- Poor Side of Town (Johnny Rivers/Lou Adler)
- What’s Your Name? (Claude “Juan” Johnson)
- Nature Boy (Eden Ahbez)
- Call on Me (Don Robey)
- I Know Love (Richard Barbary/James Mayes/Harold Thomas)
- Teach Me (Willing to Learn) (Harold Thomas/Ed Kunz)
- Please Stay (Burt Bacharach/Bob Hilliard)
- There Was Never, Ever, Anyone but You (Dean Parrish/Bill Stanley)
- Like You, Babe (Harold Thomas)
- Let the Music Play (Burt Bacharach/Hal David)
- Nothin’ In This World (Richard Barbary/Harold Thomas)
Richard Barbary – vocals
Paul Griffin (01, 04, 05, 08), George Butcher (02, 03, 06, 07, 09-11) – piano and organ
Ernie Hayes – organ (01, 08)
Eric Gale, Hugh McCracken (01, 04, 05, 08), Sal DiTroia (02, 03, 06, 07, 09-11) – guitar
Chuck Rainey – bass
Bernard Purdie, Herb Lovelle (01, 04, 05, 08), Gary Chester (02, 03, 06, 07, 09),
George Devens (02, 03, 06, 07, 09-11), Richie Ritz (10-11) – drums and percussion
Harold Johnson (01, 04, 05, 08), Joe Newman (01, 04, 05, 08), Marvin Stamm (10, 11) – trumpet
John Bello (02, 03, 06, 07, 09), Irvin Markowitz (02, 03, 06, 07, 09-11) – flugelhorn
Mel Lastie – cornet (01, 04, 05, 08)
Dom Gravine (02, 03, 06, 07, 09), Garnett Brown (04, 05), Alan Raph (10, 11) – trombone
Artie Kaplan, Arthur Clark, Seldon Powell – saxophone (01, 04, 05, 08)
Romeo Penque – saxophone (10, 11)
Hank Freeman – saxophone and flute (02, 03, 06, 07, 09)
Joe Grimm – saxophone (10, 11) and flute (02, 03, 06, 07, 09)
Winston Collymore, Peter Dimitriades, Richard Elias, Felix Giglio, Jesse James Tyron – violin (01, 08)
Julien Barber, Al Brown – viola (01, 08)
Sidney Edwards – cello (01, 08)
Produced by Creed Taylor
Arranged and conducted by Artie Butler (02, 03, 06, 07, 09-11) and Jimmy Wisner [rhythm tracks] and Horace Ott [orchestra] (01, 04, 05, 08)
Originally issued as A&M SP 3010
Recorded March 13 (04, 05) and 19 (01, 08), May 14 (02, 03, 06, 07, 09) and June 12 (10, 11), 1968, at Van Gelder Studios, Englewood Cliff, New Jersey
01 published by EMI Sosaha Music, Inc./R2M Music/Songs of Lastrada (BMI)
02 published by BMG Bumblebee/It’s A Hit Publishing Co./Unichappell Music, Inc. (BMI)
03 published by Golden World (ASCAP)
04 published by Songs of Universal, Inc. (BMI)
05, 06, 09 and 11 published by NDE Music, Inc.
07 published by Better Half Music Company/New Hidden Valley Music Co. (ASCAP)
08 published by Dreamland Music, Inc. (BMI)
10 published by BMG Rights Management (UK) Ltd./New Hidden Valley Music Co./Songs of Fujimusic (ASCAP)
(P) 1968
Another true obscurity in this collection, Richard Barbary’s Soul Machine is Taylor’s early attempt to tap into the soul or R&B market. The album predates the producer’s similar efforts in this direction on the Kudu records of Grover Washington, Jr. and Esther Phillips by only three years. But not only is this album one of Taylor’s least known – it is one of the most enigmatic.
Soul Machine seemingly brought Richard Barbary out of nowhere, and the singer-songwriter almost immediately disappeared very soon thereafter. Barbary was a staff writer for Guardian Productions, run by brothers Roy and Julie Rifkind. The Rifkinds were music legends: Roy managed Flip Wilson, The McCoys, The Shirelles and Xavier Cugat – not to mention Richard Barbary – while Julie, a co-founder of Bang Records, was formerly the national promotion director for MGM Records at the time Creed Taylor was there.
At Guardian, Barbary wrote several songs with producer-singer-songwriter Harold Thomas (a.k.a. Prince Harold)1 that were recorded by Deon Jackson (”Ooh Baby”) and Abraham and his Sons (“I Can’t Do Without You”). In 1967, Barbary put out his own single, a Detroit-inflected version of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” b/w the funky “Get Right” for the Rifkind brothers’ recently launched Spring Records label.
