Edwin Starr 25 Miles Dencing

Two Classic Edwin Starr Albums, from 1968 and 1969, Released on One CD. All Tracks have Been Remastered and Packaging Includes a Full Color Slipcase, Rare Photos, Track Annotations, Release Info and Original LP Artwork.

In the late '70s, Edwin Starr was adjusting to the disco era, like many other soul and R&B vocalists. He hadn't gotten fully comfortable with bustling dance tracks, but this album helped ease the transition. It laid the groundwork for Starr's next LP, in which he returned to prominence and found a way to accomodate the demands of the dance floor without sacrificing his own integrity.

With productions and songs from Freddie Perren and Fonce Mizell, Hell Up in Harlem is the scathing and soulful soundtrack of the motion picture starring Fred Williamson. This was Edwin Starr's last album for Motown, which probably accounts for the woeful lack of promotion. Two singles were released, "Hell Up in Harlem," the first, should have remained an album cut, as its appeal was limited, despite a solid vocal by Starr. The follow-up, however, "Big Papa," should have been a monster. Written by Freddie Perren, it has the same power, forcefulness, and drive of numbers that Norman Whitfield had produced for Rare Earth and the Temptations. The flips of both singles, "Don't It Feel Good to Be Free" and "Like We Used to Do," are mellower than the push sides. The bone picker, however, is "Easin' In," a great midtempo number with cool backing vocals, and a great reading from Starr; it has chart buster written all over it, yet Motown never released it as a single. Mind boggling, since Starr's final single for Gordy's empire, "Who's Right or Wrong," backed with "Lonely Rainy Days in San Diego," dropped six months after "Big Papa," but doesn't rate with "Easin'."

Edwin Starr was born Charles Hatcher in Nashville, TN, on January 21, 1942 (his cousin was deep soul singer and songwriter Roger Hatcher). He grew up in Cleveland and formed a doo wop quintet called the FutureTones while still in high school. They won numerous local talent competitions and even recorded a single for a small label, but Starr was drafted into the military in 1960, stalling the group's momentum. When he returned in 1962, he tried to get things going again, but to no avail; instead, he wound up joining Bill Doggett's group as a featured vocalist in 1963. Two years later, Starr wrote what he felt was a surefire hit in the spy-themed "Agent Double-O-Soul," and left Doggett's band to sign with Ric Tic Records and settle in Detroit. "Agent Double-O-Soul" hit the R&B Top Ten later in 1965, and just missed the pop Top 20.

Involved was Starr's fifth LP for the Gordy imprint on Motown Records. Starr and the session musicians play as hard and explosive as they can, marking this album out as one of the rawest recordings ever released under the Motown banner.

Mojo Club presents Dancefloor Jazz Volume Four: Light My Fire is a 1995 compilation CD released through Verve Records in Germany. This is part of a series of discs released through Mojo Club and features a mixture of funk, bossa nova, soul, and a bit more, primarily taken from the Polygram/Universal library.

Edwin Starr went from run-of-the-mill second-level act to hitmaker with this 1970 album, without question his finest. Norman Whitfield gave Starr the chance to cut a song that had been intended for The Temptations. They later did a version of "War," but Starr completely vaporized their rendition to the extent that most people today think he wrote it. Starr was now a celebrity and briefly in Motown's top echelon. The fact that everything else on the album is only fair to average didn't even matter in the scope of things.

Edwin Starr was never able to hit a groove while at Motown.

Cherry Red Records presents a brand new high-fidelity digital transfer of Edwin Starr's 1983 classic For Sale. This offering has been restored from the original analog masters for modern listening!