SPANKY WILSON

Boomp3.com
Biography by Marisa Brown (amg)

Born in Philadelphia, PA, soul singer Spanky Wilson (a nickname she received as a child due to the spankings her father gave her when she behaved badly) joined the scene in the late '60s with big-band recordings, moving to Paris in 1985 to continue her career there. With collaborations with the like of the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Lalo Schifrin, Marvin Gaye, Willie Bobo, and Sammy Davis, Jr., along with her own solo work, Wilson became a DJ favorite all over the world, including in England, where musician and producer Will Holland (Quantic, Quantic Soul Orchestra) spent many years searching for her (she had moved to Los Angeles in 2000). In 2004 Holland finally found Wilson, and they worked together on two songs for Quantic's record, Mishaps Happening, leading to a full-length Wilson and QSO album, I'm Thankful, which came out in 2006 on Ubiquity.

Review by Richie Unterberger (amg)

Everything that could be dug up from Spanky Wilson's mid-1970s stint at Westbound Records is on this 18-track compilation, including all ten tracks from her 1975 Specialty of the House LP; two cuts that surfaced many years later on CD compilations; and six previously unreleased items retrieved from the vaults. It adds up to a respectable, but not exciting, collection of material by a versatile singer whose jazz-pop leanings are evident in some of the tunes and performances, yet who is reasonably comfortable with numbers that call for more standard soul-funk stylings. Wilson might be a little too talented to deserve the "journeywoman" sticker, but nonetheless this music isn't much above that label, offering fair early-to-mid-1970s soul that's a little less slick than much such fare of the period, almost entirely steering clear of any hints of disco. For the most part, the best cuts are actually those that depart a little from the mainstream soul format, like a satisfyingly funky take on Bill Withers' "Kissing My Love" and a chance to revisit her somewhat jazz-poppier origins on "Home." Some of the cuts not released at the time gave her opportunities to try out some unexpected material, like her earthy take on Harlan Howard's "He Called Me Baby" and her cover of Lesley Duncan's "Love Song" (made more famous by Elton John). The discofied version of Howard's "The Chokin' Kind" was a bad idea, however.