Baby, Do Right By Me

For your listening pleasure, I've assembled a mix featuring some of my all-time favorite soul sister sides. The mix starts off with a heavy soul number from Roberta Flack, taken from her 1970 album, Chapter Two. Aside from her stunning voice, this album strongly benefits from arrangement and production work by a number of heavy hitters, including King Curtis, Deodato, and Eugene McDaniels (who is also credited with writing this particular track). Next up is a track from Marva Whitney that has been a personal favorite of mine for a long time, as her LP, It's My Thing, is one of my earliest soul sister purchases (this track was released as both a single and on the LP, It's My Thing. This is the LP version, as I've never been able to get my hands on the single). Jean Knight, most well-known for song, Mr. Big Stuff, then follows up with a recent acquisition that is seriously funky and was the inspriration for the title of today's mix. The Sister and Brothers then provide another few minutes of funky madness (thanks for the hot tip, Pres) that has also recently made an appearance in a FuFu stew creation from Vincent the Soul Chef. From there, the mix moves to a pair of funky classics from Jeannie Reynolds and Betty Wright that don't need a whole lot of introduction, followed by a great piece of Motown sound from Honey Cone, that was penned by none other than General Johnson (I can assure you that this name will pop up here in the future). Ike and Tina Turner then turn out the quintessential funky sister side, a side that easily falls within my all-time top ten, that's an insanely heavy adaptation of Sly and the Family Stone's, Sing a Simple Song. To start rounding things out, Inez and Charlie Foxx bring things back to the soulful end of the spectrum, and Bobbi Humprey serves up a nice slice of jazzy funk from her days working with producer George Butler (pre-Larry Mizell) to finish out the mix.


Baby, Do Right By Me - Trunk of F.U.N.K. vol. 007

Tracklist

Song - Artist - Label

Roberta Flack – Reverend Lee – Atlantic
Marva Whitney – Get Out of My Life – King
Jean Knight – Jesse Joe (You Got to Go) – Dial
The Sister and Brothers – Yeah, You Right – Uni
Jeannie Reynolds – The Phones Been Jumping All Day – Casablanca
Betty Wright – Clean Up Woman - Alston
Honey Cone – Stick Up – Hot Wax
Ike and Tina Turner – Bold Soul Sister – Blue Thumb
Inez and Charlie Foxx – (1-2-3-4-5-6-7) Count the Days – Dynamo
Bobbi Humphrey – Smiling Faces Sometimes* – Blue Note

*R.I.P. Norman Whitfield. When I put this mix and post together last week it was prior to finding out about his passing. When I looked over this post last night before posting it, I had totally overlooked the fact that the mix closed out with Bobbi Humprhey's cover of Norman Whitfield's classic, Smiling Faces Sometimes (originally recorded by The Temptations). This is really an unfortunate coincidence, but nonetheless an appropriate tribute to one of the all-time great soul songwriters.