Monday, January 28, 2008

Serious Shades of the Maskman's Soul


Maskman & The Agents - Never Would Have Made It



Maskman & The Agents are no stranger to this blog, and my statement in my prior Maskman post about finding more and more "One Eye Open"-inspired tunes continues to develop as I continue to acquire various Harmon Bethea records. The flip of today's selection, "There'll Be Some Changes," joins the answer record "Both Eyes Open" (featured in the last podcast) as further attempts to ride out Maskman's main hit. Did this man know how to milk a groove, or what?

Fortunately, a recent record dig unearthed this little gem, one of my favorite "serious" Maskman records (the other being the Northern Soul classic "I Wouldn't Come Back"). "Never Would Have Made It" finds Bethea adopting a Ray Charles-tinged vocal sound and the group providing fine harmony for the country soul ballad. It's too bad that Musicor/Dynamo chose to plug the flip instead; maybe the change of sound would've done the Maskman good!

(EDITOR'S NOTE - Due to time constraints I will not be releasing a "Get on Down ..." podcast for January. However, watch out for a super soul February, as I will be doing Episode #25 of the podcast as well as making another appearance on Rockin' Radio to join the Electro-Phonic Brian Phillips in a two-hour program! I'll have more info on both in a week or so.)

1 comment:

Ben The Balladeer said...

Just my kind of song/ballad. Love it.Thxs