Customer Reviews

Shake a Tail Feather: The Best of James & Bobby Purify

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

With over 20 years of having music migrate to digital, one wonders why, with all the truly marginal stuff that has made it to CD, artists such as James and Bobby Purify have had to wait until now for their music to be anthologized, at least domestically. Thanks to the independent and highly respected Bob Irwin's Sundazed Music, we now have the Purifys' music gathered up in a superb compilation of 28 tracks that includes all their hits, some b-sides, album cuts and several previously unissued sides.

The r'n'b duo of James and Bobby Purify, actually not brothers - Bobby is really Robert Lee Dickey - are best, if not solely, known for their quixotic and plantive top-ten "I'm Your Puppet". Often unfairly and wrongly dubbed one-hit-wonders, these guys saw seven more of their tunes penetrate the pop top-100 besides their signature "...Puppet". Though never abandoning their soulful reading of the material, they were highly versatile in their releases as shown by the frenetic dance-oriented "Shake A Tail Feather" and the Motownesque pop gem "Let Love Come Between Us", both top-25 pop charting hits that really deserved more attention during their run on a.m. The Purifys' uniquely blended voices punctuated a spate of soul tunes during the later 60's and this collection offers an excellently produced collection of those performances.

Sound quality is overall excellent with most tracks in clean mono and a few, specifically 8-11 and 25-28, in stereo. The eight-page flopover liner notes booklet provides a comprehensive musical history of the duo along with track details and a few pics.

This is a superbly produced reissue that fills a long-standing gap in the r'n'b music of the 60's on CD. Thanks, Sundazed!

Imagine Sam & Dave crossed with the Motown Sound with some Sam Cooke influence and you have James & Bobby Purify. The only track most people will recognize is their biggest crossover hit "I'm Your Puppet" which still sounds good to me no matter who much I hear it. The other 27 songs are just as good - not a clunker in the bunch! They do some great remakes of "You Left the Water Running" (Otis Redding), "Untie Me" (Tams), "I Take What I Want" (Sam & Dave) and especially "Shake A Tail Feather" (5 Dutones). Other great tunes include the Motownish "Let Love Come Between Us", "Wish You Didn't Have to Go", "You Can't Keep A Good Man Down" "Somebody Cares" & my personal favorite of the entire 28 selections- "Do Unto Me".
They also sound good on a very pop sounding ballad entitled "I Remember".

It is a shame these guys aren't better known. They made some great soul music. If you are a 60s soul music freak (like me) you will love this CD.

these guys deserve all the fame in the world!!they were just as great as their runner ups , sam n' dave or mel n' tim !!they gave us as many hits as them ,"i'm your puppet","so many reasons","you left the water running","shake a tail feather",&"i don't want to have to wait" to name a few!!put them all in the soul train hall of fame!!

Typically with these 'Greatest Hits' or 'Best of' compilations, they always leave one out. In this case it's 'Morning Glory'.
With it, this CD would be 5 stars perfect, but its omission is a real fly in the ointment for me.