Grits & Gravy: The Best of the Fame Gang

スタックスにはMGがいた。モータウンにはファンク・ブラザーズがいた。そしてフェイムにはフェイム・ギャングがいた! サザン・ソウル・ファンに絶大な支持を受けるドラマー、フリーマン・ブラウンを擁したフェイム・スタジオ三代目のリズム・セクション=フェイム・ギャング。本作におけるフェイム・ギャングは、当時のヒット曲を中心とするインスト・カヴァーを集めた1969年にキャピトルからリリースした唯一のアルバムとはひと味もふた味も違う! 1969年にフェイムからシングルでリリースされたドラム・ブレイク入りのアルバム・タイトル曲をはじめ、とにかくファンキー&ソウルフル! なんと全25曲中18曲が未発表で、誰も知らなかったファンキー・フェイム・ギャングがここにいる! ファンク～レア・グルーヴ・ファン必聴!

What the Funk Brothers were to Motown, the Fame Gang were to the famed Fame studio down in Muscle Shoals, Alabama: the band behind the scenes that brought all those great records to life. Like the Funk Brothers, the Fame Gang was known by that name largely to insiders, and there were several iterations of the lineup over the years. The one captured on Ace's 2015 compilation Grits & Gravy: The Best of the Fame Gang is its third incarnation, one that existed when the '60s turned into the '70s, one that featured guitarist Junior Lowe, guitarist Travis Wammack, keyboardist Clayton Ivey, bassist Jesse Boyce, drummer Freeman Brown, percussionist Mickey Buckins, trumpeter/trombonist Harrison Calloway, and saxophonists Ronnie Eades, Harvey Thompson, and Aaron Varnell. It was also the only group to actually release singles under its own name, and they're all here on this 25-track collection, along with a host of unheard material, all as good as what saw release. Every one of these cuts is an instrumental, so the Fame Gang often seems like a greasier, funkier variation of Booker T & the MG's: the bandmembers share a foundation of tight Southern groove, but the Fame Gang will open their rhythms up, sliding into funky breaks and also textures so smooth they seem nearly spacy. Overall, though, Grits & Gravy captures a band that is all about riding the rhythms and their interplay -- natural, infectious, kinetic -- which is what makes this collection of little-heard sides so enduring: it's all about how this world-class band played together. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine