Fronted by the imperious gospel-reared vocals of Rochelle Fleming, Philadelphia’s First Choice grew from a high school all-girl quartet called The Debonettes. Slimming down to a trio and changing their name, they stormed the UK pop charts in May 1973 with the single ‘Armed & Extremely Dangerous.’ An infectious, melodramatic number about a slick street Casanova, its sense of sonic theatrics was enhanced by blaring police sirens and a Dragnet-style “calling all cars” voiceover. A few months later, the group dented the UK Top 10 with ‘Smarty Pants,’ another catchy Philly disco-soul tune aimed at the dance floor. After those first two hits, First Choice struggled to interest mainstream UK record buyers, though in the States, they continued to rack up a stack of big R&B hits, like the club favourite, ‘Doctor Love,’ one of the multiple highlights on a fabulous new box set curated by SoulMusic Records in tandem with Second Disc Records.
Love Having You Around: The Gold Mind Recordings (1977-1980) is a sumptuously annotated 4-CD clamshell box set that picks up the girls’ story after stints at the Philly Groove and Warner Bros labels when their manager Stan Watson hooked them up with producer/guitarist Norman Harris’ newly birthed Salsoul-distributed Gold Mind imprint. The set includes expanded editions of the trio’s three Gold Mind albums, 1977’s Delusions, 1979’s Hold Your Horses, and 1980’s Breakaway, and a fourth CD devoted to various remixes and reworkings of some of the group’s iconic floor fillers.
For fans of lush, Philly-style, girl-group disco-soul, the box set is a dream release. Delusions is a strong set whose highlights include the dancefloor fave ‘Doctor Love,’ the pulsating, much-sampled ‘Let No Man Put Asunder’ and a sublime version of Stevie Wonder’s ballad ‘Love Having You Around,’ a minor US R&B hit, which spotlights the vocal trio’s versatility. Hold Your Horses, whose insistent title track was a US R&B smash, is a similar cache of symphonic disco thumpers (like ‘Double Cross’). Among the album’s bonus material is the sensitive ballad ‘Now That I’ve Thrown It All Away,’ a rare non-album B-side.
The group’s final Gold Mind album, 1980’s Breakaway was their least successful but it contains some gems, like the funkafied title track, a minor US dance hit, and the breezy ‘Sittin’ Pretty,’ defined by an impassioned Fleming vocal, and the urgent ‘Pressure Point’ driven by jagged violin motifs. Each of the first three CDs contains remixes related to each album while the set’s fourth CD, dubbed ‘I Can Show You – Remixes And Reworks,’ contains ten further reconfigurations of tracks from the group’s Gold Mind catalogue by the likes of David Morales, Basement Boys, and Walter Gibbons. Detailed liner notes, featuring a new interview with Rochelle Fleming, fill in the background context and offer insight into what made First Choice tick. All in all, it’s a fantastic package that should have soul music fans, old and new, drooling.
(CW) 4/5