Creed Taylor, looking to expand beyond the confines of jazz, likely approached the Rifkinds, who specialized in soul acts. The Rifkinds probably suggested Richard Barbary, a “soul machine” with all the promise of the next Lou Rawls or Jerry Butler.
The program concocted here surely confirms the Rifkind’s faith. Barbary’s silky and seductive voice possesses all of the lust of a Marvin Gaye and the luster of a Sam Cooke. The album is well-programmed and well-produced – suggesting a direction Barry White would take shortly thereafter – if, unfortunately, lacking in a coherent or commanding style.
Barbary covers Johnny Rivers’ number one hit “Poor Side of Town,” Nat King Cole’s familiar “Nature Boy” (one of the album’s brightest features) and, appropriately, two Drifters hits, “Please Stay” and “Let the Music Play.” The album’s two singles – covers of Don and Juan’s 1962 one-hit wonder “What’s Your Name” and Bobby Blue Bland’s “Call on Me” – are wisely chosen, yet while neither charted both are now considered Northern Soul classics.
Barbary also adds several interesting tunes to the program, including his own “Nothin’ in This World,” writing partner Harold Thomas’ soulful “Teach Me,” the funky “Like You, Babe,” and little-known blue-eyed soul singer/songwriter Dean Parrish’s crooner “There Was Never, Ever, Anyone but You.”
Throughout, Barbary is surrounded by the cream of New York session players, but not exactly the usual suspects for a Creed Taylor production. Significantly driving the album are bassist Chuck Rainey and drummer Bernard Purdie – both of whom backed many soul singers at the time – while Barbary gets noteworthy support from pianist George Butcher and guitarist Eric Gale on “Nature Boy,” organist Ernie Hayes on “Like You Babe” and cornetist Melvin Lastie on “Call on Me.”
The first two of the album’s four sessions were arranged by Jimmy Wisner (rhythm) and Horace Ott (orchestra), new names to Creed Taylor productions but hardly novices in the pop world. Wisner had arranged many hits for Bobby Rydell, Neil Sedaka, Jerry Butler, Tommy James and the Shondells, Miriam Makeba and many others including Herbie Mann. He also orchestrated Barbary’s previous single “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” and arranged and produced Tamiko Jones’ pre-A&M/CTI album Tamiko (also 1968).
Ott had worked on records by Sam Cooke, Nina Simone, Eric Burdon and, in an early foray into jazz, George Benson’s Goodies (1968). Artie Butler returned from Have You Met Miss Jones? to arrange songs from the album’s final two sessions, representing a little more than half the program presented here, including the album’s highlight, a devilishly clever Latin soul take on “Nature Boy.”
Like the Soul Flutes album, Soul Machine barely registered as a blip on anybody’s radar. The singles may have gotten some local radio airplay, but nothing quite caught on – though “Nature Boy” deserved to. The album received very little promotion and the retail outlets were either unaware of the record or unsure how to market it. To be fair, very little on A&M was manufactured for the R&B or Soul audience, therefore it’s likely the label itself had no idea what to do with Soul Machine.
Even Barbary himself seems to have done all too little to support the record, via club dates, concerts or radio appearances. In the end, no one turned on the Soul Machine and then just as suddenly as he appeared, Richard Barbary was gone. The only other known appearance of Richard Barbary on record is as co-writer of “Granny Was Her Name,” a b-side to an obscure 1970 single by the Diplomats. Curiously, Barbary recorded the song himself during the Soul Machine sessions, although the song was left off the final album.
About the Soul Machine and I’ll Be Anything For You covers: As these are the only two albums in the A&M/CTI catalog developed specifically for the pop market, they “benefit” by some mad, mod fashion shoots that would not have been out of place in David Hemmings’ studio in the 1966 film Blow-up. Both Richard Barbary and Tamiko Jones are seen in football-huddle stance with their photographic doubles superimposed on the opposite, giving these hip modsters the impression of summersaulting or “flipping out.” “Sam Antupit and I collaborated on these,” said Turner. “Creed wanted to use the two of them, but I wanted to keep going the route we’d been taking with the other covers. I had taken portrait photographs of Wes Montgomery that came across as moody, but somehow it didn’t feel right with these two to do it that way. Maybe it was because I wasn’t familiar with their music.”2 Similar exercises in hippie-chic superimpositions can be seen on such Blue Note covers of the period as Lou Donaldson’s Mr. Shing-a-Ling (1967) and Hank Mobley’s appropriately-titled The Flip (1970). Designer and photographer Blake Taylor would later do a variation of this superimposition photography on the cover of Larry Coryell’s 1993 CTI disc Fallen Angel.
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