Car Wash (1976)

It's one of the first disco songs you think of, right? It's come to sum up a whole genre in five glorious minutes. When that intro starts with the distinctive hand claps and wah wah guitar, that's the signal. It doesn't matter how incapable of dancing you are, its time to get on the floor and boogie. Yet deceptively enough it's the only disco song on the album.

Entirely written and produced by Norman Whitfield, the soundtrack to Car Wash, like everything else he did, is very much his show. He had been one of the most successful writer/producers at Motown records, behind many of the labels most unforgettable songs like I Heard It Through the Grapevine, Just My Imagination and Papa Was a Rolling Stone. By the mid-seventies his productions had come to mean funky rhythm sections, dynamic string arrangements and echoed solos over extended lengths of 10 minutes or more (which greatly influenced the 12 inch/DJ revolution that fuelled the disco era). Whitfield discovered the band backing Edwin Starr as Total Concept Unlimited. Impressed by their playing he soon had them backing his own acts, like Yvonne Fair, the Undisputed Truth and the Temptations (which they would continue to do even after hitting the big time in their own right). When the chance came for Whitfield to write and produce his own soundtrack, he added a lead vocalist to the band, Gwen Dickey, and pushed them into the limelight. At the back of his mind Whitfield may well have considered that he could impose more control over the act and music without the problematic ego aspect of 'artistes'. (Gwen later would later complain that he wanted her to change her name to 'Rose'.)

Strangely this his first (and last?) soundtrack, despite the brooding, epic nature of his music which you could imagine creating the appropriate tension in any scene. Yet from the quality of his songwriting on this album it must have been something he always wanted to do. He obviously held Isaac Hayes in high regard covering Do Your Thing from the soundtrack of Shaft on his 1972 Temptations album. But in many senses was also a rival, covering much of the same ground, so why wouldn't he want his own soundtrack? The result is more Funk than anything else. The broad brass arrangements, wah wah guitar (Melvin 'Wah Wah Watson' Ragin is all over this album) and chanted vocals on songs like Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is (a minor hit from the album) owe much to the music of Kool & The Gang, the Fatback Band and the Ohio Players. That is not a bad thing, as Whitfield adds his own slant on the sound, adding those string arrangements which build up and up - then drop leaving the rhythm section, like on Keep On Keepin' On. There are three amazing ballads in the form of You're On My Mind, I'm Going Down (which Mary J Blige faithfully recreated and scored quite a sizable hit with a few years ago) and I Wanna Get Next to You (another sizable hit), which, with a falsetto male vocal, seemed to have been nudged off a Temptations album. Then there are the great mood pieces, like Crying and particularly Sunrise. Commencing as it does with a practice scale played on a trumpet, it builds on simplistic melodies with that trademark orchestration. In fact, like most of the album, it seems to have come from a far more serious film. Maybe something about a black private dick or a heist. The reason perhaps in the movie itself so many of the songs are reduced to playing in the background on car radios. A terrible waste. There's also guest vocals from the Pointer Sisters when they were four and funky, AND some film dialogue from Richard Pryor's cameo appearance.

The album was successful enough to help Norman springboard his own label, the imaginatively titled Whitfield Records, and he took Rose Royce with him. They enjoyed even greater success in the UK with the ballads Wishing On a Star and Love Don't Live Here Anymore, despite disappointing sales in their home country. They built up quite a following here and even chalked up impressive album sales (particularly for an American R&B band) until their popularity waned after 1980. Car Wash, however, was always their best album. It was one of the most consistent albums Whitfield produced (which is saying something) and really doesn't miss the spot on any of the tracks. Just don't expect a disco album.