A Fraternity of Arms

Washington may have been a journeyman at what he did, but he was at the very top of the journeyman class, and what he did – play a hybrid of blues and soul – is not as overmined a genre as many blues styles are. That means that if you like blues-soul crossover, you will almost certainly like this compilation of late-'60s and early-'70s sides, which represent the peak of Washington as a recording artist. Most of these were done for Fraternity from 1967-1970, and show him comfortable in deep gospel-like Southern soul grooves ("Doggin' Me Around"), quasi-Sam Cooke pop-soul ("A Woman Is a Funny Thing"), and party-tempo blues-soul hybrids that sometimes show a B.B. King influence. The material is more soul than blues; the blues bite is usually supplied by the sharp guitar licks (sometimes played by the great Lonnie Mack), the soul embellished by Washington's cheery, uplifting vocals. The exact tracks featuring Mack are not precisely identified, but his burning, slightly distorted tone is certainly on "Turn on the Bright Lights." Three of the 25 tracks were previously unissued, and in addition to the Fraternity material there are a couple of subsequent singles on Jewel from 1971 and 1973.

A young woman is gang raped and murdered in a California college town, sparking her brother Kevin to take up arms by night with a gang of like-minded vigilantes from his fraternity, brutally punishing any miscreants they catch in a criminal act. In the meantime, Kevin debates the issue of violent crime in the U.S. with his teachers and others during the day. As Kevin and his gang head toward a final, bloody confrontation with the low-lifes who murdered his sister, other scenes show the difference between his character, now violent, and the normal people he is supposedly protecting.