Dig Deep: Sugar Billy – Super Duper Love – Fast Track (1975)

Sugar Billy – Super Duper Love
Sugar Billy – Too Much Too Soon
Sugar Billy – Love Bug

The weekly love fest for San Francisco’s Groove Merchant continues here with this rare gem picked up there during a birthday induced shopping trip last year. To my knowledge (which is admittedly very limited) this is the only full-length record from “Sugar” Billy Garner (sometimes spelled Gardner). He did release a couple of exceptional 45s, “I Got Some” and one of my all-time favorite dance floor burners “Brand New Girl.” It’s rare for me to buy records post-1973, but when I was browsing the aisles, I couldn’t help but take note of this record. The salacious cover art alone should make this one a keeper, but one listen to virtually any of these tracks would easily convince even the most jaded funky ears that this one is a sure ’nuff stone cold keeper.

“Super Duper Love” enjoyed a bit of a revival thanks to Joss Stone’s cover (this excellent post on Funky 16 Corners discusses this song and the politics of soul covers). I prefer this full version to the 45 one, but regardless, I’d have to rank this near the top of my favorite mid-tempo funky songs, so infectious in its good spirit, in addition to that rock solid rhythm, you just can’t help but smile while you’re listening to it.

“Too Much Too Soon” is one of the most unique funk songs I’ve ever heard. Garner’s vocals are split between channels, but it’s like there are two different versions of the same song playing at the same time, with different lyrics, occasionally a call from one side that receives a response from the other side, it’s bizarre and totally brilliant. Plus the song is a total mack of a track. You might think with the title it’s a cautionary tale, like the Special’s “Too Much Too Young,” but Billy wants you to “give it up,” and “get yours” only he wants to make sure you “give it up slow and make ‘em beg for more.” The whole track is filled with nothing but gems of lines, exactly what you’d expect from a dude who looks like this.

For the third track, I could have chosen upbeat groovers like “Sugar Pie,” “Keep Movin’ On” or the closer “Believe In Me” (incidentally, what happens to Garner mid way through “Believe In Me”? For a couple minutes he’s just singing “naw, naw, naw” like he’s in the middle of some very sloppy dining or perhaps sex, either way, shit is a little freaky), but instead I wanted to bring you “Love Bug,” a super sweet slower tempo soul number, with an extra sweet spoken passage in the middle where Sugar Billy warns you about the perils of falling in love. Hopefully someday soon I’ll be able to bring you more from Sugar Billy, provided I do track down his other 45s. I have a suspicion that if that does happen, you’ll have a certain record store in the Lower Haight to thank for it.

Cheers,

Michael