The Delfonics -- Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time) (1970)

Last week, this Delfonics classic played out over XM's Soul Street station while driving on the 678 and I couldn't help myself: I had to croon along loud and clear. If there's one song that forces a white boy to pretend he's a soul man, this is right near the top.

Definitely on my soon-to-be-posted list of "best song intro's,""Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time)" was one of many classics written and produced by Philly soul genius Thom Bell. The Delfonics had already hit the top of the charts with "La La Means I Love You" two years earlier, but this song truly set the gold standard for arranging and songwriting.

And all of it honored with the Quentin Tarantino Jackie Brown soundtrack seal of approval.

Rare do you find a song that actually announces itself, like royalty approaching. Two joyous solo bursts of a French horn (or is it a fluegelhorn?), pause, and then the chorus melody emoted by the bells and the immortal sitar at the same time. Got to love the 70's soul hits with the sitar!

In a slow swaying beat you want to finger snap to, you've got the prototypical torn man lyrics, you done him wrong, all in a cushy warm reverb:


I gave my heart and soul to you, girl
Didn't I do it baby.... didn't I do it bay-bay

Gave you the love you never knew, girl
Didn't I do it baby... didn't I do it bay-bay

I've tried so many times and that's no lie,
It seems to make you laugh each time I cry


Tempo and key shifts, announced by the several brief punctuated trumpets:


Didn't I blow your mind this time, didn't I, oh,
Didn't I blow your mind this time, didn't I...
Listen...


That accusing falsetto, the accompanying guilt trip...

I thought that heart of your was true, girl
Now didn't I think it baby, didn't I think it bay-bay

But this time I'm really lea-a-avin' you-u-u, girl, wo-o-oah,
Hope you know it baby... hope you know it bay-bay


There isn't a bad note in the arrangement, right through the instrumental break of the verse, with its wailing French horn and silky vocals "Didn't I do it baby... didn't I do it baby!"

Here are two videos of the song, one straight from the 45, the way it was meant to be heard... the second from 1973, the Delfonics performing live with a distinctly slower beat and stripped down arrangement.

Bloodstone -- "Natural High" (1973)

As with the earlier discussed Chi-Lites from Chicago, the early 70's was an overflow of doo wop-based soul and R&B acts who evolved with better production, more elaborate arrangements, and on-the-nail songwriting.

Like the Chi-Lites, Bloodstone came from the Midwest -- Kansas City -- and began as the doo wop group the Sinceres. in the early 60's. Toiling along for years in relative obscurity, Bloodstone actually did what the Stray Cats did nearly 10 years later, go to London to find fortune and fame. And when they came back, they came back big with "Natural High."

A prototypical early 70's soul ballad, "Natural High" had a piercing falsetto lead, light as a feather background vocals, and that kind of slow jam groove made for swaying back and forth. The song begins with a striking see-saw opening with the Strat playing the lead line, an occasional bell in the background, then in drops down with the bass, stops, and then three spectacular stuttering snare and kick drum fills for an intro. Throughout the song, there are jazzy guitar runs going up the fretboard, the group whispers "I... don't... know... you," and then the song changes tempo altogether for a melodic clean Gibson solo that races all over the high register, swallowed up by that old "ahh" breathing out vocal trick into the next verse.

There's also one of those "little things" that sort of watermark the song: in the verse after the first chorus, they sing: " If you have anything to do/Call me and I will do it for you/And I don't even know you." Just before he goes into the next verse, it sounds like they're whispering: "Hey Jeannie." You can definitely hear it on the "Soul Train" video below.

For some reason, despite having really shot their biggest load with "Natural High," Bloodstone convinced somebody two years later to finance a film starring the group, Train Ride To Hollywood. I remember the film vaguely coming out, and wondering how it actually got made and who would see it. I don't know if anybody did, but you can still get a used DVD of it from Amazon. Reading the IMDb plot description, I can understand why it wasn't exactly up there with Superfly and Shaft: "Harry Williams, member of the rhythm & blues band Bloodstone, is about to go onstage for a concert when he is hit on the head. The rest that follows is his dream. The four band members become conductors on a train filled with (impersonated) actors and characters from the 1930s such as W.C. Fields, Dracula, and Scarlett O'Hara. Patterned after movies by the Marx Brothers and the Beatles, 'Train Ride' features various songs. The thin plot requires the singing conductors to solve a mystery; Marlon Brando is murdering Nelson Eddy, Jeanette McDonald, and others by suffocating them in his armpits. Arriving in Hollywood, the Bloodstone boys are turned into wax sculptures by Brando."

However, the biggest compliment for "Natural High," certifying it as ultra-cool, is that Quenin Tarantino used it prominently in his film Jackie Brown, when Robert Forster first sees the title character, played by Pam Grier (see video below).

Before that video, Bloodstone performing "Natural High" on Don Cornelius' "Soul Train" TV show. I love that each guy is playing a different guitar, from the black and white Strat all the way ont he left, and then, from left to right, a gold-plated Gibson Les Paul, a Fender bass, a Fender Telecaster, and what looks like a black semi-hollow-bodied Gibson (I think). Am I imagining things when I hear the vinyl crackle on this lip-synch performance?
Soul Train 1973 - Bloodstone -Natural high