Changin' Times

As captured in 2020 documentary The Changin’ Times of Ike White, the story behind White’s sole album, 1976’s Changin’ Times, is the stuff of a screenwriter’s dream. Jailed for murder aged 19, he spent his time in prison writing songs (while incarcerated at San Quentin, he reportedly used the gas chamber as a rehearsal space) before being discovered by producer Jerry Goldstein, who negotiated with the authorities to allow White to record an LP in prison. Stevie Wonder was among the subsequent fans who lobbied for White’s release in 1978, upon which he promptly disappeared, lived under a variety of pseudonyms, and performed as a Vegas lounge singer before taking his own life in 2014. Yet even when stripped of such fantastical biographical detail, Changin’ is a remarkable record. A sparkling melange of soul, funk and jazz that travels through similar territories as Wonder’s Innervisions, on through frenetic fusion (“Antoinette”), choogling FM rock (“Comin’ Home”), and on “I Remember George,” floating out into hitherto unexplored waters that combine Pink Floyd, Funkadelic and Augustus Pablo. Lost to obscurity for decades, Changin’ received a long-overdue reissue in Spring 2026.