The dorky cover shouldn’t scare you off. Is rather a sign of the self-irony of guitarist Bill Courtial, who stages his last name quite literally, with »courtly« clothing. Which otherwise has little to do with the music. At most, one could say that the fusion funk he cultivates, reinforced by singer Errol Knowles, on what is presumably his only solo album under his own name, has quite a bit to offer in terms of distinction, is more refined-filigree than gripping-dirty. On »Don’t You Thing It’s Time,« soul rhymes more with Latin American rhythms and tried-and-true jazz sensibility than with frontal, straightforward body language with recourse to brute rock gestures. The melodies are always just catchy enough to prevent the matter from becoming too cerebral. And there are solos, it is also a bit of a jazz album, but they are part of the whole and never grow into self-indulgent self-purposes. The mixture works throughout and could have aroused greater interest at the time when the record was released in 1976. The fact that it was released by the small and very short-lived Californian label Pipeline didn’t help.
C.A.R.
Valonia
Bimba