Love Unlimited Orchestra - Music Maestro Please (1975) (LP) - €5,00

Coming off the twin highs of In Heat (by Love Unlimited) and Just Another Way To Say I Love You, Barry White dutifully shipped out the third Love Unlimited Orchestra album: Music Maestro Please.

Despite being a fairly steady album on par with Rhapsody in White and slightly better than White Gold, this LP did not sell anywhere near those first two. It rose to #14 on the soul albums chart while languishing way down at #92 for the pop albums. 

Given that chart performance, unsurprisingly this album did not go gold like the first two.

The lead off track, “Bring It On Up”, is a delight. It starts off with the Orchestra rehearsing and warming up. Glodean White of Love Unlimited then interrupts the tuning by demanding, “Music maestro, please!” Barry then taps his conductor’s wand and the musicians begin jamming as White insists that they “bring it on up!” Well, they follow orders as the music here is quite insistent that you dance.

That dancing/head-nodding beat is immediately scrapped on the next tune: “Makin’ Believe That It’s You”. A whimsical sequel to “Dreaming” from White Gold, this song focuses intensely on the guitar work. There’s definitely two, maybe even three guitarists, at work on this song.

Don’t worry the dancing is back and funkier than ever with the struttin’ “I Wanna Stay”. The catchy bass was later sampled by Q-Tip for his late 90s hit “Vivrant Thing”. 

The last half of the song splices in some party ambience as horns blast over the beat. And just until now, I haven’t really realized how little horns the Orchestra uses. There’ve been saxophone solos and occasional French horns in the background, but here we have multiple horns swaying in unison. A nice change of pace.

“Give Up Your Love Girl” repeats the trick again of following up a dance song with a more laid back tune. It’s good, just not as good as “Makin’ Belive That It’ You”. Thus ends Side One.

Side Two kicks off with the two weakest songs recorded yet by the Love Unlimited Orchestra, which is a shame. “You're All I Want” is the better of the two, but “It’s Only What I Feel” isn’t substantially worse. Example of two instrumentals where you never actively seek them out, but you aren’t compelled to skip them… so long as you’re in need of background music.

Okay, now we’re back on track with “Midnight Groove”, which continues White’s newfound fascination of making the Orchestra funkier than ever. In fact, this groove seems like a continuation of the raunchiness found on “Love Serenade” albeit with more emphasis on dancing than romancing. 

Once more White uses the trick of inserting party ambience along with some strong hand claps to remind you that you’re supposed to be moving and grooving.

And the album once again does the alternating between dancing and relaxing as it concludes with the chilltastic “Forever in Love”. The focus here being a lazy guitar riding on a cloud of strings. 

Perfect for cruising during a Sunday sunset. The album’s only (moderately) successful single, it reached #22 on the R&B charts.

“Midnight Groove” was also released as a single, but bombed big time (#91 R&B, #108 pop).

Side A

A1.  Bring It On Up - 4:23

A2.  Makin’ Believe That It’s You - 3:37

A3.  I Wanna Stay - 4:38

A4.  Give Up Your Love Girl - 4:10

Side B

B1.  You’re All I Want - 4:42

B2.  It’s Only What I Feel - 3:56

B3.  Midnight Groove - 5:33

B4.  Forever In Love - 4:12

Companies, etc.

• Copyright © – 20th Century Records
• Phonographic Copyright ℗ – 20th Century Records
• Published By – Sa-Vette Music Co.
• Published By – January Music Corp.

Credits

• Engineer – Barney Perkins
• Engineer, Engineer [Mixing] – Frank Kejmar
• Liner Notes – The Maestro 
• Orchestrated By – Don Peake
• Photography By [Back Cover] – Gene Brownell
• Producer, Conductor, Arranged By, Engineer [Mixing], Concept By [Art], Design [Album] – Barry White

Notes

Release: 1975

Format: LP, Vinyl

Genre:  Soul / Disco

Label: 20th Century Records

Catalog# T-480

Vinyl: Goed (VG)

Cover: Goed (VG)

Prijs: €5,00