Ramsey Lewis - Funky Serenity/Golden Hits (1973)/Solar Wind/Sun Goddess (1974)

UK Import

2018 compilation of four albums by Ramsey Lewis. I bought the set because, at the time, it was the cheapest way to get Sun Goddess on CD. Plus bonus Ramsey can't be a bad thing, right? Well...the other three albums turn out to be hit-or-miss, but, overall, not a terrible way to spend $20.

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FUNKY SERENITY (1973)
9 tracks, 46 minutes

Not all the Top 40 covers are winners, but that's balanced by some funky originals. The trio (Cleveland Eaton - bass, Morris Jennings - drums) is joined by violinist Ed Green on a couple of tracks.

Reviews/ratings:

• Downbeat (★★★★★): "enough to commercially and artistically satisfy everyone."
• The Virgin Encyclopedia of Jazz (1999): ★★

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #117
• Billboard Jazz: #4
• Record World Jazz: #6

Tracks: The best covers are Betcha By Golly Wow! and Where Is The Love. The aforementioned funky originals are Kufanya Mapenzi (Making Love), What it Is!, and the laid-back Serene Funk. For a little variety, there's a tasty mid-tempo original from Green titled My Love For You. I avoid track 7, Dreams, and the cover of Nights In White Satin.

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GOLDEN HITS (1973)
9 tracks, 35 minutes

Full title: Ramsey Lewis' Newly Recorded All-Time Non-Stop Golden Hits

After he moved to Columbia Records in 1972, Ramsey and the rest of his trio made this album of 'modernized' remakes of Lewis' earlier, successful recordings on the Argo and Cadet labels. It's good, not great, but probably should have sold better than it did. However, the cover with small print of the full title make the release look like a greatest hits package instead of a new album re-imagined versions. Heck, even Allmusic mistakenly called it a "budget sampler of pop cuts."

Reviews/ratings:

• Downbeat (★★★★): "It isn't as 'non-stop' as proclaimed, nor all that 'golden' - but the verve is the same, rocking on."
• The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Album Guide (1999): ★★★
• The Virgin Encyclopedia of Jazz (1999): ★★★

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #198
• Billboard Jazz: #32
• Billboard R&B: #50
• Record World Jazz: #25

Tracks:

Song	Original Lewis version appeared on
Hang On Sloopy	Hang On Ramsey! (1965)
Blues For The Night Owl	More Music From The Soil (1961)
Hi-Heel Sneakers	1966 single
Carmen	Ramsey Lewis And His Gentle-men Of Swing (1956)
(Song Of) Delilah	Ramsey Lewis And His Gentle-men Of Jazz (1958)
Wade In The Water	Wade In The Water (1966)
Slipping Into Darkness	Upendo Ni Pamoja (1972)
Something You Got	The Ramsey Lewis Trio At The Bohemian Caverns (1964)
The "In" Crowd	The In Crowd (1965)

The better cuts are the clavinet-heavy remake of Hang On Sloopy (winner of the Grammy award for Best R&B Instrumental Performance) as well as (Song Of) Delilah, Slipping Into Darkness, and The "In" Crowd. 

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SOLAR WIND (1974)
9 tracks, 44 minutes

Lewis expands the instrumentation a bit, even bringing in legendary STAX guitarist Steve Cropper to write and produce three of the nine tracks. Other cuts come from Elton John, Seals & Crofts, Paul Simon, and Sonny Rollins.

Reviews/ratings:

• Billboard: "Lewis' distinctive blend of melodic jazz ideas with insistent rhythmic funk has survived the transition to electric piano beautifully"
• Downbeat (★★★½): "continues to tread lightly on those delicate lines separating pop, r&b and jazz."

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: Did not chart
• Billboard Jazz: #29
• Record World Jazz: #20

Tracks: My picks for original cuts are Sweet And Tender and Jamaican Marketplace, while my picks for covers are The Everywhere Calypso and Summer Breeze. 

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SUN GODDESS (1974)
7 tracks, 37 minutes

You wouldn't know it based on the critics' ratings below, but they saved the best for last. One of Ramsey's biggest albums and one that would change the trajectory of his career for least the next decade. Lewis reunited with his former drummer Maurice White, who contacted Lewis about a song he had written. White brought the song to Chicago along with half of his new band, Earth Wind & Fire, and they cut Hot Dawgit (track 14 on this CD) in three days then wrote the title track, Sun Goddess. Add in a Stevie Wonder cover and four Lewis originals plus production from Teo Macero and the result is irresistible.

Reviews/ratings:

• Billboard: "one very listenable record"
• Downbeat (★★½): "This is best judged as slick background music, a kind of hip Muzak."
• The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Album Guide (1999): ★★★
• The Virgin Encyclopedia of Jazz (1999): ★★

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #12
• Billboard Jazz: #1
• Billboard R&B: #1
• CashBox: #13
• Record World Jazz: #1

Tracks: It's easy to call Sun Goddess (#44 pop, #20 R&B, #5 dance) and Hot Dawgit (#50 pop, #61 R&B) the stand-out cuts, but then you'd be missing out on the driving cover of Living In The City, and some fantastic original works from Lewis: Love Song and the funky Tambura.

