Verve
1977
Come Into Knowledge
About This Album
Centered around onetime Spinners utility players John Manuel (drums) and Landy Shores (guitar), Saturday Night Special -- presumably named after Norman Connors' Reggie Lucas-written song of the same name -- played in and around its hometown of Cincinnati during 1975 and 1976, basing live sets on reimagined versions of R&B hits that leaned toward sophisticated funk. Once Roy Ayers caught a gig and got involved, the band changed its name to Ramp ("Roy Ayers Music Productions") and recorded its one album, produced by Ayers with tight associates Edwin Birdsong and William Allen. The material swings between anti-gravity soul and hard-edged funk otherness, a unique mixture that could've only been encouraged or enhanced by Ayers and Birdsong. "Give It," one of Birdsong's contributions, tumbles and swings, repeatedly unfurling and recoiling, made all the more off-center by Sharon Matthews and Sibel Thrasher's frantic projections: "Earth can be lonely in the middle of the night/We must love now so our minds can take flight." "The American Promise," with all its nerved-up guitar scratches and alternately forthcoming and demanding assertions, could be mistaken for early Pointer Sisters or even Bohannon.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5 and 6)

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