Ernie Pikea

An astonishingly diverse solo debut by the Isleys' axeman, High Wire is full of screaming guitars, tight riffs, ear-tugging melodies, and evocative vocals.

Soul singer Barbara Massey and jazz guitarist Ernie Calabria paired up for this rare 1971 album. With Calabria having worked with Nina Simone and Harry Belafonte, among others, and Massey having sung backup for artists including Jimi Hendrix, Cat Stevens, and Herbie Hancock, the pairing was an inspired one and resulted in this superb soul-jazz outing. Massey has a dry yet passionate and evocative vocal quality that often brings to mind Grace Slick. Fittingly, the duo takes on Jefferson Airplane's "Somebody to Love," turning the Summer of Love anthem into a steamy and hypnotic soul-funk jam. Elsewhere, the duo touches upon such varying styles as folk, Latin, and psychedelic rock with cuts like "For You" and "Do You Know?," bringing to mind such similarly inclined acts as the Free Design and Bill Withers. Anyone who has even a passing interest in this kind of '70s cross-genre aesthetic will certainly want to seek out Prelude To…

Inexplicably, Ernie Watts thought it a good idea to record an album dedicated to the movie Chariots of Fire, while having very little to do with the overall plot of the film. The opening number is indeed the theme to Chariots of Fire, but sped up to be danceable. The result is what disco connoisseur Morgan Geist might deem to be an "unclassic" - really bad but in a very laughable way (it also could double as the fine theme to an afternoon syndicated talk show). James Ingram also makes an appearance on the smooth rocker "Hold On," and there's a ridiculous cover of the Lionel Richie/Kenny Rogers hit "Lady" and one of Donny Hathaway's "Valdez in the Country," which would be appropriate music bedding for your local cable weather forecast. The album is finally put out of its misery with a "slower" and more reggae-based interpretation of "Chariots of Fire" that is just as amusing as the album's opener, if not more so…