Harold Ray
“Live in Concert”
(Alternative Tentacles)
This disc is a virtual soundtrack to sin-likely to inspire ass shaking, heavy drinking and degenerate carnality. I can get a bit repetitive, but while participating in any of the aforementioned activities, one is certainly not very likely to notice and even less likely to be bothered by it. Think early ’60s James Brown mixed with some MC5 and you have a pretty good idea of the content.
The fare is pretty standard rockin’ soul-not very imaginative or groundbreaking, but goddamned groovy and fun. Ray provides some great wailing over a good but somewhat sterile band. Unfortunately, the vocals are virtually buried in the crappy mix. Recorded fidelity wasn’t even this bad in the ’60s, but I suppose it’s some sort of devolution thing. The hipsters will definitely eat it up.
