Why Can’t We Live Together: The Best of the TK Years 1972-81 (Stateside)
If there’s one thing for which soul fans have to be grateful to Joss Stone, it’s bringing back to prominence artists such as Timmy Thomas. He was a big name in 1972 when his debut disc, and the title track of this reissue, sold millions. But he slipped off the radar, and by the time he was recruited as a keyboard player for the Stone sessions, he’d left the music scene altogether and was working as a college administrator. And yet Why Can’t We Live Together, a self-penned plea for brotherly love on which every expense was spared — it’s just Thomas on a Lowery organ with a rhythm machine — remains one of the great moments of 1970s soul, with its jabbing, high-register organ runs, Thomas’s smoky vocals and the hypnotic drumbeat. While there’s nothing else here that quite matches it, People Are Changin’ has a similar laid-back groove and You’re the Song I ‘ve Always Wanted to Sing brings a fuller sound with vocal backing. Thomas’s fellow Florida-based vocalist Betty Wright also pops up in a duet with him on two cuts, Sweet Brown Sugar and Ebony Affair. Put on your flares and start dancing.
John Clarke