TRACKLIST
A1. What They Doin?
A2. Walk On By
A3. Merry Go Round
A4. Santana Part 1
A5. The Touch Of You
B1. Santana Part II
B2. Ainít No Sunshine
B3. Cicso Fare
B4. Where Is Love ?
DESCRIPTION
Lost dark soul/funk masterpiece from Hampton, Virginia high school champions of Pepsi’s “New Sounds Of 1972” challenge
The stories of great high school funk bands are, thanks to an abundance of reissues, commonplace. The tales of great high school soul-bands are still rare. A ballad or two on the random Douglass High School Stage Band album or Timeless Legend’s mes- merizing entry on Columbusís 1972 1st Annual Inner City Talent Expo notwithstand- ing, high school bands rarely struck into the realm of “grown folks” music. Enter The Equatics and their brooding masterpiece Doin It!!!!
If this is categorized as a “funk” album - and it was for the last ten years, by those few lucky enough to own an original copy - it holds its own. But it was as a soul band, one as inspired by the melancholic musings of Bill Withers as the psychedelic-pop of the self-proclaimed “Black Moses,” Issac Hayes - that the Equatics shone. These young souls offered world-weary, beat-heavy ballads that stand on par with any of the great independent organizations of the early 1970s. That a group of teenagers could offer such an angst-ridden plea as that of Leo Davis’ “Merry Go Round” not only transcends the limitations that came from the band’s average age (17, at the time of the album’s recording), but also the barriers the stood in front of this group of small-city hopefuls.
This official reissue is licensed from and released with the involvement of the Equatics’ bandleader and bass player Benjamin Crawford.