Superfunk

The fourth Funk Inc. album was something of a change for them, as it featured noticeably more vocal tracks and was their first album recorded outside Rudy Van Gelder’s studio, with David Axelrod producing. The addition of vocals inevitably makes this album a different listen to their mostly instrumental previous work, and their branching out into more soul-based material is pretty successful. Their take on the Meters’ “Message From The Meters” is hearty and splendidly soaked in fuzz guitar, “Just Don’t Mean A Thing” could be the best record the Four Tops never recorded but should have, and the Stax horn lines and prominent organ give “Goodbye, So Long” a raw, southern soul feel. Superfunk ends on an epic near-ten-minute funk meditation on Barry White’s “I’m Going To Love You.”