The Campaign For Real Music
Intelligent Music for Grown-Ups

Probably Radiocafe’s favourite Roy Ayers recording, the 1980 classic “No Stranger To Love” is now available on CD. You will have to fork out for a Japanese import, but if you are a fan of the good groove and are not familiar with this Roy rarity, it is twenty quid very well spent indeed.

What makes this our favourite of Roy’s recordings? For starters, the album kicks off with “Don’t Stop The Feeling”, which is up there with the very best dance tunes ever. We don’t know why this didn’t become as popular as Roy’s classics, “Love Will Bring Us Back Together” and “Can’t You See Me”.

This is followed up with a sublime cover version of Bobby Caldwell’s anthem “What You Won’t Do For Love”. Many prefer Roy’s more up-tempo version to the original, and soul aficionados will want both in their collections. “Shack Up, Pack Up, It’s Up” is one for the funk fans, with a combination of deep percussion and mellow voices. “Slyde” is another of those catchy tunes that is so typical of the uniqueness of Roy Ayers, more addictive than Pringles.

But the CD is worth purchasing so that you have a flawless recording of the title track “No Stranger To Love”, with the incredible vocal “Want You” topping it off. This is fusion at its finest. Rarely has a soul artist managed to take jazzy tones and combine them with strings and vocals to such perfect results. Roy’s voice on this one is mellow mastery. Buy this CD and hear for yourself.

“Don’t Let Our Love Slip Away” is another catchy dance track, which just gets better each time you hear it. “Don’t Hide Your Love” is perhaps a tune that represents the era better than it does the quality of the remaining recordings from this 1980 classic, but overall this is an outstanding CD.

In 1980, you were lucky if your money bought you more than seven or eight tracks. Today that works out as best part of three pounds per track, so you may be tempted to head over to iTunes with a handful of 79 pences to pick out the Roy Ayers songs you fancy. But you’ll want all of these, and you really should hear them at the highest possible quality. Does any real music fan download music this good?

We’d suggest also grabbing a copy on original vinyl while you can, so you can own an actual piece of soul music history. We have seen copies going for as little as a fiver on eBay, and it is worth this for the cover alone (although the anti-fur lobby may perhaps want to give this one a miss).

The CD is available now from Soul Brother Records and via Amazon, but in very limited supply. Hurry while stocks last.

Radiocafe
December 2008

(3 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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