THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
2,035) Milt Matthews Inc. — “Hard Day’s Night”
A most excellent cover of the Beatles’ [see #28-29, 113, 132, 374, 422-23, 520-22, 545, 669, 779-81, 840, 872, 942, 1,087, 1,256, 1,437, 1,473, 1,910] “A Hard Day’s Night” by the “interracial soul-rock band led by vocalist Milt Matthews” (Forced Exposure, https://www.forcedexposure.com/Catalog/milt-matthews-inc-for-the-people-lp/SOULG.015LP.html) Bill Kopp writes that:
[The classic is] reinterpret[ed] . . . in a manner stylistically related to some of what was coming out of Stax . . . . [with t]he fuzz . . . laid on more thickly than was the wont of, say, Steve Cropper. A string chart adds a lot here as well: there aren’t all that many successful examples of melding . . . soul and psych.
https://blog.musoscribe.com/index.php/2010/05/03/album-review-milt-matthews-inc-for-the-people/
Forced Exposure tells us of the LP — For the People:
A key funk release from 1971 . . . [was] the second album by [Milt Matthews, Inc] . . . . All the way from Wilson, North Carolina, Milton Ray Matthews was an inspired songwriter in the vein of master Curtis Mayfield [see #118, 285, 1,347, 1,544, 1,848, 1939] and follower Lou Bond. With a series of excellent cover version — BB King’s “The Thrill Is Gone,” The Beatles’ “A Hard Days’ Night,” and “Blind Faith’s “Presence Of The Lord” — the record is full of acid-blues chops and sensuous numbers. Filling the gap between modern psychedelia and Afro-American consciousness, For The People literally ascend to the title of black tinged rock opera.
https://www.forcedexposure.com/Catalog/milt-matthews-inc-for-the-people-lp/SOULG.015LP.html
Bill Kopp adds:
Originally released on the tiny Catalyst label in the USA, this second album by the group sank in the marketplace with nary a trace. For reasons having mostly to do with the uniqueness and quality of the sides therein, UK label Ember licensed the album for re-release in England. They slapped new cover artwork on it — nothing special, but superior to the original — and put it out in 1971. It sank without a trace. Again. Which was a shame, since it’s a pretty solid album. . . . At its core, the music on For the People is soul of the turn-of-the-decade variety, but the arrangements are richly informed by the best trends of the era. While that funk-jangle-chunka-chunk so popular on soul albums of the day is omnipresent, there is also an awful lot of fuzz guitar on the album. In fact there’s as much fuzz as you’d hear on a record by, say, Blue Cheer [see #1,020] or the Electric Prunes [see #893]. And said fuzz is well-integrated. Milt Matthews wrote some strong tunes, but in some ways the most interesting numbers on the disc are the covers.
https://blog.musoscribe.com/index.php/2010/05/03/album-review-milt-matthews-inc-for-the-people/
Finally, Dusty Groove:
A weird little soul album from singer Milt Matthews – one that mixes up a range of late 60s influences, including Hendrix [see #1,577, 1,776] guitar licks, southern soul vocals, and kind of a rootsy crossover feel that’s almost equal parts rock and soul! There’s a lot of wah wah and organ in the mix – and the lyrics are pretty righteous on most songs – almost in the sort of territory that other artists were using to cross over much bigger in the US market – a space that’s somewhere between Otis Redding [see #1,333, 1,385] and Joe Cocker, but nicely rough around the edges too.
https://www.dustygroove.com/item/517804/Milt-Matthews-Inc:For-The-People
Here is the B-side version:
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