Well I finally made it to blogging about a Barry White album…
Mellow Mood (Part One)
Turn the lights down low… pour the wine… practice your sexiest baritone…
And in 1974, doubtless many perspiring first daters bought this platter as a useful prop to woo the laydeez. The third offering from Barry White, it quickly became a huge success – making the Number One spot on the Billboard 200 and also in Italy’s HitParadeItalia charts. Elsewhere, Can’t Get Enough reached the Top 5, including here in Blighty (Number 4), Canada and Austria.
This slinky opener is more of a teaser – notably free of Barry’s distinctive purr – which also functions as a bookend to Part Two’s closer. If I was being Mr Grumpy, I would wonder whether five fully formed tracks and two bookends offer good value for money. The total running time for the album clocks in at just over half an hour.
You’re The First, My Last, My Everything
Barry’s signature tune, which became his biggest hit in the UK, climbing to the top in the freezing December of 1974. For extra value, the album version includes a longer intro, with Barry drawling “We got it together, didn’t we? We’ve definitely got our thing together, don’t we baby?”
Isn’t that nice?
The bizarre thing about this monster hit was that it was originally conceived as a country and western plod. I’m struggling to picture White donning a 10-gallon Stetson hat while perching atop a bar stool, intoning the lyrics to a prairie rose. The genesis of Peter Radcliffe’s tune actually dates back to the early ’50s, so it took a fair while for it to be taken off the shelf, dusted down and reinvented as a ’70s disco classic.
While it just missed the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100, You’re The First, My Last, My Everything reached Number One in the UK and Spain. Top 10 positions awaited in Belgium, Canada, South Africa and West Germany.
This one attracted cover versions and media usage like honey attracts bees. Barry himself sang it in tediously self-indulgent pout-a-thon Ally McBeal, and was also background music for drenching Bridget Jones with puddle water in her second movie. Covers-wise, it’s been reworked by the likes of Michael Buble, and more ridiculously by the Penfold From DangerMouse lookalike bloke from the Halifax adverts. Even more ludicrously, that version managed to reach Number 13 in 2005.
I think UK record buyers really were lost in a dream, that year.
I Can’t Believe You Love Me
Back in the day, soul liked to think big. I’ve encountered many a ’70s soul album that contains many an extended groove workout that eclipses seven minutes. A godsend for lazybones DJs at discos, who could sneakily bung the track on for umpteen minutes and then have a lengthy breather.
And so to I Can’t Believe You Love Me, which is just shy of 10 and a half minutes. There’s no denying that White throws everything that he can at this magnum opus. Strings. Wailing saxophones. Harps. Cooing background vocals. It’s ideal boudoir music for loving couples everywhere, who can smooch to their hearts’ content, as Barry promises that “You’re not just another woman, you’re not just another fling, you’re not just another ego trip.”
Sweet lyrics, but there’s still that nagging feeling that 10-plus minutes is pushing it to the limit. A lovely tune, the arrangements are lush, White’s voice is in typically fine fettle… but it never really goes anywhere, repeating the same riff over and over again. I can’t believe Barry thought that this could last for so long.
Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love, Babe
This is much more like it. Along with First, Last, Etc, this is White at his zenith. A crisp, classy piece of seductive soul that doesn’t take yonks to make its point. It was released as the first taste of the album in the Summer of 1974, although it took quite a while to reach the top of the Billboard Hot 100 – just about 13 weeks, give or take!
As well as being a Top 10-er in the UK and Canada, Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love, Babe was also covered by the likes of Taylor Dayne in 1993 and 10 years before that, by a chap called Big Tony…
Oh Love, Well We Finally Made It
If you can’t recycle your own material, what else can you do?
Originally, Oh Love, Well We Finally Made It was covered by Barry’s backing trio, Love Unlimited. The trio had hits in their own right with the likes of Walkin’ In The Rain With The One I Love and It May Be Winter Outside (the latter only months after the release of Can’t Get Enough). The girls’ version of this track was released the previous year, but nothing really came of it.
Barry’s version isn’t half bad, actually. I like the ethereal vocal backing in the intro, as Barry growls that he don’t, he don’t really give a damn. The track’s got a subtly funky rhythm, and like all deceptively upbeat songs has that melancholy feel to it – courtesy of the blubbing saxophone that drops in from time to time. Cool chord change halfway through, too!
I Love You More Than Anything (In This World Girl)
If you were completely oblivious to this pop lark and hadn’t heard a single note, you may still be able to identify certain artists by just reading the track listing. For instance, if there are self-conscious exclamation marks at the end of practically every album song title, it’s Shania Twain. And in another instance, if the track names are long enough to fill 10 alphabets, chance are you’ve happened upon a Barry White album.
The penultimate track on Can’t Get Enough is another tongue-twister. DJs everywhere must have been sweating bullets when announcing White tracks on the radio, for fear of making a meal of the titles. Luckily, the music underneath the moniker is very very good, in this instance, propelled by a skilful, driving beat and a cinematic swoop from the Love Unlimited Orchestra.
The lyrics are also trying out something new. Taking a break from wooing his missus, Barry is now pouring the pity on some sad sack who’s let his lover get away. “You know, I really wish him all the luck in the world,” laments Barry in the opening salvo. “’Cos he’s gonna need it.” A pre-Stilgoe case of “Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers”, the luckless goon’s plight has only reaffirmed White’s commitment to his own girl, vowing that she’s everything that a man could want – right down to the air that he breathes.
Mellow Mood (Part Two)
And we’re back to where we started! Except with a few bonus crashing piano swirls in the slow fadeout!
Despite the album’s comparatively shorter length and despite my attention waning a little at the halfway mark with the 10-minute I Can’t Believe You Love Me, Can’t Get Enough is a rip-roaring success. UK and US households must have agreed, as the album stayed on the UK charts for a good 34 weeks, and in the US for just over a year. A perfect seductive soundtrack.
(Cover art credited to Al Harper)
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