THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,982) Kim Weston — “Brothers & Sisters (Get Together)”
“Killer funk with a message! Right on!” (atgunchev, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfUG-74lwAQ) “[R]ed hot funk amazing vocals”. (noelwalsh7979, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfUG-74lwAQ) “Woww, the heat coming off this track is intense!” (t_albino, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8NDMeO6beY)
Kim laid down this “self-penned [along with her husband William ‘Mickey’ Stevenson] tour-de-force . . . [that] should have been [a] huge hit[] . . . [a] brilliant & riveting survival anthem[] that inspire[s]” (Funk My Soul, https://www.funkmysoul.gr/kim-weston-1970-kim-kim-kim/), a “message song . . . featur[ing] brass like elephants trumpeting and a deep lowdown groove” (Ian McCann, https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/kim-weston-kim-kim-kim-stax-album/), simply “brilliant . . . [with] wickedly hyperactive horns”. (mag1c_hands, https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/kim-weston/kim-kim-kim/)
As to Kim’s ’71 Volt LP Kim, Kim, Kim, Funk My Soul enthuses:
Kim Weston recorded this incredibly great set of richly varied and stunning performances a number of years after leaving Motown and is in peak form in this lost masterpiece that should have made [her] a huge Superstar as nobody sings quite like this fiery Diva who has the greatest voice of any of the singers from the classic Motown sixties and could out sing everyone on that legendary label…[T]he lady can SING!!! . . . [She is] one of the greatest singers of her generation.
Steve Huey tells us about Kim:
Best known as a duet partner of Marvin Gaye [see #229, 940, 1,738] , Kim Weston also charted with some of her own solo sides during the ’60s, although she never had . . . breakout success . . . . Born Agatha Natalie Weston in Detroit . . . she started singing in her church choir at age three, and by her teenage years had joined a touring gospel group called the Wright Specials. She signed with Motown during the company’s early days, scoring a minor R&B hit in 1963 with “Love Me All the Way.” The following year, she recorded her first duet with Gaye, “What Good Am I Without You,” but made the tactical error of turning down a chance to record “Dancing in the Street[]” . . . . She enjoyed her biggest solo hit in 1965 with “Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me a Little While)” and followed it up in 1966 with the equally soulful “Helpless[]” . . . . Also in 1966, she cut an entire album of duets with Gaye, Take Two, which produced the Top Five R&B classic “It Takes Two.” By the time it was peaking on the charts in early 1967, however, Weston had already left Motown; she and her husband, producer William “Mickey” Stevenson, moved to MGM, but a pair of albums there . . . proved to be commercial failures. Weston subsequently recorded for Volt (Kim, Kim, Kim), People . . . , and . . . Banyan Tree, all without much success. She did, however, chart with her version of the anthem “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” in 1970.
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