Eccentric Soul: A Red Black & Green Production (2012)

Tracklist
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01. I Really Really Love You - Father's Children
02. Sleepwalking - The Summits
03. Town Called Nowhere - Skip Mahoney and the Casuals
04. It Takes Two - The Summits
05. Dont Worry About The Joneses - Dyson's Faces
06. We Share Love - Skip Mahoney and the Casuals
07. Generation - East Coast Connection
08. I'm Not Ready for Love - Promise
09. Phoney People - Father's Children
10. Summer In The Park Pt. 1 - East Coast Connection
11. Were Two Fools In Love - Dyson's Faces
12. Lets Do It Over - The Summits
13. I Need Your Love - Skip Mahoney and the Casuals
14. I'll Never Say No - The Summits
15. Seems Like - Skip Mahoney and the Casuals
16. Linda Movement - Father's Children


Prior to the involvement of the intrepid Numero Group, Red Black & Green Productions (or RBG Productions), operated by engineer and producer Robert Hosea Williams (aka R. Jose Williams, who worked on three Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson albums), "had never been much more than a letterhead and three initials scrawled on a few dozen magnetic tape boxes." This package continues the work Numero did with Father's Children's Who's Gonna Save the World, an album of previously unreleased recordings that had been stored in Williams' garage. However, most of these fully developed and often excellent soul recordings from Washington, D.C. were issued throughout the early '70s on small labels like New Directions, DC International, and DMC. Four songs come from Your Funny Moods, a 1974 album cut by Skip Mahoaney & the Casuals. The batch is led by "I Need Your Love," a seven-minute ballad loaded with pained falsetto, group background harmony, and an impassioned monologue over twinkling electric piano. East Coast Connection's animated, breakneck "Summer in the Parks," featuring nimble Kool & the Gang, Earth, Wind & Fire, and Soul Searchers swipes/tributes, could have been used in an ad for D.C.'s parks department. The ebullience in the tempo and brightness of Dyson's Faces' "We're Two Fools in Love" is belied by its tormented lyrics, which detail the conflict of being a poor man in love with a rich woman. The Exceptions and the Summits both deal sweet, stirring soul, while Promise - a group of young women - offer energetic, age-appropriate material. Finally, there are three previously unreleased songs from Father's Children: an instrumental version of "Linda Movement," the stirring "I Really Really Love You," and "Phoney People," the last of which is a nurturing/scolding number somewhere between the Honey Cone's "Sunday Morning People" and the O'Jays' "Shiftless, Shady, Jealous Kind of People." Anyone who owns the Father's Children set, as well anyone with an interest in impeccably documented obscure soul, should probably get this.

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