Singles A's & B's Vol. 4 : 1973-1976

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This is the fourth, and penultimate, volume in Shout's extraordinary series of compilations of Joe Tex's singles for the Dial label in his commercial prime. The period covered by this anthology found Tex in an odd phase of his career, as he retired from the music for about a couple of years around mid-1972 before returning to the recording scene. Partly as a consequence, these weren't among the singer's most successful years, and this CD has just one big hit ("Ain't Gonna Bump No More [With No Big Fat Woman]"), though a few of the others were minor R&B charters. The out-and-out disco of "Ain't Gonna Bump No More" may cause some more old-school soul fans to be wary, but actually it's not typical of the music here, which found Tex continuing to mine the humorous funk of early-'70s cuts like "I Gotcha" to generally good effect. It's true that the blatant good-time, frivolously jiving fun gets a bit wearing when heard in bulk like this, and tunes like "Sassy Sexy Wiggle" and "My Body Wants You" are not destined to endure as significant lyrical statements, even relative to other similar Tex efforts. But Joe did put in some decent more serious-minded efforts like "Rain Go Away," the bluesy "Woman Stealer," and the pleading ballad "Let's Go Somewhere and Talk" as well, though on the whole this isn't quite as top-notch as his output had been at points in the recent past. That accounts for why not much of this shows up on greatest-hits collections, but then a five-volume series of Tex singles (which even so does not cover his entire career) is not aimed toward fairweather fans. It's for the Texmen (and Texwomen) out there, and on that score it's pretty satisfying, collecting both sides of nine singles he issued for this period in chronological order. ~ Richie Unterberger