Genre
Southern soul and deep soul. The album represents a late flowering of the classic Muscle Shoals soul sound at a moment when it was rapidly being supplanted by disco and funk, combining Ingram's aching baritone with the warm, groove-rooted arrangements characteristic of the KoKo Records catalogue — spanning mid-tempo soul workouts, ballads, and funk-inflected tracks.
Release
Released in 1976 by KoKo Records, the independent Memphis label founded and owned by Ingram's manager and producer Johnny Baylor.
Production
Produced by Johnny Baylor, who had overseen all of Ingram's KoKo recordings. Like its predecessors, the album was recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios, Sheffield, Alabama, with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section providing the core instrumental backdrop.
Reception
The album did not achieve the commercial success of Ingram's earlier KoKo releases. One critic described it as a "last gasp" of a type of Southern soul music rapidly being displaced by disco and funk in the black music charts." The title track and "Your Love Is Something Special" have been particularly praised by soul collectors and have enjoyed renewed appreciation via reissues and soul revival programming.
Luther Ingram
Luther Thomas Ingram (November 30, 1937, Jackson, Tennessee – March 19, 2007, Memphis, Tennessee) was an American R&B and soul singer-songwriter. He spent his adolescence in Alton, Illinois, and launched his singing career in a family group before relocating to New York City — where, according to legend, he briefly roomed with an unknown Jimi Hendrix — and later to Memphis, where he signed with Johnny Baylor's fledgling KoKo Records in 1967. The label's distribution deal with Stax Records in 1969 transformed his fortunes. In 1971, he co-wrote "Respect Yourself" for the Staple Singers — one of the defining anthems of the soul era. The following year, "(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want to Be Right" reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on the R&B Singles chart, earning him a Grammy nomination and becoming one of the most celebrated soul ballads of the 1970s — subsequently covered by Millie Jackson, Rod Stewart, Barbara Mandrell, and Isaac Hayes, among many others. His KoKo recordings with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section remain among the finest documents of Southern soul of the early 1970s.
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