By acooolcat (211.72.121.66) on Tuesday, November 26, 2002 - 11:38 pm:

I think Bobby's LP titled "Pieces" was recorded in Detroit... Don Davis was the producer, and David Ruffin sang background. Rudy Robinson played on it too.
I don't think I've ever heard this LP. What's it like? Was it recorded at United Sound?
TIA, Graham

By Ritchie (62.254.0.8) on Wednesday, November 27, 2002 - 03:14 am:

Hi Graham - No, I haven't heard this one either. It was his second album for Columbia in July 78 (it followed 'Home Is Where The Heart Is'.) Interesting background - as a big fan of BW, maybe I should check it out!

By PhilH (203.221.55.154) on Wednesday, November 27, 2002 - 03:41 am:

Ooh, one of Mr. W's gems that I haven't listened to in a while (like, about 20 years!)

Anyway - looks like Don Davis produced all of it, but some of it was done at United, while some was done at Muscle Shoals Sound (with BW's vocals on one track done at ABC in L.A.). Unfortunately, the sleeve doesn't say which tracks were done where! Full muso credits are:

Barry Beckett - keyboards (MSS)
Brandye - background vocals (Detroit?)
Kerry Campbell - sax (?)
Detroit Horns
Detroit Symphony - strings
Lawrence Fratangelo - percussion (Detroit)
Glen Goins - guitar (Detroit)
Roger Hawkins - drums (MSS)
Michael Henderson - bass (Detroit)
David Hood - bass (MSS)
Horny Horns - horns (Detroit)
Barbara Huby - percussion (?)
Jimmy Johnson - guitar (MSS)
Dwayne Lomax - drums (Detroit?)
Bruce Nazarian - guitar, ARP syntn (Detroit)
Rudy Robinson - keyboards, synthesizer, clavinet, vibes (Detroit)
David Ruffin - background vocals (Detroit)
Candi Staton (sexiest singer in soul, bar none!) - special appearance on "Stop Before We Start"
Aaron Willis Jr. - guitar, bass (Detroit)
Anthony Willis - bass, guitar (Detroit)
Eddie Willis - guitar (Detroit)
Bobby Womack - lead vocals, guitar (eveywhere I guess!)

Looking at the songwriter credits to try and get some clues as to where the songs were recorded, my feeling is that it's an equal split of 4 each for Detroit and the Shoals. Don Davis co-wrote a couple, as did Leon? Laverne? Ware; Aaron or Anthony Willis wrote one; and there's a couple of co-writes from Cecil or Curtis Womack (one of them being one of the Don Davis co-writes). I s'pose I'll just have to listen to this to get some more idea, unless Don Davis is lurking here and wants to save me the trouble?

Phil

By PhilH (203.221.55.154) on Wednesday, November 27, 2002 - 03:51 am:

P.S. if I had read further down the cover, I would have discovered the "thanks" to Cecil Womack and Leon Ware for their "creaive contributions" - and also to Bernie Worrell, even though he's not listed in the musician credits, so what did he do? Anyway, rhythm on the first two tracks sounds like MSS, particularly Barry Beckett's Fender Rhodes on "It's Party Time", and Roger's drumming on "Trust Your Heart". Brandye are doing b.v.'s on both - IIRC, Millie Jackson was using them a lot in this period, dubbing their Detroit vocals over MSS's rhythm - and I could only just hear about one line of Ruffin b.v. on "Trust Your Heart". More later.

Phil

By Randy Russi (169.139.180.100) on Wednesday, November 27, 2002 - 10:35 am:

Bobby also recorded some duets with Mary Wells
around this time, but none were released. Don
Davis was going to produce Mary, but that never
happened either. After Mary divorced Cecil
Womack, he dated Candi Staton for a while.

By acooolcat (61.222.95.58) on Thursday, November 28, 2002 - 02:30 am:

Thanks for the info' Phil.
Like you - I can't quite work out where it was recorded. I have Leon Ware's email address, so will write and ask if he can remember it.
I remember buying "Where The Heart" Is when it came out, but this one must have zipped under my Womack radar; I bought a lot of Bobby's stuff in the 70's and play his "Facts of Life" and "Communication" LPs quite often - I now have them on a double CD.
Like Ritchie - I should search out this "Pieces" LP and see what it's like; I can't believe it'll be bad - not from Bobby - and with Detroit connections to boot.
Graham

By ErikT.O. (64.228.108.120) on Friday, November 29, 2002 - 04:40 am:

Speaking of Glen Goins (well, sort of- he was credited on the Womack lp discussed here!) and Detroit funk in the later 70's, anyone here know who's on the Quazar lp? I finally found a reasonably priced copy, I have only seen it twice... anyhow it sounds like Parliament's lp's around the same time, I assume some Funkadelics are on this lp but if anyone knows exactly who's on board please lemme know... Erik/ Quietly playing Oneness Of Juju...

