Lou Rawls and Don Costa - The Soul of Nigger Charley LP (MGM) 1973



^A difficult one to find if you can imagine that. For as over the top as the title is, this soundtrack is about the most soulful one out of the bunch. Lou Rawls was extremely popular with white cool jazz fans when this movie dropped and he took a big chance with a core audience on being involved on such a controversial film, but he gained new fanfare and eventually this soundtrack diminished into obscurity.








Allan Alper - Black Gestapo LP (Bryanston Pictures)



^Out of all of my Blaxploitation OSTs, this is the worst. The theme song is cool but for the most part I can see why this never received an official pressing until many years later. It's filled primarily with extremely over the top dialog from the movie so there's some great scratchables for turntablists here but not much in terms of chilling out and listening to an entire album. This came with a giant quad fold Black Gestapo poster which I stored. It's not the kind of thing I'd hang in my office that's for sure.








Quincy Jones - They Call Me Mr Tibbs LP (United Artists) 1970



^The sequel to In the Heat of the Night was one of QJs finest soundtracks IMHO. So much better than that soundtrack, this one is still technically a precursor to blaxploitation films but music wise the sound is undeniably ahead of it's time and a taste of things to come.








Various - The Thing With Two Heads LP (MGM) 1972



^All kinds of guests on this strange soundtrack. A film about a man with two heads, one black and one white. Kind of reminds me of that early Star Trek episode where the alien had one half white face and one half black face and there was one mutant alien who's black and white face color was "on the wrong side." Who knew that Gene Roddenberry wrote a blaxploitation plot? He certainly broke ground on TV with having an all inclusive ship.

But I digress, this album is SO much better than the film. Some great otherwise unavailable tracks from the Incredible Bongo Band grace this album.








Bobby Womack & JJ Johnson - Across 110th Street LP (United Artists) 1972



^Arguably the greatest of all blaxploitation soundtracks. I can't say it's my all time favorite but track for track it's as solid as it can get. Quinton Tarantino loved the title track so much he adopted it for his own Blaxploitation he dropped "Jackie Brown"


...What better way to appreciate this song then by watching the drop dead gorgeous Pam Grier's opening for Jackie Brown.

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“Lesser artists borrow... great artists steal.” - Igor Stravinsky
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Quote
rchecka
Allan Alper - Black Gestapo LP (Bryanston Pictures)
This came with a giant quad fold Black Gestapo poster which I stored. It's not the kind of thing I'd hang in my office that's for sure.

See, that's exactly the kind of thing I want in my office! I'd get to have more of those nice long conversations with HR that I enjoy so much!

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Yeah, HR would not approve of this.

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“Lesser artists borrow... great artists steal.” - Igor Stravinsky
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Thought I'd have time to do this every single day. Oh well, better late than never... Summertime is a good time! Continuing on...



Willie Hutch - Foxy Brown LP (Motown Records) 1974



^Willie is the man on so many levels. His style and funk and soul gave him real ownership in this niche. His softer funky style was perfect for this soundtrack.







Willie Hutch - The Mack LP (Motown) 1973



^So many joints on this. The Chemical Brothers sampled "Brothers Gonna Work it Out" and then I heard the original amazed how foreign the two sounded from each other. Doing a little digging online and I found the live version of Brothers Gonna Work it Out on Soul Train!

Soul Train "Brothers Gonna Work it Out"






Curtis Mayfield - Super Fly LP (Curtom) 1972



Superfly is the third studio album by Soul god Curtis Mayfield. By this time he had perfectly honed his skills. This album along with What's going On by Marvin Gaye were pioneering soul concept albums exposing the poverty and drug abuse problems of the ghettos. I was lucky enough to find the original pressing of this album with the tri-fold cut out cover completely intact!







Dennis Coffey - Black Belt Jones LP (Weintraub-Heller Production) Unofficial 2003



This album was never officially dropped and really it's obvious why that is. If you buy this you'll find a few actual songs including the staple Theme song, but for the most part this is just movie chase funky guitar riffs, dialog and tons of "HEEEE-YAHHHH!!!" "WOOOOOOOOOOO!" This is proof that the Kung Fu craze of the seventies infiltrated blaxploitation flicks cohesively.







Galt MacDermot - Cotton Comes to Harlem LP (United Artists) 1970



^One of my favorites due to the slow and groovy chugging funk styling of Galt MacDermot. He was one of the few privileged white composers to throw his hat into the blaxploitation soundtrack ring and he nailed it.

One of my favorite tracks from this made the cut on my original Dumpster Funk mix "Harlem Medley"

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“Lesser artists borrow... great artists steal.” - Igor Stravinsky
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^ Very cool. Super Fly and the Mack are great. I definitely need a copy of Foxy Brown. Gonna check out the others too.

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