I Need Some Money

Sound DNA

• Jazz
• Jazz Fusion

• warm
• groovy
• funky

About

Perhaps inspired by his partner Les McCann’s vocal forays, Eddie Harris unleashed his first all-singing album in 1974. There is winking bitterness in the title. It both preempts the inevitable cries of “sellout” from jazz purists, and shows that Harris has a sense of humor about himself. Just as Stevie Wonder had served as the inspiration for McCann’s R&B songs, Harris’ model here is Sly Stone — specifically, the Sly Stone of <i>There’s A Riot Goin’ On</i> and <i>Fresh</i>. <i>I Need Some Money</i> is best understood as an analog to those albums rather than in the context of Harris’ earlier work. Harris makes full use of the tsk-tsk-tapping drum machine that had recently become Sly’s obsession, and he uses his voice to inhabit the same claustrophobic, narcotized space that was Sly’s stomping ground. Harris’ audience at the time was at best baffled and at worst offended, but in retrospect, <i>I Need Some Money</i> is a raw and murky journey into basement funk, a genre that includes not only the aforementioned Sly albums, but Shuggie Otis’s <i>Inspiration Information</i> and Miles Davis’ <i>On the Corner</i>.

via Apple Music

Tracklist

Credits