Through Palestine With The Twentieth Machine Gun Squadron

The Honeysuckle Breeze was the debut album by saxophonist Tom Scott. The California Dreams were a vocal group who contributed their singing and harmonies. Scott brought in musicians like Mike Melvoin, Carol Kaye, Max Bennett, Lincoln Mayorga, Glen Campbell, Jimmy Gordon and others to this session. Some of the same set of musicians, including Scott, would also play on Gabor Szabo's album Wind, Sky And Diamonds, also featuring The California Dreamers and also released on Impulse, also in 1967. The Honeysuckle Breeze is celebrated in hip-hop circles for Scott's cover of Jefferson Airplane's "Today", which was sampled in the celebrated song by Pete Rock & CL Smooth, "They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)", but the album shows a side of Scott that he would abandon eight years later as his music retained funkiness but started to become lightweight. The Honeysuckle Breeze also features covers of The Beatles' "She's Leaving Home", Donovan's "Mellow Yellow", and The Association's "Never My Love". Scott contributes one original song to the album, "Blues For Hari".

Machine Gun is the first album from the Commodores, released in 1974 on the Motown label. Although pop audiences were not exactly responsive to this issue, R&B audiences met this album with open arms. Machine Gun is relentlessly funky, with no ballads to be found. The tracks are spectacular from beginning to end, and the hauntingly explosive title track kicks things off. Milan Williams' strobing clavinet highlited throughout the track sounds like gunfire, and led to Motown head Berry Gordy naming the song "Machine Gun."This track peaked at #7 on the R&B, while reaching a disappointing #22 on the pop charts. Not that the Commodores would care much about pop. They wouldn't have crossover appeal for another four albums. This album was all about the funk.