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The world's only definitive weekly dance music reviews

JOHN WAGNER COALITION 'SHADES OF BROWN'
(LICORICE SOUL)

Ah, another killer funk set dragged from the corners of obscurity by the Licorice Soul label.  John Wagner was a 70's studio producer who'd worked with various funk / R&B outfits, and - having been exposed to the music of one James Brown from an early age - thought he would produce an album of cover versions which would have a much broader market appeal than their immediate R&B base.  So he put together a band of session musicians and worked his way through standards like "Sex Machine", "Aint' It Funky", "Cold Sweat", "It's A Man's World", et al, creating a funk fusion album that sounded like nothing else around, then or now.  Raw in attitude, yet polished in delivery, the posturing James Brown-like sound that results - powered by heavy percussion and earth-moving bass - is possibly the best album the hardest working man in show business never even recorded.  Superfly alternatives to evergreen classics, this is one to dig on forever and a day.

DARREN WALL