ORIGINATION Gimme Shelter: Kaleidoscopic Funk Collision (v/a) LP
LAST LISTENED TO April 2010
CHANCE OF WAKING TO IT teeny
RATING ★★★★★
Formed in the early '50s, The Isley Brothers had always moved with the times. They'd sang gospel, doo-wop, gritty r'n'b, soul and funk and had been on RCA, Motown and their own label, T-Neck. In 1971, two generations of Isleys were in the group when they released an album of rock-tinged funk. The lead track on that album was a medley of Jimi Hendrix's Machine Gun and the Neil Young-penned Ohio. At over nine minutes in length, putting it up front on the album was a bold move but one that was absolutely warranted. The two songs, both forthright and powerful protest songs, were blended with such mastery that they sounded very much like they'd always been meant to be together. They added a whole world of soul to Ohio that it had never noticeably been missing, before segueing it imperceptibly into Hendrix's pièce de résistance, via the Lord's Prayer, whilst even having time to drop in a sprinkling of vocalised Hendrix guitar sound. It was and remains powerful, hairs standing on the back of the neck stuff. A very rare instance of the unimpeachable being transcended.
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