By LTLFTC (12.245.225.79) on Friday, November 29, 2002 - 11:14 am:

Erik ; Does your disc have credits , or are you wondering if there are other P-Funk contributions uncredited? I have the credits on my copy and I'm certain (by ear) of Jerome Brailey , Glenn Goins and Darryl Dixon....lemme know if you're just missing credits and I'll dig out my copy.

Steve K.

By LTLFTC (12.245.225.79) on Friday, November 29, 2002 - 11:16 am:

By the way , the credits on that "Womack" lp are very similar to the Albert King Lp , "King Albert" ... must have been Don Davis' method at that time.

By soul councillor (193.113.48.11) on Friday, November 29, 2002 - 11:35 am:

Is "where the heart is"availiable on CD?

By ErikT.O. (64.228.114.36) on Saturday, November 30, 2002 - 04:54 am:

Hi LTLFTC-
My Quazar lp has no credits, just a blank inner sleeve. The back cover only mentions Glen Goins as the producer... I have a copy of the P-Funk 'Oral History' book (yes, 'Oral History' is an ironic title for a series of printed books!)-it said a number of P-Mobsters were all over that lp but any more info would be appreciated... not sure about the Albert King lp mentioned above but I got 'The Pinch' not too long ago, with modest expectations since I really dig Albert King but like so many others he recorded a few 'mellow blues' albums in the 70's that didn't floor me, anyhow 'The Pinch' is seriously funky if anyone else here was curious...

By LTLFTC (12.245.225.79) on Saturday, November 30, 2002 - 11:25 am:

Erik ; here's the Quazar credits
Guitar & lead vocals ; Kevin Goins (I'm assuming this isn't our 'KevGo"
Bass & vocals ; Eugene Moochie Jackson
Keys , vocals ; Richard Banks
Keys , vocals ; Greg Fitz
Drums , vocals ; Jeff Adams
Vocals ; Peachena
Guitar, vocals ; Harvey Banks
Reeds ; Darryl Dixon
tRUMPET ; Monica Peters
Congas ; Darryl Dilberto

Guest Musicians; (in Pfunk tradition probably "People who actually played on this record"

Guitars; Glenn Goins , Harry Watson , Butch Watson
Drums ; Jerome Brailey , Glenn Goins
Bass ; Donald Payne , Glenn Goins
Background Vocals ; glenn Goins
Keys ; Deacon Samuel Johnson

Engineers ; Jeff Titman , Lucy Laurie
Recorded at Sound Ideas NY,NY

As you can hear , Glenn's all over the vocals and most of the drums sound like J. Brailey

Steve K.

By ErikT.O. (64.228.108.27) on Saturday, November 30, 2002 - 05:32 pm:

Hey, thanks! Am I to assume there was an informative ineer sleeve with this lp once upon a time? Just curious, I have an Arista Gil Scott-Heron lp from the same year & I thought it had a generic blank inner sleeve, maybe with some Arista insignia or something..? (Secrets, hot lp with the classic 'Angel Dust')... listening to 'You & Your Folks' offa one of my favourite lp's ever, but maybe I'll throw on Quazar again...

By Mark Speck (65.58.49.81) on Saturday, November 30, 2002 - 05:49 pm:

There's a CD available from Columbia/Legacy entitled "Bobby Womack in Muscle Shoals", which I believe contains most of the tracks from both Columbia LPs.

Best,

Mark

By LTLFTC (12.245.225.79) on Saturday, November 30, 2002 - 07:54 pm:

Erik; Yeah, the Quazar lp had credits and fairly sizable individual pictures of the band members. Don't that frost ya , finding an album you've been seeking out for years and finding out that it's missing some of the extra goodies? It's happened to me many a time. Arista must have given up on that lp immediately as I found a mint "used" copy within a month or two of it's release with the corner already clipped cut-out style. In fact it still has the "$1.75" tag on it.

Steve K.

By PhilH (203.221.56.46) on Saturday, November 30, 2002 - 08:31 pm:

Hi guys,

I just remembered that Sony/Legacy have a Womack CD called "At Home In Muscle Shoals", collecting tracks from the "Home Is Where The Heart Is" and "Pieces" albums, and 7 of the 8 tracks from "Pieces" are on it! So, this must mean that the missing track "Wind It Up" is the only one done with the Detroit rhythm section. However, Glen Goins is credited on the CD (the credits are listed at www.cdconnection.com), so maybe he was overdubbed in Detroit? Listening to the LP, it seems to me that most, if not all, of the strings and background vocals were added in Detroit.

Phil