I hit play on the new record from San Diego’s The Sully Band and it was like stepping into the way back machine. It must have been about 1975 or 1976, and I discovered KAAY in Little Rock and its after-midnight programming. Sitting on a tailgate on a sweltering summer night, pulling surreptitiously from a bottle in a brown paper bag, it was so different from all the radio stations us midwestern farm boys could hear during the day. Not different because we’d never heard anything like it–Top 40 was everywhere. But different because it was an entirely separate music universe. No twang, no strings, and a bass & drum section that rattled the whole vehicle. We had discovered R&B and soul.
Let’s Straighten It Out opens with a Dr. John number, When the Battle Is Over, full of swampy guitar and doo-wop backup singers. Guest vocalist Rebecca Jade goes toe-to-toe with Sully about who’s going to win the fight. Ice Cold Daydream steps that up a notch with some sweet saxophone. Then they take the funk completely over the top with Little Johnny Taylor’s If You Love Me Like You Say. Compared to that, Billy Preston’s Nothing From Nothing seems almost restrained.
Several songs on the record come a little closer to what made it to mainstream in those days. I Wish It Would Rain was a Temptation’s tune with a back story as sorrowful as the writer’s wish it would rain to cover his tears. Gimme Little Sign is a soulful piece that again features Jade, this time harmonizing with Sully. Higher And Higher is the Jackie Wilson classic (and later Rita Coolidge) with a full complement of horns and winds. The title track similarly features that trumpet.
Let’s Straighten It Out is, essentially, a record of covers. But covers generally show off an artist’s newer interpretation, or they’re true to the original in a tribute sort of way. The Sully Band walks a path between those. They’re definitely interpretations of the originals, but in a style that reflects the musical age when they were released. The result is just plain fun. No matter your age, this is dance-around-the-living-room music.
About the author: I've actually driven from Tehatchapee to Tonopah. And I've seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night.