Customer Reviews

We Came to Play

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I used to hang out with these guys in the late 70s S.F. and travelled around the west coast to see their shows. Bruce & Victor Conte were at the top of their game, as was that phenomenal brass section. "Lovin' You Is Gonna See Me Thru" is an excellent cut and of course the title cut is T of P sheer beauty. I highly recommend, if you can get your hands on a copy.

There are a lot of people who think of Tower Of Power and 1974 or so seems to come up. That's because this was one of the original funk bands that sprung up in the early 70's when the genre was starting to have a life of it's own outside the innovations of James Brown. But the fact is the band continued to be active and take part in many different innovations of the genre as time went on,even when it seemed like people were'nt paying attention. There's a good reason why Emilio Castillo and Chester Thompson went on to play with so many other acts at the time and ditto for Lenny Pickett who became a founding member of the SNL band. Next to the JB's the TOP horn section in particular were one of the tightest and cleanest to come along until perhaps EWF's Phenix Horns and even at this late end of the stick for the band they had absolutely no intention of giving up on any of what had made them so successful in the past.

Now this album is a very important transitional release for the band. While they had always more or less specialized in hard core uptempo funk jams,usually with very strong pop songs to go with them it was at this time the band actually tried to change up there sound. Where slower jams had always been a part of their style on this album they slicken up their ballad production style,especially with the Steve Cropper production very similar to the type he'd done on the MG's latest album of this time Universal Language. So "Let Me Touch You","Bittersweet Soul Music" and "Am I A Fool" all have a slicker late 70's pop/soul ballad flavor that may not sit as well with "jam fans" but this album is still extremely funkifying although,again the sophistifunk movement of the late part of the decade are also effecting them on the title song,"Love Bug" and the wonderful "Yin-Yang Thang"-all these tracks showcase their solid jazz-funk groove in all it's glory as well as some stronger synthesizer accents in their sound. The presense of the new and Michael Jackson sounding singer Michael Jeffries also added to the light "sophistifunk" flavors in the music.

The light influence of the than overwelming disco influence is also beginning to be heard to a stronger degree on "Lovin' You Is Gonna See Me Through" but aside from that and the few ballads here this is every bit as hard jamming and strong as just about any TOP album release from their better known period from a few years earlier. In fact the fact they didn't really do too much here to change their sound says a lot;they did'nt need to. Even though they had a strong "united funk" style groove every bit as potent and original and Kool & The Gang and the JBs it was still elastic enough to adapt to all the changes that the funk genre went through in the 1970's and still come off with something that wasn't the least bit embarrassing. Even though this album doesn't exactly qualify as one of their masterpieces it's still one of the finest and thoroughly musicianly funk/soul albums of the late 70's period and probably one of TOP's lesser sung classics.

Besides the title cut, which is a Tower Of Power classic, there is not much else on this album that will thrill anybody that likes this group. The song "Yin-Yang Thing" is the only other song on here that's really good Tower. "Share My Life" and "Love Bug" are merely ok, and the rest.....pretty awful.

Besides the title cut, which is a Tower Of Power classic, there is not much else on this album that will thrill anybody that likes this group. The song "Yin-Yang Thing" is the only other song on here that's really good Tower. "Share My Life" and "Love Bug" are merely ok, and the rest.....pretty awful.