Rare Earth
(Hip-O Select)
Thinking back to the days of the late-but-great Rare Earth and - waitaminnit, you say you don't remember Rare Earth? Pull up a chair, kid: extant, at least during their initial run, during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Detroit's Rare Earth is most often recalled as the first white band on Motown, a tightly-wound ensemble specializing in funk/soul-powered rock who had a massive hit right out of the box via a cover of the Temptations' "Get Ready." That song, either in both its edited-for-AM radio form or its 21-minute, psychedelic album version that got underground FM deejays fired up (in more ways than one), remains as much a guaranteed party-starter as other Motown fare from the era. But as evidenced on this three-CD career overview, there was plenty more to the band, and not just the hard-earned chops Rare Earth developed coming up on the fertile, crowded R&B club scene of the Motor City.
1969's Get Ready boasted the aforementioned smash, of course, but it also contained sinewy versions of "Tobacco Road" and Savoy Brown's "Train To Nowhere," while 1971 followup Ecology winningly returned to the Temps well via yet another extended psych-soul foray,"(I Know) I'm Losing You." And while it's true that the group's big hits arrived from the pens of non-members - 1971's "I Just Want To Celebrate" and "Hey Big Brother" are thumpingly rousing anthems - before the well started to run dry and the group began to disintegrate, in the originals dotting One World (1971) and Willie Remembers (1972) Rare Earth proved they woulda been contenders even without Motown's estimable patronage. The original group split up for all the usual reasons after 1973's Norman Whitfield-produced Ma, at which point some of the members carried on with the name to diminishing returns and the others formed the obscure-but-good HUB.
The bottom line: elaborated packaged with a quintt-fold mini-LP sleeve design housed in a flip-top box, boasting a liners-rich 32-page booklet, and additionally filling in a few gaps courtesy nine singles tracks (edits and non-LP material), Fill Your Head keenly resurrects the Rare Earth legacy. Part blue-eyed soul, part Aquarian-age hippie grooviness and part tough-as-nails ensemble jamming, the band was, in the parlance of the times, righteous. Right on, my bruthas.
Standout Tracks: "Get Ready," "Smiling Faces Sometimes" FRED MILLS
