The second Soul Searchers LP expands the band’s music into deep and dark new dimensions. While boasting an even funkier street-smart approach than the previous We the People, Salt of the Earthachieves new levels of jazz-inspired sophistication as well. The much-sampled “Ashley’s Roachclip” and “I Rolled It, You Hold It” are brilliant evocations of mind-warping psychedelia, but the group also slows down and gets straight with a shimmering reading of the classic Bacharach/David love song “Close to You“. Between those two extremes lurk angular yet soulful grooves with all the widescreen power of contemporaries like Earth, Wind & Fire and Kool & the Gang, but with a structural complexity all their own.
A1 I Rolled It, You Hold It 4:58
A2 Blow Your Whistle 3:01
A3 Close to You 4:23
A4 Funk to the Folks 4:14
B1 Ain’t It Heavy 5:58
B2 Windsong 5:00
B3 Ashley’s Roachclip 5:36
B4 We Share 2:49
B5 It It Ain’t Funky 3:59
The Soul Searchers - Salt Of The Earth back
Prior to being the leader of Washington, D.C.’s Go-Go music scene, Chuck Brown headed up The Soul Searchers, one of the most funky outfits ever put together. With great rhythm and horn sections, the ensemble’s lightly jazzy approach to funk results in some surprising flourishes and breaks. Highlights include the instrumental opener, “I Rolled It, You Hold It“, “Blow Your Whistle” and, of course, “Ashley’s Roachclip” an instrumental with a breakbeat so wicked that it was featured in just about every late 1980s/early 1990s hip-hop hit (including Run-DMC’s “Run’s House,” Eric B. and Rakim’s “Paid in Full,” most of Milli Vanilli’s hits, PM Dawn’s “Set Adrift on Memory Bliss,” and EMF’s “Unbelievable,” just to name a few). The soul ballads are a roadblock to perfection, however (see “We Share“–whose opening is sampled brilliantly on 2Pac’s “Old School”–and especially their cover of “Close to You“). Though dominated by its funk numbers, especially the instrumentals, it is a varied enough album that it is always interesting.
The Soul Searchers - Salt Of The Earth side 1
This record makes a few improvements upon their debut in that they seem to have a more distinctive sound to their stuff here and the songs all have more of an individualistic which makes them standout a little more. Now there’s still somewhat of an overly repetitive beat to some of these instrumentals, like “I Rolled It, You Hold It” which jumps things off for this album, but thankfully we are somewhat relieved of that on other songs such as album highlights, “Blow Your Whistle” and “Funk to the Folks“, with Chuck Brown’s cool & rough vocals. The instrumentation along with his voice really make an unique quality to their music I think, early signs of the greatness they’d achieve with the “Bustin’ Loose” single. Of course though, I must also single out the somewhat infamous “Ashley’s Roachclip” with its infamous drumbreak, that goes nicely with other instrumental solos on that song. The duller moments on this album are when the band slows it down and someone other than Chuck is providing the vocals, like with “Windsong” or “We Share” which can both come off as a bit awkward because of the singing. “Ain’t It Heavy” is another peculiar song which starts out with a really strong, commanding beat then breaks into a love song with deep chorus and vocals coming from multiple mediocre sources. “Close to You” is pretty solid though. Anyway, this is like their debut in a way, in how a lot of these jams are better for sampling and finding the good parts that stand out than actually enjoying the songs for what they are: mostly unexceptional.
**Enjoy**
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