Is 90% good enough?

As we have discussed before on this very forum, there are some songs in your collection which just serve to slay you very time you hear them. Often they hold special and personal memories wrapped up in their rhythms, sometimes they are a well-worn mainstream hit, sometimes a new piece recommended by a trusted compadre, or an album track that is infrequently stumbled upon but always appreciated. Equally often there are those singular tunes from an artist whose back catalogue you know very little about, their standout track being the only one you know about, and that is as far as the dalliance with their work goes. Or at least the standout is the only one you are aware of.

Because often, a little delving can pay huge dividends. Now, I only have myself to blame for the late discovery of the work of R’n’B and disco soul girl Gwen McCrae, often erroneously also referred to as the Queen of Northern Soul. There is little excuse, really, but hey, there is a lot of music out there, no? But it is still slightly shameful. Because there are three existing McCrae tracks that I absolutely adore. The first is of course the 1979 classic “All This Love That I’m Giving”, the tune which blew up on the Northern Soul circuit and which remains an instant hit with all clubbers of a certain vintage.

It still rocks floors effortlessly today. It is taken from little known album “Melody of Life” and raised little attention on first release, before being claimed by the vintage-seekers of the rare groove scene in the UK, and soon elevated to venerated status. This album itself is massively slept on, and if you can find it provides some pure vintage mellow southern soul. The second cut that has always perked my interest is the sparse disco beat of 1981’s “Funky Sensation”, a tune of incessant sweetness and unbridled funk.

It Is huge, and comes from yet another long player, this time the self-titled “Gwen McCrae”, which itself proves the diversity of McCrae’s talent, upping the tempo slightly and setting a template for the 80s sound which turned the ashes of disco into another marketable soul and even gave hints to the mining of this seam that hip-hop would soon undertake. However, the piece de resistance of this holy triumvirate is the immense 1975 cut “90% of Me”, the tune which stands alone amongst her impressive oeuvre. Taken from the big-selling and very impressive 1974 R’n’B album “Rockin Chair”, this song is nigh on perfect. A tale of twisted love and heart-break, of consuming passion and amorous possession, the groove drips with a melancholic desire and the dirtiest, yet somehow smoothest, of laid back funk.

It is just a monster, and has a uniqueness of sound which gives it a timeless quality. Knocks me out every time. And as I say, the album that spawned it provided McCrae with perhaps her biggest contemporary hit, and is itself a classic slice of Miami soul, perhaps the finest example of its type, melding sweet soul and a pop awareness with a downtime and deep, deep funk. And so, to wrap up this tale of discovery, I have finally ventured into the back catalogue of Gwen McCrae with proper purpose, and as you can hopefully see from the stories above, it is proving a rather wonderful journey. And as I progress I am realising more and more what an under-rated artist she is. Her career has covered over three decades, and she still records and performs today. It is ironic in a way that ex-husband George McCrae is perhaps better remembered, due largely to his own 1975 hit “Rock Your Baby”.

But it is Gwen McCrae whose work, for me, really endures. Much of her 1970s output was on soul and disco’s label front-runner Henry Stone’s TK Records, and this is itself another label of huge worth in terms of exploration. Indeed a recent McCrae release, a re-recording of her and others’ key tracks from TK, comes in the form of 2006’s “Gwen McCare sings TK”. This is testament to the ongoing quality of her voice, but also contains a number of tracks, that you may be surprised to be familiar with. As a starting point it is useful, but for the real stuff get digging in the vaults. Just don’t leave it as long as I did, because otherwise your collection will always be only 90% full.