Jive Time Records

Cher’s best LP, 3614 Jackson Highway (1969), is her Dusty In Memphis, a kind of gritty Southern soul/funk outing that deviated from her usual output. Recorded at the Alabama studio bearing that address, Muscle Shoals, with its stable of fantastic session players and singers, 3614 Jackson Highway was a critical success and consensus Cher favorite among true heads, but a relative commercial failure.

Cher sounds like she’s in her element amid an array of interesting covers, including Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth," Dr. John's "I Walk On Guilded Splinters," and THREE Dylan songs from Nashville Skyline. Critic Buckley Mayfield reviews this lovely outlier in Cher's huge catalog on our blog. Link in comments.

Although Sonny Bono wrote many hits with Cher in the '60s, he was generally not taken very seriously by true heads. His '70s TV variety show with Ms. Sarkisian, in which Bono was often the butt of jokes, nudged him further into buffoonish territory. But Sonny was a solid tunesmith, and his lone solo LP, 1967's Inner Views, sounds like his bid to be a genuine Artiste™—or was it just another psychsploitation cash-in... albeit one that didn't sell well? Whatever the case, Inner Views is an interesting curio/period piece. Read critic Buckley Mayfield's review of it on our blog. Link in comments.

A white Englishwoman with phenomenal pipes singing and writing songs while backed by early-’70s Funkadelic? And we get *two* excellent Rolling Stones covers, to boot? Jeez, Ruth Copeland’s 1971 sophomore LP I Am What I Am should be WAY better known than it is. Writing two songs for Parliament's debut Osmium led to Copeland getting signed to Detroit's Invictus label, who tried to make Ruth the Caucasian Diana Ross. Alas, the foolish public weren't buying it. Still, I Am What I Am—which Copeland also produced—is a cult classic, a real IYKYK funk/soul gem. Read critic Buckley Mayfield's review of it on our blog. Link in comments.

Before they became a well-oiled hit machine and the punch line to millions of unfunny discophobic jokes, KC & The Sunshine Band were a tight little funk group of distinction. Then their second album yielded TWO chart-topping singles and they became superstars riding the burgeoning disco phenomenon. But a strange thing happened: Their third LP came out the same year as their breakthrough record, but under The Sunshine Band moniker, and it consisted of funky-as-hell instrumentals. What was up with that? Critic Buckley Mayfield explains in a review of 1975's aptly titled The Sound Of Sunshine on our blog. Link in comments.