Phil Upchurch – Black Gold
Phil Upchurch – Adam and Charlene
Phil Upchurch – More and More
Phil Upchurch – Midnight Chile
Like a good friend you hadn’t seen in years that you didn’t even know how much missed them until you reunited, I was filled with overwhelming joy when I ran into this record a couple of months ago at Gimme Gimme Records in Highland Park. Like a number of the records I cherished before the big sell off in 2004, I figured it would be fairly easy to find another copy. The years have shown me the folly of that thinking and how truly privileged I was to have started collecting in the 1990s. I’d been on the lookout for this one for almost ten years and had only seen one other beat-up copy in all those years.
It’s pretty understandable what makes this one so hard to find. It’s recorded in the sweet spot period of Chicago psychedelic soul, late 1960s, and orchestrated by the under-appreciated genius Charles Stepney. Though Phil Upchurch by this time had been recording for quite some time, there’s not another one of his records that has this style. Even though there are other productions, notably with Rotary Connection, that have the hallmarks of Stepney’s style, this one has always been my favorite and the one that sounds most unique and special to my ears.
Cheers,
Michael