Betty Wright: Hard To Stop - 1973
Betty is now entering her classic period, serving up more kick-ass, take-no-prisoners soul.
Possibly her most raw, passionate and muscular album, it kicks off with Betty's killer take on Helen Reddy's feminist anthem I Am Woman. If anything, Betty's down 'n' dirty, soulful rendition is the more powerful version, giving it a punchy, brassy, gospel-influenced feel to it.
Sweet Wonder is a glorious Stax-ish puncher of a track that I am sure Southside Johnny would have loved. It kicks serious ass, as indeed is the pounding The Experts. Both of these tracks are brassy seventies, Memphis-style soul of the highest order. Betty's attitude on this album is upbeat and rockin', less mournful, less cynical, more go-getting. Those familiar themes of bedroom infidelity are still there, though.
We The Two Of Us is a jaunty little number powered along by some organ of the kind used a great deal on Elvis Costello's 1980 Get Happy!! album, which was, of course, highly-influenced by seventies soul of this type. Betty shows she can do a big Stay With Me Baby-style shouter of a ballad in Let Me Go Down, which was a bit of a stylistic departure for her.
Gimme Back My Man sounds as if Ann Peebles has muscled in on the sessions. Check out that wonderfully deep, throbbing bass and those horn breaks. Merged with Betty's strong gospelly voice and those backing vocals and you have some seriously copper-bottomed seventies soul. As indeed is Who'll Be The Fool.
This was the album that introduced us to that little hussy The Baby Sitter - just sixteen years old and out to nab Betty's man. It's a great track, full of dripping wet Memphis funk. I love that deep sound it has. The song's playfully pissed-off "all you girls listen to what I say" story is amusing too.
If You Think You've Got Soul has Betty going all Funky Nassau on a funky tribute to an island (un-named) that is more soulful than her native USA. Just check out the superbly deep soulful groove to the closer It's Hard To Stop (Doing Something When It's Good For You), a song that as Betty telling us how she can't help but stay with her lazy, feckless man because his peaches make her wanna shake her tree.
From this year also came a fine non-album single in Let Me Your Lovemaker.
