Philly Sound

I get most of my ideas and suggestions regarding which music to buy from NPR or from my radio station manager friend, Pete. In this case, I impulsively downloaded Love Train: The Ultimate Sound of Philadelphia after hearing an interview on Fresh Air.

This is a boxset retrospective of Kenny Gamble's and Leon Huff's Philadelphia International Records hits. It's four CDs of stone cold awesomeness, with tunes like Cowboys to Girls, Rubberband Man, Back Stabbers, Western Union Man, La-La Means I love you, I ain't jivin' I'm jammin'. It's that symphonic black sound of the 70s, and it's one of the nicer collections I've gotten in a while. It really makes me want to go back and delve other eras like Motown or Stax. I just added the 1973 documentary Wattstax to my Netflix queue.

My only caveat is that this set seems to lead to guys without soul screeching meaningful falsetto around the house.