Blue Magic

Magic Slim (Morris Holt) is best known for carrying on the Windy City tradition of back-to-the-basics blues bar bands, blasting out a quintessential sound that the music's legends would appreciate and that its newest fans can still enjoy. With Blue Magic, Holt and the Teardrops take a few steps outside their home turf for a New York City session with several surprises. Although most of the material is Holt's, the new album features several conspicuous exceptions, such as an intriguing attempt at country legend Merle Haggard's "I Started Loving You Again." But it's producer Popa Chubby's updating of the Bobby Rush gem "Chickenheads," popularized by Holt's fellow Chicago stalwart Mighty Joe Young, that is the most adventurous experiment. With the band sitting out, Popa Chubby takes over all the rhythm duties and adds sampled loops to the mix.

Blue Magic - Mystic Dragons (1976) {ATCO–Warner Japan WPCR-27684 rel 2013}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 290 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 103 Mb
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© 1976, 2013 ATCO Records / Warner Music Japan | WPCR-27684
R&B / Soul / Funk / Philly Soul / Quiet Storm / Smooth Soul

Heavily influenced by the Delfonics and the Stylistics, Blue Magic was best known for smooth, dreamy, gossamer treasures like "Sideshow," "What's Come Over Me," "Spell," and "Three Ring Circus." Blue Magic epitomized the sweeter side of Philadelphia soul, and R&B lovers associated the vocal quintet with romantic ballads and slow jams – not tough, gritty funk. So it came as a major surprise when, in 1976, Blue Magic opened its fourth album, Mystic Dragons, with the very funky and very danceable "Freak-N-Stein."

A great smooth soulful album from one of the original Philly Soul groups formed in the early 70s. Band members include the Ingrams (Butch, James, Billy, Johnny and Robert) along side Ted Mills, Keith Beaton, Vernon and Wendell Sawyer.

This album's color cover photo is an action shot, showing Magic Sam in the process of choking and bending his strings, a good hike up the fretboard. It isn't clear exactly what he is playing from the picture, although that certainly didn't stop dozens of pimply hippie guitar players from trying to figure it out. In the meantime, the record goes on and the first soloist out of the gate is Eddie Shaw, playing tenor sax. He is blowing over the top of an R&B riff that, although not out of the syntax of Chicago blues, would also have been quite fitting on a Wilson Pickett record. It is unfortunate that Magic Sam's recording career came to such an abrupt end, as he was one of the best artists working in the musical area between the urban blues tradition and newly developing soul music forms. This fusion was on the minds of many blues artists during the late '60s, and not just because it was aesthetically conceivable…