Posted on 13 January 2021 13 January 2021Group: Album of the day

Kool And The Gang – Kool And The Gang | Album of the day 13th January 2021

The 1970 debut album from Kool and the Gang scored a couple of hits with ‘The Gangs Back Again’ and the title cut, but more importantly, it heralded the arrival of what was to become a juggernaut on the R&B scene. This all-instrumental record is years away from the commercial successes of ‘Jungle Boogie’ and ‘Celebration,’ and a few light years away stylistically, too. But that unique mixture of jazz, funk, and R&B punctuated by those tremendous horn arrangements (and some great drum breaks) that characterizes Kool and the Gang at its best is here in full force. Tracks like the self-referencing street funker ‘Kool & The Gang’, the punchy ‘Chocolate Buttermilk’ and the heavily syncopated ‘Give It Up’ show why they were, at the time, one of the most covered acts by groups famous and obscure, and why their influence was so widespread. Original copies of this record are still in demand. For its first U.S. vinyl reissue in decades, and to celebrate the 50th anniversary of this R&B masterpiece, Real Gone Music have pressed up 1250 copies in ‘Kool-Aid’ vinyl’.