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Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None

Previously revisited for the blog:
Fantasy (1985)
Tequila Mockingbird (1977)
Hang On Ramsey! (1965)/Wade In The Water (1966)

Ramsey Lewis - Fantasy (1985)

I've spun this disc about a dozen times and I still don't know what to make of it. Lewis always leaned towards jazz-pop crossover, but it seems his friend and former drummer Maurice White (along with producer/writer Morris "Butch" Stewart) introduced Ramsey to the Roland Super Jupiter, LinnDrum, and the infamous Yamaha DX7. Plus there's some undeniable Herbie Hancock Future Shock/Sound-System influence. Add in some Prince-flavored R&B dance grooves then throw a lot of timely production at the whole thing and this is about as 1985 as it gets. Smooth jazz need not apply, but the lead track, This Ain't No Fantasy, did scrape the bottom of the Billboard 12 Inch Singles Sales chart. One newspaper called it "techno-jazz" so let's just go with that.

Reviews/ratings:

• Stereo Review: "the fifty-year-old pianist has armed himself with synthesizers"
• The Virgin Encyclopedia of Jazz (1999): ★★

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: Did not chart
• CashBox Jazz: #13

Tracks: I find myself enjoying the (mostly) instrumental tracks such as The Quest and Slow Dancin'. I'll confess Ram Jam gets me moving and actually features Lewis on traditional piano for a bit. Almost half the tracks here include lead vocals from various artists: It's Gonna Change (Josie Aiello), Victim Of A Broken Heart (Morris "Butch" Stewart), Never Give Up (Alice Sanderson Echols), and Part Of Me (Maurice White & Brenda Mitchell). Despite good performances, they're all fairly generic R&B of the time.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None

Previously revisited for the blog:
Tequila Mockingbird (1977)
Hang On Ramsey! (1965)/Wade In The Water (1966)

Ramsey Lewis - Hang On Ramsey! (1965)/Wade In The Water (1966)

UK Import

Because when you see a Ramsey Lewis BGO two-fer in the clearance bin for $3 you don't ask questions.

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HANG ON RAMSEY! (1965)
9 tracks, 45 minutes

Lewis was following up his #5 hit The 'In' Crowd with this live set of mostly pop covers recorded October 14-17, 1965 at The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, California.

The rear exterior of The Lighthouse as seen in the 2016 film La La Land.

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #15
• Billboard R&B: #4
• CashBox: #14

Tracks: The lead track, a cover of The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night, peaked at #29 on the pop chart and the final track, a cover of Hang On Sloopy, peaked at #11 so there was some success in repeating the same formula (they both sound very similar to The 'In' Crowd and who could blame him?). The cover of And I Love Her is very tasty as well. But there's other styles here as Ramsey mixes it up with some traditional piano trio jazz tunes (Satin Doll) and one Lewis original. The sequencing and variety means you can just slip this disc in the tray, set it and forget it. It also makes me want to travel back to Hermosa Beach ca. 1965.

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WADE IN THE WATER (1966)
10 tracks, 33 minutes

This is a slightly different animal from the album above. While the overall groove remains the same, here we're treated to big band arrangements in addition to the piano trio. The credits go to Ramsey Lewis not the Ramsey Lewis Trio. Also, a drummer named Maurice White had joined the group.

CashBox, September 3, 1966, p. 60

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #16
• Billboard R&B: #2
• CashBox: #18

Tracks: The title track peaked at #19 on the pop chart in the fall of '66 while Hold It Right There (track 16 on this compilation) won a Grammy Award for Best Rhythm & Blues Group Performance - Vocal or Instrumental. Also good are the covers of Ain't That Peculiar, Uptight (Everything's Alright), Day Tripper, and Hurt So Bad. Oddly, the tune that doesn't quite work was written by Bacharach. Go figure.

Previously revisited for the blog:
Tequila Mockingbird (1977)

Ramsey Lewis - Tequila Mockingbird (1977)

Funk + Muzak = Fuzak. A portmanteau so good I wish I'd coined it. And it perfectly describes this instrumental disc. A little funkier than smooth jazz with the help of Lewis' old friends from Earth, Wind & Fire. Lewis plays several different keyboards in these arrangements, but for my money I'd rather hear him pound the Fender Rhodes than anything else. This album didn't receive rave reviews (2 or 3 stars) but I like it for what it is. In '77, Ramsey wasn't in with the 'in' crowd anymore, but he could still put out albums that, while not inventive, are quite enjoyable to these ears.

The liner notes in my CD are nonexistent beyond a track listing. Thank goodness for Discogs.

Reviews/ratings:

• CashBox: "This is a joyful album."
• The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Album Guide (1999): ★★★
• The Virgin Encyclopedia of Jazz (1999): ★★★

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard Top 200: #11
• Billboard Jazz: #3
• CashBox: #148
• CashBox: #3
• Record World Jazz: #5

Tracks:  The three songs produced by EWF keyboardist Larry Dunn are all funky fun: Tequila Mockingbird (which includes and all-too-brief sax solo from Ronnie Laws), Skippin', and That Ole Bach Magic. The other five tracks (produced by Bert deCoteaux) are slightly restrained but still in the same fuzak groove. The only skippable track is Intimacy.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None, although I was involved in a production of a stage version of "To Kill a Mockingbird" while a sophomore in high school.