This album has been in-demand since the late 80s for its uncompromising blend of funk and sample-friendly numbers. Here on CD for the first time.
When we started the BGP Funk & Jazz Classics series earlier this year we had an idea that we would put a few albums out, and that would be that. But as we reach our third batch of five we have found that there is a whole world of sought-after original albums, which for a myriad of reasons have failed to turn up in the reissue racks. This time we have come up with something very special, digging deep into the Stax Records vaults to rescue five of the most collectable albums on the label.
Roy Lee Johnson & The Villagers brilliant LP was recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama. Johnson is famous as the man who wrote ‘Mr Moonlight’, as covered by the Beatles in 1964. By the early 70s he had developed an incendiary live act, which prompted Muscle Shoals Sound’s Jimmy Johnson to sign him to Stax. The result is one of the most consistent funk albums of all time. Worth the price of admission is the astounding ‘Patch It Up’ and ‘The Dryer’, but every cut is good or better.
By Dean Rudland
