Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band - 1968 - Hot Heat and Sweet Groove

Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band

1968

Hot Heat and Sweet Groove

01. Caesar's Palace

02. Yellow Submarine

03. Brown Sugar

04. Soul Concerto

05. Fried Okra

06. Spreadin' Honey

07. A Little Class & A Little Trash

08. The 103rd St. Theme

09. The Girl from Ipanema

10. Bring It on Home to Me

11. Whole Hog, Or None at All

12. Watts Happening

Charles Wright: Guitar, Vocals, Group Member

James Carmichael: Arranger, Piano

Mel Brown: Guitar

"Streamline" Ewing: Trombone

Arthur Wright:Bass

Pete Fox: Guitar

James Gadson: Drums

Herman Riley: Saxophone (Tenor)

Jackie Kelso: Saxophone (Tenor)

Melvin Jernigan: Saxophone (Tenor)

Abraham Mills: Drums

Hot Heat and Sweet Groove is the debut album by the funky band led by the charismatic Charles Wright. The Wright brood moved to Los Angeles when Charles Wright was 12. In Watts, Wright befriended doo woppers and balladeers like Jesse Belvin, the Hollywood Flames, the Youngsters, and others who lived in the area. Propped by stars like Bill Cosby and publicized by two and a half years of sold-out crowds at the Haunted House (a local club), along with an unexpected local hit, the band was able to secure a contract with Warner Bros. Records. Nothing major came from this set that displayed a choppy rhythmic approach similar to Dyke & the Blazers. But this surprisingly hard-to-find album produced by James Carmichael, who went on to great success with the Commodores, features some thick funk: "Fried Okra," "Brown Sugar," and reworkings of "Yellow Submarine," "The Girl From Ipanema," and "Bring It on Home to Me." While not the most cohesive set, you can't knock the hot SoCal energy exhibited by Wright and his crew of young hopefuls, including future Earth, Wind & Fire member Al McKay, along with James Gadson, Melvin Dunlap, Big John Rayford, Bill Cannon, Gabriel Flemings, and Joe Banks. The LP's most popular track, "Spreading Honey," charted at number 44 R&B and number 73 pop in 1967. The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band didn't even record the song. Wright cut the track with Bobby Womack, Leon Haywood, James Carmichael, and others as the theme song for DJ Magnificent Montague's radio show. But it smoked so much that Warner Bros. signed them on the dotted line and credited the single to the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band; this album followed, and the rest is history.

No Los Angeles group dealt funk like Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band. Their grooves were hot and cool at the same time; they could stretch out and jam like jazzmen, so honed were their instrumental chops, and their name announced to the world that they hailed from the soulful side of the City of Angels.

Guitarist Wright was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1940 but moved to L.A. at 12. Deeply influenced by local R&B crooner Jesse Belvin, the high schooler waxed his first single, Eternally, in 1956 as Little Cholly Wright on Cholly Williams' self-named Cholly imprint, though deejay Dick 'Huggy Boy' Hugg reissued it on his Caddy logo as by The Twilighters. Under that name, the group made 45s for Ebb and Cholly, and Pan World issued a 1960 Charles Wright single, (It's Gotta Be) The Right Time.

The first incarnation of the Rhythm Band came together in 1966 to cut a theme song for L.A. deejay Magnificent Montague, which got so popular that it came out on producer Fred Smith's Keymen label as Spreadin' Honey. Comedian Bill Cosby hired another outfit that included Wright to cut some sides for Warner Bros., notably Cosby's droll '67 hit Little Ole Man. Smith and Cosby helped get Wright's outfit a contract with Warner Bros. (an imprint not generally associated with R&B until then), where they cut their album debut, 'Hot Heat And Sweet Groove.' The ultimate Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band lineup consisted of Wright, guitarist Al McKay, bassist Melvin Dunlap, drummer James Gadson, saxists Big John Rayford and Bill Cannon, trombonist Ray Jackson, and trumpeter Gabriel Flemings.

Their first album as a unit was titled 'Together,' and they were, honing their grooves as the house band at a happening Hollywood Boulevard nitery called the Haunted House. Do Your Thing, their first Warners smash in '69, originated in a jam on its stage. Before year's end, they hit twice more with Till You Get Enough and Must Be Your Thing. Their first 1970 hit, the liberating Love Land, was actually a more potent pop seller than R&B (by now, Wright was front-billed with the group on the label).

Cut at Gold Star Studios in L.A., the Wright-penned-and-produced Express Yourself was the pinnacle of the band's funk exploits, his playfully languid vocal counterpointed by the extremely infectious goings-on unwinding underneath—punchy horns, chicken-scratch guitar, and a deadly groove locked down by Dunlap and Gadson. It leaped to #3 R&B and #12 pop and served as title track to one of their most popular albums.

There would be another hit at Warners, Your Love (Means Everything To Me), but the band's classic configuration would soon splinter as Wright moved to ABC-Dunhill for his last R&B chart entry, Doin' What Comes Naturally. Their reign wasn't as long as James Brown's, but The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band was a true funk machine.