a good producer and the singers all have good voices. All in all it's a very curious piece of musical antrhopology.
~Paul