Father's Children
(Numero Group)
Collectors are well-acquainted with the sheer thrill of discovery that Chicago's Numero Group has provided in its eight-year existence; with its ongoing quest for musical rarities, attention to sonic detail, and diligence in liner note annotation/documentation, the archival label is unquestionably one of the classiest crate-digging operation in the business. Yet it's also apparent that these folks operate on a subtly higher plane than the typical crate-digging mentality - call it, "thinking outside the crate." Because in addition to the scores of denoised/restored/remastered 45 obscurities that have turned up on Numero collections (such as those that dot Numero's acclaimed "Eccentric Soul" series of defunct label overviews), the previously unreleased material that's been unearthed has often left you wondering why in the hell did this artifact never see the light of the day in the first place.
Well, that's part of the Numero aesthetic: they are going to tell you about the how and the why. Case in point: Father's Children, from D.C.'s west side and operative during the ‘70s, who mustered an indie 45 plus an eponymous album for the Mercury label. As the detail-rich, photo-crammed 20-page booklet to Who's Gonna Save The World outlines, the group's story wasn't particularly unusual: from humble local origins - in this instance, a doo-wop trio called the Dreams - Father's Children gradually evolved into a larger soul/funk ensemble with rock, jazz and Latin/African elements (think War, Commodores, Crusaders, etc.), touring first regionally then as far west as Texas, all the while weathering myriad personnel and management upheavals en route to their big break with Mercury, only to dissolve shortly after the record flopped. End of story, right?
Not quite. Numero got wind of a series of earlier recordings the band had done with local D.C. engineer, producer and studio owner Robert Hosea Williams. A proposed album failed to materialize after the bill for the sessions didn't get paid, so the tapes languished in Williams' garage for several decades - until now.
Admittedly, WGSTW is a mixed bag that only hints at potential musical genius, so it's anybody's guess if the course of history would have been altered had the record seen the light of day back in the mid ‘70s. Listening to it now, some of the nine songs haven't aged too well: love ballad "Linda" boasts by-the-numbers orchestration and a sub-Philly Sound production, while "In Shallah," despite aiming for a kind of Curtis Mayfield/Impressions vibe, is undercut by dated lyrical clichés ("you'll be a superstar... just what you are..."). But on the tunes that hold up, the band positively soars. Chief among those are the Latin percussion-powered instrumental jam "Father's Children," with its interplay of sinewy guitar and keyboards, and "Kohoutek," a wah-wah laced, Gil Scott Heron-esque celebration of the cosmic possibilities the mighty comet represented.
Elsewhere one encounters pointed social commentary (the dark, loping "Dirt and Grime" tackles drugs, crime and more) as well as nascent positivity ("Everybody's Got a Problem," another Mayfield-informed number; "Universal Train," a summery, soulful, love/peace/happiness summery epic that out-trains the O'Jays' "Love Train"), all delivered in varying degrees of sensuality, celebration, gravitas and outrage depending on the topic at hand. Per Numero tradition, there's an "Extended Play" section that follows what would presumably have been the original LP, a vastly different - and haunting - version of "Linda" here titled "Linda Movement" that, in a just world, could've found its way onto the soundtrack of a blaxploitation flick during a montage segment.
All in all, another winner for the Numero Group, and as suggested above, a must-hear for any devotee to the canon.
DOWNLOAD: "Father's Children," "Kohoutek" FRED MILLS
