Hodges, James And Smith: "Incredible"

The first thing that caught my eye about this one was the funky West Coast rhythm section listed in the credits—Paul Humphrey on drums, Joe Sample on keys, Wilton Felder on bass, Roland Bautista on guitar.  In the ‘70’s, this was a session engineer’s dream team, the kind of cats that could make anybody’s music sound good.  It helps, however, that Hodges, James And Smith are no slouches in the vocal department.  These ladies can swang, sang and testify with the best of ‘em, and on this LP they are given a beautiful set of grooves over which to demonstrate their considerable talent.  The listener is reeled in immediately with the opening “Turn The People On,” where Roland Bautista makes his presence known with the kind of screaming guitar leads he would later bring to such diverse artists as Earth, Wind & Fire, George Duke, and Morris Day.  From there the girls stretch out into all kinds of different bags, from the juke-joint stomp of “Rock Me Baby/Steamroller,” to the near-gospel of “Oh,” to delicate, heartbroken slow jams like “Signal Your Intention” and “You Take My Love For Granted.”  They even try their hand at laid-back Latin rhythms on the LP’s final cut, “Love Was Just A Word.”  Needless to say, the experimentation with multiple styles pays off, and wraps itself up into a remarkable whole, one in which these gifted women strut their stuff and sing their asses off.  This is the kind of obscure record that justifies all the endless hours of crate-digging—or, as my friend Barry put it, the “vinyl archaeology”—that so many of us are consumed by.