The Chambers Brothers: The Time Has Come

THE CHAMBERS BROTHERS: THE TIME HAS COME (1967)

1) All Strung Out Over You; 2) People Get Ready; 3) I Can't Stand It; 4) Romeo & Juliet; 5) In The Midnight Hour; 6) So Tired; 7) Uptown; 8) Please Don't Leave Me; 9) What The World Needs Now Is Love; 10) Time Has Come Today; 11*) Dinah; 12*) Falling In Love; 13*) Love Me Like The Rain.

By mid-'67, the brothers' tenaciousness had paid off — they landed a contract with Columbia, who put them under the supervision of young and aspiring producer David Rubinson, not too well known at the time but far more familiar from his subsequent work with Moby Grape, United States Of America, and Herbie Hancock. Essentially this meant that, for the first time in their life, the Chambers Brothers could quit dicking around, lay off the novelty acts and gimmicks, and concentrate on trying to make their own mark on the world of progressive pop music.

This may not be a great album, but this is their first proper album (not counting the Barbara Dane collaboration) that does not sound like a shit, and properly reflects all of their talents — as arran­gers, songwriters, performers, and wannabe cultural heroes. No fewer than half of the tracks are self-penned, and the rest are a respectable mix of groovy R&B, funk, soul, and balladry. Since the brothers seem to insist upon playing all the instruments themselves, the level of tightness, inten­sity, and energy is incomparable with the average quality of contemporary Atlantic records, or of James Brown's or Sly Stone's backing bands; the brothers have to compensate for this less capti­vating sound with diversity and pure entertainment value — thus, Rudy Clarke's ʽAll Strung Out Over Youʼ, a song whose melody would later be appropriated for Sweet's ʽBallroom Blitzʼ (I had to all but crack my head open to realize that), is a tight and speedy pop-rock romp where not a single element is outstanding per se, but the overall combination is a great anti-boredom kick delivered from the very outset. And then there is no better way, from a contrastive perspective, than to follow it with another, cleaner and subtler version of ʽPeople Get Readyʼ than the old live version — even if this one, too, is hardly preferable to the Impressions.

The brothers' originals, too, are getting more ambitious. ʽI Can't Stand Itʼ is a hybrid of R&B groove, blues-rock, and pop hooks (the latter mainly reflected in the falsetto backing vocals), allegedly reflecting the brothers' interest in the British scene, since the bass / drum / guitar inter­play is rather reminiscent of The Who or Small Faces than the American acts by whom the Brits were influenced themselves. ʽSo Tiredʼ generally follows the standard Fifties' progression, but the lush, nearly operatic vocal delivery is more Tom Jones-like. On the other hand, something like ʽPlease Don't Leave Meʼ, a colorless Jimmy Reed rewrite, shows that there is, as of yet, no question about trying to eliminate filler.

But none of this is really why we are here, right? The real reason is, of course, the title track, unquestionably the Chambers Brothers' signature song — though just how much it would be re­membered remains a question, had it only been released in its truncated single release. The main part of the song, after all, is a rather monotonous vamp, not unlike the Stones' ʽGet Out Of My Cloudʼ with less prominent rhythm guitar. The real fun starts when the main melody disappears and is replaced by a psychedelic freakout, with echoey vocals, dark spooky basslines, and fuzzy, Eastern-influenced guitars that were probably the very last thing anybody would expect to hear on a Chambers Brothers record — this is way more like Jefferson Airplane in nature. Later on, the guitar freakout dissipates as well and is replaced by just a general freakout: leave a steady beat and let everybody except the rhythm section go crazy.

I would be lying if I called this a quintessential psychedelic track or anything: next to Hendrix or Pink Floyd, hell, even next to the Stones' much-maligned ʽSing This All Together (See What Happens)ʼ the craziness of ʽTime Has Come Todayʼ is quite restrained, not to mention secondary in origin. But it has plenty of appeal as a symbol of creative liberation: it works much better if you bear in mind that all of this was the creative product of four brothers from rural Mississippi who, in another age, would have probably spent all their lives recycling same old blues formulas. The track really works far better in context — not only the context of The Chambers Brothers' overall career, but in the overall context of African-American popular music; in fact, this track may have been the single biggest creative breakthrough for it all after Hendrix. And you can cer­tainly hear, say, the seeds of Funkadelic planted somewhere in the middle of this crazy romp. For this alone, the album deserves a thumbs up. Whether it actually transcends the basic level of historical importance and moderate enjoyability — that is your choice to make.