The Imaginations: "The Imaginations"

Ethereal, deep-in-the-night soul at its finest.  The music is of an extremely high caliber, recorded at Chess studios in Chicago (but released on the 20^th Century label), and featuring a handful of Chicago soul notables, like Byron Gregory, Frederick Derf Walker and the ever-present Tom Tom 75 (AKA Tom Tom 84, AKA Tom Tom Washington).  The vocals by The Imaginations are exquisite, and their leads and harmonies explore a variety of topics and moods, from the political (“Talk About The World,” “Ballad Of Matheia”) to the romantic (“Because I Love You,” “God Bless You Love”) to the intensely personal (“There’s Another On Your Mind,” “Me, Myself And I,” “Searchin’”).  What I wouldn’t give to have spent ’68-’75 floating around the Chicago scene—when I hear an LP like this, it never fails to amaze me how seemingly infinite the amount of good music coming out of the city was at that time.  Better than the sheer quantity of it all, though, is the quality, and the experimental blend of instruments, songwriting and genres that fearlessly, ceaselessly created new artistic paradigms.