It’s funny how one of the most beloved R&B albums of the ’70s or any other decade had its origins as the soundtrack for a Sig Shore-directed Harvey Keitel film that only diehard music geeks remember. But if the movie revolved around the central idea that Keitel’s record-producer character was right to champion these guys instead of the bland sub-Carpenters group his label stuck him with, the LP easily proved it eight times over in less than half the time. Yes, this is the album with the world’s most efficient joy-delivery conveyance “Shining Star” on it as the kickoff track, a justification in itself. But the whole record is just as glorious, with Philip Bailey’s falsetto adding nuanced ambivalence to cuts like one-night stand ballad “Reasons,” and Maurice White’s pan-African influences drawing in everything from bossa nova to kalimba thumb-piano for a sophisticated yet accessible global soul-funk sound. It’s the peak of one of R&B’s great ensemble acts, and the perfect culmination of their working relationship with the great visionary producer/writer/arranger Charles Stepney — and, hey, the movie’s not bad, either.