Merry Clayton - Keep Your Eye On The Sparrow * 1975

A really cool collaboration between Merry Clayton and Eugene McDaniels -- a producer who really takes her music into new territory here! As with other perfect productions by McDaniels in the 70s, Gene really grabs the whole thing up and makes it his own -- adding a lot more funk to the mix than you might expect, and electrifying the instrumentation in ways that bump up Merry's vocals nicely. Even better, though -- he wrote a number of tunes for the set -- the kind of offbeat soul numbers that we love from Eugene's own work, which help Merry move into a hip range of themes and topics. There's a righteous mix of funky jazz and soul on the record -- a bit like the sound of Marlena Shaw's Blue Note albums -- and McDaniels titles include "Gold Fever", "If I Lose", "Do What You Know", "Gets Hard Sometimes", and "Sink Or Swim". Also includes a great version of Baretta's theme -- "Keep Your Eye On The Sparrow" - plus "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" and "How'd I Know".