Howling At The Moon - The Punk Panther's Album Reviews

  Betty Wright was from  Miami, Florida  and in the late sixties-early seventies she had followed the familiar pattern of starting singing in church, gospel choirs and the like, before releasing a fair few soul singles. As a teenager, remarkably, Wright was apparently instrumental in the  discovery of  George  and  Gwen McCrae , who went on to have success in the mid-seventies.   There are good tracks scattered all over the four albums of hers that I have reviewed and her mightily impressive debut covered below should certainly not be overlooked . You can choose any of them to listen to any time and the experience will be a good one. We are talking about quality early seventies female soul here. Lord above - my goodness me what a truly superb debut album this was. 1968 was a tumultuous year, the year of student rebellion, anti-war protests, social awareness reflected in music and the beginnings of strident feminism. Amidst all this turmoil, though, one thing was that comparatively slow

  Betty Wright's halcyon years were 1972-74 when she released a succession of raunchy-ish soul songs, in the fashion of Ann Peebles and Millie Jackson, often railing at unfaithful, feckless lovers or shamelessly confronting the wives whose husband she is dallying with, as if she is the innocent party!  Her funky, soulful signature single,   Clean Up Woman, the most well-known track on this album,  is very much in this vein, as also is  the excellent, Millie Jackson-ish  Secretary, from 1974   and the similar gripe at a perceived love rival in   Baby Sitter, from Hard To Stop. Girl you gotta look out for those other girls! Don't you turn your back now.  Betty has progressed from the semi-innocent young girl not wanting to be taken advantage of from her first album. Here she is, some four years later, an experienced lover, not wanting to give an inch to her many bedroom rivals, it seems - clean up women, secretaries, babysitters. Why, they're all out to take your man, Betty,

  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, highl

This was Betty's most successful album, at least critically, I'm not sure about sales-wise though, but all I know that it was an absolute corker. Starting with the party song of Everybody Was Rockin', a song about a "Zodiac party" -  "don't forget to wear your sign" , this is a lively, night-time fun groover of an album, on the whole. The Memphis Stax funk has merged with Florida good-time sun-drenched funk.  Florida funk? Want to know where that came from? Well, showing a willingness to diversify within the basic soul framework, in 1974  Wright teamed up with KC & The Sunshine Band’s Harry Casey-Richard Finch songwriting team for the addictive, disco-ish hit  very KC-ish  Where Is The Love .  Despite Wright and Casey/Finch being Floridian, that gritty, earthy Memphis-ish soul sound still generously pervades on the album. It has been described as Miami funk-soul too. So many sub-sub genres! Just as catchy and ebullient is the energetic romp of Lo