This is a vinyl rip of a Rose Royce 12" single featuring the tracks "R.R. Express" and "Lock It Down", produced by Mr Norman Whitfield and released on Whitfield Records in 1981. We briefly looked at Norman in the "Wings Of Love" post before.
"R.R. Express" comes from their 1981 album "Jump Street". Whitfield's in full soundtrack mode here, using actual sound effects of trains and crossing bells, while at the same time scoring clusters of brass and tuned toms to imitate the sounds of a train. Over its eight minutes it builds to a dense mass of funk and studio tricks over a rolling bassline, with delayed arpeggiated synths also adding to the rhythmic train effect.
"Lock It Down" comes from 1979's "Rainbow Connection", and is one of those great straight-ahead funk tracks that Rose Royce managed to do a few times on each album. It's written by Miles Gregory, responsible for Rose Royce's most melodic hits : "Love Don't Live Here Anymore", "Wishing on a Star" and "Is It Love You're After", as well as the Undisputed Truth's "Sandman". Here, however, he's more down on the funk side.
You can also find all 11 albums by Rose Royce here at Funky Disposition, and some recent posts of Whitfield acts The Undisputed Truth and Mammatapee at Soundological Investimigations.
(And then, bizarrely and sadly, Norman Whitfield died two days after I did this post. See the tribute post with full discography)
TRACKLIST
01. "R.R. Express" (Norman Whitfield)
02. "Lock It Down" (Miles Gregory)
PRODUCTION CREDITS
Whitfield Records
Catalogue # K 17875 (T)
Production and arrangements by Norman Whitfield
Brass and String Arrangements on track 2 - Bruce Miller.
POST CREDITS
Vinyl rip to WAV and 320-MP3 by Simon666
Post album links go to Funky Disposition and Soundological Investimigations.
Thanks for the continuing music education
ReplyDeletethanks Simon
ReplyDeleteNice one! BTW, Gregory also wrote the track Sweet Poison on Mammatapee. The guy could cook up some great hooks. Thanks for the link, too!
ReplyDeleteI found this 12" in the batch I bought at flea market last sunday !
ReplyDeletelol
Damn, I should've posted a week earlier and saved you the $$ :)
ReplyDeleteRIP Norman Whitfield ....
ReplyDeletehttp://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080917/ENT04/80917056/1039
Hey Simon
ReplyDeleteIt's been a while since I last visited your blog my freind but somehow I missed this post. I remember searching for many years hoping to someday find a Cd reissue of the Rainbow Connection album. The closest I got was a very clean vinyl rip which I obtained a few months back. Now I am glad to be able to hear the 12" as "Lock It Down" is one of my favorite RR tracks. Good post bro!
no problems viduals, glad you found it :)
ReplyDeleteAwesome Simon - thank you for this! Love it! (And love that the links still work in 2014 - you are the man!)
ReplyDelete