Two sounds from the 70s, one a trend, one still alive and well.
When disco was king in the late 1970s, the vocal group Silver Convention had a ton of hits for those with boogie fever. Linda Thompson, Ramona Wulf and Penny McLean had the voices, the looks and the moves to create sexy harmonies to pulsating and catchy tunes such as “Fly, Robin, Fly” and “Save Me”. All of their hit singles are here, like “Telegram” and “Get Up and Boogie”. With 50 years of space in retrospect, the music is still catchy, and serves well for nostalgia purposes. Still got that polyester jump suit?
On the other side of the coin, by 1974, Little Richard was almost 20 years away from his most influential tears, but this album has him in inspired for, mixing some originals with soul standards and Chitlin’ Circuit blues in a way that still sounds exciting. He cut the whole album in one long session, and the recording has that “live” feel to it. Richard’s in vintage form on the rollicking “In The Name” and his piano work is thunderous on “Mississippi”. He does covers of “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” and “Chain of Fools” with his own signature sound, and makes it his own. He sweats out the blues on “Don’t You Know I” and the standard “Chains of Love” and is an absolute hoot on the R&B er “Hot Nuts”. Good golly!