197. Gino Parks: “For This I Thank You”
This excellently slinky R&B excursion turns out to be one of the best things Gino ever recorded with the label. (6)
This excellently slinky R&B excursion turns out to be one of the best things Gino ever recorded with the label. (6)
Just about the loudest and angriest record Motown had released in its first four years of existence. It’s certainly not blues, but it’s no pop record either; it’s almost defiantly uncommercial. (5)
Parks can’t be accused of holding anything back, giving a full-on hellfire gospel-rock-blues-whatever performance with echoes of James Brown, but it’s wasted on a standard-issue doo-wop backline that seemingly can’t quite decide on what it wants to be, and an underpowered groove that never gets properly into it.
It’s not a fantastic song (it’s pretty simplistic and it doesn’t do anything unexpected), but it will get you dancing; this is probably the jauntiest, most alive dancefloor single the label had released since Barrett Strong’s Money (That’s What I Want) almost two years previously, a neater and more commercial song than the Contours’ similarly torrid Whole Lotta Woman a few months before. (6)
A thin, charmless Everly Brothers pastiche, this throwaway B-side from 1959 by “Ron & Bill” wasn’t up to much even on original release, and so quite why it was dusted off and dragged out for another go-round two years later is really anybody’s guess.
Another unashamed soundalike which flouts its “inspiration” and barely bothers to cover its tracks; the victim this time is the Coasters’ wacky Yakety Yak, a hit from almost three years previously. It’s not great. (3)