Prince Phillip Mitchell: "Make It Good"

This album cover is hilarious.  Mitchell seems a bit confused as to what image it is that he wants to convey; on the front he strikes an extremely generic, late ‘70’s, “I’m chillin’ with this chick” pose, and then on the back, he is curiously wearing a pair of Bootsy glasses.  …?  Perhaps no-one bothered to tell him that there was already a major star in the R&B world cultivating that exact same persona, and making a LOT more money doing it.  However, don’t let the rather schizophrenic album photos fool you…this is quite an amazing record.  Mitchell scored big as a songwriter for a laundry list of soul acts throughout the ‘70’s, and so when he struck out on his own, he’d had years to perfect his unique style, which is in all its full glory here.  “Star Of The Ghetto” kicks things off, with Prince Phillip demonstrating an impressive falsetto yowl over dreamy keys, until his mom yells at him to “get out the house with that noise!”  He then proceeds to narrate the history of his life in music, despite both of his parents’ objections, over an unbelievable, conga-driven, dance-funk groove.  He concludes that he doesn’t care whether or not he makes the big-time, as long as he’s a “star in the ghetto” he’ll be satisfied.  This is interesting lyrical material, to say the least, and not exactly your typical late ‘70’s R&B fare.  The rest of the album features a mix of Southern soul flavor mixed with uptown arrangements and changes, best displayed on slow jams like “Falling From Heaven” and “Only Smoke Remains.”  The cut for the funk heads, though, is the strangely-titled “You’ll Throw Bricks At Him.”  It starts out with an oft-sampled harp-over-breakbeat intro, then goes into an insane, pocket-heavy funk throw-down, somewhere in between the Meters, Dorothy Ashby, Lamont Dozier and the Isley Brothers.  If that combination isn’t enough to pique your curiosity, I don’t know what to tell you.  Regardless, this is a great, underrated album, and after a few listens, you’ll begin to think, “ya know, I think this guy deserves to be wearin’ those Bootsy glasses, ‘cause dis shit is off the chain!”