A Special Blend - nowhere but up (1984)

WANTED

In 1984 I went up to 125th St. in Harlem to see if there was a record store where I could find out if gospel music had evolved much since the early 1960's, when it had gotten too screechy for me with groups like the Sensational Nightingales. I lucked out, because at the one record store on that main street, a well-chiseled young woman behind the counter handed me what turned out to be three great LP's, each of them uneven but each of them containing a different new style of gospel. This post is about the most unusual LP of the three: Nowhere but up… by A Special Blend.

When I got home, what surprised my ears most was that they were also a jazz vocal group. If you want a break from our normal diet of alienated, angry, arch, astringent, cynical, nihilist, dissonant trendoid music and are in the mood for some bright-eyed, bushy-tailed music, maybe you'll enjoy this act from Alabama. The young man in the upper left of the photo, Mervyn Warren, didn't sing on the record unlike the other four, but played keyboard, did the vocal and instrumental arrangements, produced it, and wrote the above song "Nowhere But Up."
This 1984 LP, recorded in Nashville, was on the Legacy label, with no catalog number. It was the group's, and perhaps the label's, only release. I found one or two internet sites that listed the LP as having existed, but no evidence that one can obtain it in any form.
According mostly to Wikipedia, in 1985 Mervyn Warren went on to help found the a cappella sextet Take 6, which achieved worldwide fame in 1988. He produced or co-produced their first two albums and with them won his first four Grammy Awards. In 1991 he left Take 6 to become a full-time record producer and film composer. If you Google him, you'll get 40,000 results. His website (now under repair) didn't mention A Special Blend. These five songs get heavy rotation through my ear drums.