Terry Callier: "Occasional Rain"

The flipside to the Stepney/Riperton collaborations was Stepney’s work with Terry Callier.  This meeting of the minds occurred right around the same time Minnie sought greener pastures on the Stevie Wonder-produced “Perfect Angel” LP, and greener pastures she did indeed find with the smash “Loving You.” Nothing that Callier did even approached that level of commercial success, but I’m not necessarily sure that’s what he was going for either.  Callier had a different history than Riperton in that he had been a songwriter on the Chicago scene for quite some time before his Cadet solo career, shopping material to the Dells, Jerry Butler, Rotary Connection, etc.  What Charles Stepney did with Callier was flesh out his sparse, folk-soul songwriting style and add textures and layers that didn’t inherently exist in the original creations.  Songs like “Ordinary Joe” and the segue-connectors “Go ‘Head On” practically leap out of the speakers with a joyful yet meditative bounce, the former in particular being a Callier anthem, all blues-shuffle-rhythm and eerie Stepney keyboards.  Then there are the distinctly Chicago-sounding, almost haunted ruminations that Stepney was so effective at, like “Do You Finally Need A Friend” and “Trance On Sedgewick Street.”  The album closes with the dramatic, tension-releasing “Lean On Me” (not the Bill Withers cut), followed by one final “Go ‘Head On” segment, leaving the listener with a sense of conceptual closure.  These Callier/Stepney records can be somewhat of an acquired taste for the uncertain, but anyone seriously interested in immersing themselves in the Cadet sound and era will need to check them out.