Customer Reviews

Tower of Power

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am 44; a 'baby boomer'. This baby boomer has some very fond memories connected to songs like TOP's So Very Hard To Go. I was doing a bit of grocery shoping the other day, when all of a sudden this song deliciously filled my ear canals. You should have seen the looks I was getting, as I swayed down the canned vegetables aisle. Made me want to pull on some hip huggers! Talk about 'ear-candy'!

If you don't own anything by T.O.P., this is one to start with. I own everything they have recorded and this is my favorite. I listened to this last night and decided it is time to buy it on C.D. I only have it on vinyl. It is one of those recordings. It stands the test of time. Any young Jazz musician coming up would say, WOW!

By 1973, at the tender age of 15, I had given up on most "popular music." Most of what Top 40 radio played just seemed lame to me. I was mostly into old Motown and other Classic Soul Sounds. I heard "So Very Hard To Go" on the radio and thought, "What a great tune!' I later heard "This Time Its Real" and managed to tape it off the radio and again was struck by what a great song it was. I finally got around to buying the CD in 2000. What a great album. It is a good mix of slower songs and upbeat funk numbers. "Clever Girl" and "Will I Ever Find A Love" are both ballads and two of my favorites from the album.

Listening to this album, along with the Crusaders "Unsung Heroes" also from 1973 shows just how lame a lot of the other music coming out of the radio (Helen Reddy, Olivia Newton-John etc) was at that time. Even halfway decent songs like Elton John's "Daniel", Dobie Gray's "Drift Away" and Johnny Nash's "I Can See Clearly Now" got overplayed to death. Does anyone remember the horrid "Playground of my Mind" by Clint Holmes?

Though Chicago was very good at what they did, Tower of Power and the Crusaders went to places Chicago could only dream of.

Anyway, I digress. This is a great album and a great lost 70's classic.

If I may make up a word, then, this is FUNKTIFICATION TO THE HIGHEST LEVEL!!!! While listening to "Clever Girl" on an online radio station, I fell in love with the song. The vocalist was clear, the horns rocked (I am a Trumpet player, so, the screaming Trumpets grabbed my attention!!). I did some research and found out the group was the same group to release "You're Still A Young Man", just with a new singer, Lenny Williams. I found this CD and haven't stopped playing it!!! I would recommend this CD to ANYONE!!! Oh, and you will love Tower Of Power's trademark, THAT MONSTER HORN SECTION!!!!! Just listen to "Soul Vaccination" and you will do as Lenny Williams suggest. Get in line to get yours because I got mine!!

Although this is not a current selection (which actually was origianlly recorded back in 1973), Tower of Power will remain one of funk/R&B's premier bands which used a massive horn section to highlight their work.

On this CD, the noteworthy "What is Hip?" stands out as their rocking, syncopated, break-induced tunes. AOR lit into this one, as well as the soulful "So Very Hard To Go." Both these individual tunes are worth the price of the CD, but it doesn't stop there.

AOR never quite latched onto "Soul Vaccination" but that doesn't detract from the signature sound of ToP. The horn section is what drove ToP, and to this day I cannot think of another band that accomplished what ToP was able to do, when it was able to do it.

Tower of Power still receives airplay, but on a much smaller scale, considering this style of music is now considered as what ToP said in their song "What is Hip?": "What you think might really be passe'."

It is unfortunate that ToP is not still riding the airwaves in it's former glory, but since times and tastes have changed with the generations, we can only hope that ToP will remain an icon to older boomers who remember hard-driving funk and R&B.

I have come to understand that I will never tire of this classic!

Growing up in a home without jazz, I had to find my way there, working from Chicago, this monster T of P album, the Pointer Sisters, then Return to Forever and finally I heard Charlie Parker and it was all over.

But I can still look back, and go back to this album (now enjoyable in digital quality on CD) and marvel at what these boys had happening back in the mid 70's. I never saw them live, but I'm sure it must have been (and may still be) quite an experience.

I'm afraid I will forever consider What is Hip? the hippest darn tune ever cut. And every time I listen to Soul Vaccination, I just can't help from laughing. All this media-fed yakity-yak about "race" just doesn't register with me. And why 90% of black men (and women) have SOUL and 90% of white men (and women) don't--I really couldn't care less. I'm just so glad that someone brought this music into my life, whatever the heck the color of their skin is (white and black, at least, by the way). A vaccination against "honkey pox"! I love it. "Everybody get in line..."

This has to be one of the top 100 albums/CDs of the last century. It's just so darn good, so darn tight, so much darn fun! Enjoy.

This is one of the best albums ever.As I am finally getting into the 21st century, I have begun to purchase CD's. My favorite songs on this release is "So Very Hard to Go, Both Sorry Over Nothing, Clever Girl,and Just Another Day". Actually the whole album is superb. Amazon should also allow visiters to the site to hear the "So Very Hard to Go" song( My favorite on the album).

In 2008, WEA Japan released the entire WB Tower Of Power catalog in remastered form. All of the albums benefit from new mastering, and are worthwhile acquisitions for fans.

I found all of the remastered material to be superior to the Rhino 2CD "What Is Hip?" 1999 compilation set, except, surprisingly, for the material from the 3rd album, which sounds better on the Rhino. Still, you may want to pick up the Japan 3rd album anyway for the remaining remastered songs that are not on the Rhino set; the Japan CD is DEFINITELY better than the old U.S. disc.

Amazon does a haphazard job of stocking these remasters, so you may have to seek them from Japan-based retailers. Also, Amazon's prices are at least a third higher than buying direct from Japan, although shipping costs will cut into that percentage.

Here are the links for the `08 remasters:

East Bay Grease
Bump City
Tower Of Power
Back To Oakland
Urban Renewal
In The Slot
Live And In Living Color

Again, it's sad that American consumers have to obtain better sounding CD's from another country. WEA, and now WMG, have long maintained a corporate policy of not upgrading their catalog under the "they're-gonna-buy-it-anyway-so-why-waste-profits" philosophy, no matter that rival Sony has made a lucative business model out of remastering nearly the entire Columbia records catalog. Although this internal policy was mandated by the WEA regimes of the past, Edgar Bronfman, the current WMG chief, has maintained the status quo.

So, Tower Of Power now joins fellow WEA artists Jackson Browne, Ry Cooder, The Doobie Brothers, Tower Of Power, Neil Young, Van Dyke Parks, Little Feat, Van Morrison, America, Annie Haslam, Everything But The Girl, Roberta Flack, Todd Rundgren, Cold Blood and Paul Butterfield, just to name a few, whose catalogs either partially or wholly exist in better audio in Japan than here in the U.S.

It's a pathetic and frustrating situation.

Anything thats this bad must be evil folks.1973 marked the peak of TOPs 70s incarnation and the fact that I was born in that year makes it even sweeter.My dad spent 15 years trying to track down the track "So very Hard To Go" because he didnt know the name or album it was on.I found the tape for him and i wore it OUT!! So later I bought the cd to listen to and the LP just to have in my vault of GREASY RECORDS.

I won't regurgitate what is written already, this is just a kick-a** album!

I really want to add they still tour, usually jazz clubs, and are a not-to-be-missed act. If you ain't moving when "the Tower" is groovin' -- you dead.