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Friday Full-Length: The Undisputed Truth, The Undisputed Truth

The Undisputed Truth, The Undisputed Truth (1971)

I have yet to ever put on the 1971 self-titled debut from The Undisputed Truth and not immediately scour the commercial zones of the internet looking for a copy on CD. To the best of my knowledge, no official pressing of it exists on the format, but one can always hope and things like “the best of my knowledge” often pan out the other way. Still, I’ve never had any luck tracking it down. The vinyl, originally released on Motown subsidiary Gordy Records, is available readily enough, and if I ran into a copy in a shop I’d probably pick it up just on principle, but it’s yet to come to that. Listening back to it again now, that might just have to change.

The Undisputed Truth came together at the behest of producer Norman Whitfield. Whitfield — who had by then already worked with greats like Gladys Knight and the Pips, The Temptations and Marvin Gaye and would go on to produce records for Rose Royce and Rare Earth, among others — stands among the figures most singularly responsible for the development of psychedelic soul music, and if you listen to records like The TemptationsPuzzle People (1969) and Psychedelic Shack (1970) next to The Undisputed Truth, his stamp isn’t hard to discern. In fact, many of the songs on The Undisputed Truth‘s first album had been previously recorded by The Temptations, including the somewhat brooding hit “Smiling Faces Sometimes” and “We’ve Got a Way Out Love,” but as their take on “Ball of Confusion (That’s What the World is Today)” proves with its blistering fuzz-guitar jam that at least in my opinion well surpasses the original, The Undisputed Truth were not at all lacking in their ability to bring an individual edge to otherwise familiar material. In addition, the hard-hitting “Ain’t No Sun Since You’ve Been Gone” pushes the border between soul balladeering and proto-heavy psychedelic rock, and their version of The 5th Dimension‘s signature piece “Age of Aquarius” provides a suitable vehicle for demonstrating the nuanced vocal arrangement that distinguished psych-soul and much of Whitfield‘s production work.

They would continue to sort of stand in The Temptations‘ shadow in later-’71’s sophomore outing, Face to Face with the Truth, taking on “You Make Your Own Heaven and Hell Right Here on Earth,” but the righteousness that The Undisputed Truth stamp out early on the self-titled in “You Got the Love I Need” and “Save My Love for a Rainy Day” was no fluke, and later works like 1975’s Cosmic Truth and the following year’s Method to the Madness would find the group — whose lineup by then had shifted considerably — taking on an Afro-futuristic aesthetic very much in the post-Parliament vein, marked out by big, white Afro wigs, metallic silver facepaint, and costuming. Their final album, Smokin’, was released in 1979.

I’m not sure what version of the album the player above uses, but it seems to cap with a remix of “Smiling Faces Sometimes” rather than Bob Dylan‘s “Like a Rolling Stone,” which appears on the vinyl, but so be it. As always, I hope you enjoy.

Kind of a quiet end to the week. My office, which usually has five people in it, is down to two, one of which is me. I’ve just about finished everything I wanted/needed to do this week, though I might actually jump ahead to Monday’s work just for the hell of it, and save myself the trouble amid the inevitable post-weekend blues. I don’t know. We’ll see what the next couple hours bring.

Headed to CT for the weekend, as has become the habit, and I have some good friends coming north for a couple days, so while I’ll miss Neurosis and Brothers of the Sonic Cloth in Boston — the Roadburn announcement that Neurosis will headline in 2016 took some of the sting of that out; hopefully BotSC get added as well — I’m very much looking forward to the next few days anyhow.

I mentioned a while back that I had a “very cool project” in the works. Things are progressing. I’ll say more when the time is right.

On Monday, Kings Destroy come north with Weedeater and play The Sinclair with Gozu. I’ll admit to being more than a little bummed I didn’t get to do this tour with them, after going out twice with Pentagram last year, but hopefully I’ll at least catch the show up here and enjoy that. I’ve been pretty down on shows in general lately, to be honest, but Darsombra play next week as well, and they’re always a good time.

Hoping to put together a Faces of Bayon album stream for Tuesday as well, and Tuesday I’m interviewing Kevin Starrs from Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats (hopefully; one never knows when a call won’t come), so if that happens, I’ll have that posted sometime soon.

Look out for Ecsatic Vision and Wight reviews too, and I’m sure there there will be enough going on one way or another that I’ll feel completely overwhelmed by it all, so yeah, should be good.

Have a great and safe weekend. Thanks for reading, and extra thanks to everyone who downloaded the podcast this week. Enjoy that The Undisputed Truth record, and please check out the forum and the radio stream.

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One Response to “Friday Full-Length: The Undisputed Truth, The Undisputed Truth

  1. goAt says:

    Bummed you had to miss the show last night-I always enjoy getting your take and checkin’ out the photos. I have waited over 20 years to see Mr.Doyle perform and I swear to Christ when the first notes of “Lava” came crashing forth, I almost wept.

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