🎵 AotW AOTW: Hummingbird - DIAMOND NIGHTS (SP-4633)

[LPJim]

Hummingbird
DIAMOND NIGHTS
A&M SP-4633

*Note: This is also listed, and more often referred to, as "SP 4661"*

TRACKS:

Got My Led Boots On
Spirit
Cryin' For Love
She is My Lady
You Can't Hide Love

Anaconda
Madatcha
Losing You (Ain' No Doubt About It)
Spread Your Wings
Anna's Song

Bobby Tench - guitar
Max Middleton - keyboards
Clive Chapman - bass
Robert Ahwai - guitar
Bernard Purdle - drums

Airto Moreira & Pancho Morales - guest percussionists.

JB

 

[Dave]

Artwork By [Album Design] - Chuck Beeson
Artwork By [Front Cover Illustration] - Trey Aven
Artwork By [Illustration Color Concept] - Pamala Hinshaw
Other [Art Direction] - Roland Young
Photography - Neal Preston

Engineer [Assistant Additional] - Art Bechtel , John Beverly Jones
Engineer [Assistant] - Derek DuNann*
Engineer [Recording] - Ed E. Thacker*
Engineer [Recording] [Remix] - Steve Mitchell (2)
Other [Passing Comments] - Chuck Trammel

Arranged By [Brass & String], Conductor [Brass & String] - Horace Ott
Vocals, Guitar - Bobby Tench*
Bass - Clive Chaman
Drums, Percussion - Bernard Purdie
Guitar - Robert Ahwai
Keyboards, Instruments [Moog] - Max Middleton
Percussion [Guest Artist] - Airto Moreira , Pancho Morales

Producer - Hummingbird , Ian Samwell
Producer [Assistant] - Fred Rath
Produced for Princess Recording Production Ltd.
Recorded at A&M recording Studios, Hollywood, California
The Hummingbird pictured is of the genus Spathura Solstitialis

Published by:
Inkwell Music, Inc. (BMI) (A1, A2, B1, B2, B4, B5)
Irving Music, Inc./Down 'N Dixie Music (BMI) (A3)
Sweet Hooper Music (ASCAP) (A4)
Alexscar Music Co./Unichappell Music Co. (BMI) (A5)
Chappell Music Co. (ASCAP) (B3)

Label Matrix# Side A: (SP-5059)
Label Matrix# Side B: (SP-5060)
℗ 1977 A&M Records, Inc.
© 1977 A&M Records, Inc.


Tracks:

A1 Got My "Led Boots" On (3:41)
Arranged By [Brass & String], Conductor [Brass & String] - Bernard Purdie
Written-By - Brian Short , Max Middleton

A2 Spirit (3:35)
Arranged By [Brass & String], Conductor [Brass & String] - Bernard Purdie
Backing Vocals - Julia Tillman* , Maxine Willard* , Venetta Fields
Written-By - Bobby Tench* , Roger Chapman

A3 Cryin' For Love (3:14)
Arranged By [Brass & String], Conductor [Brass & String], Featuring - Chuck Findley , Jim Horn , Quitman Dennis
Backing Vocals - Lisa Freeman Roberts* , Paulette McWilliams , Stephanie Spruill
Written-By - Hoy Lindsey , Troy Seals

A4 She Is My Lady (5:01)
Arranged By [Brass & String], Conductor [Brass & String] - Bernard Purdie
Backing Vocals - Lisa Freeman Roberts* , Paulette McWilliams , Stephanie Spruill
Written-By - Morgan Ames

A5 You Can't Hide Love (4:25)
Arranged By [Brass & String], Conductor [Brass & String] - Bernard Purdie
Backing Vocals - Lisa Freeman Roberts* , Paulette McWilliams , Stephanie Spruill
Written-By - Skip Scarborough

B1 Anaconda (5:50)
Arranged By [Brass & String], Conductor [Brass & String] - Bernard Purdie
Written-By - Max Middleton

B2 Madatcha (3:48)
Arranged By [Brass & String], Conductor [Brass & String] - Bernard Purdie
Backing Vocals - Julia Tillman* , Lisa Freeman Roberts* , Maxine Willard* , Paulette McWilliams , Stephanie Spruill , Venetta Fields
Written-By - Bobby Tench* , Roger Chapman

B3 Losing You (Ain't No Doubt About You) (3:57)
Arranged By [Brass & String], Conductor [Brass & String] - Bernard Purdie
Backing Vocals - Julia Tillman* , Maxine Willard* , Venetta Fields
Written-By - Jules Freedman

B4 Spread Your Wings (4:15)
Arranged By [Brass & String], Conductor [Brass & String] - Bernard Purdie
Written-By - Ian Samwell , Roger Chapman

B5 Anna's Song (3:28)
Arranged By [Brass & String], Conductor [Brass & String] - Bernard Purdie
Written-By - Max Middleton



Dave

[More detailed information obtained courtesy of Discogs]

 

[Mr Bill]

On my list it's 4661 while 4633 is "unknown/unreleased."

--Mr Bill

 

[Dave]

Well, in any case Hummingbird's Diamond Nights is a more climactic work and had very much distanced itself from its two predecessors...


"Got My "Led Boots" On" was originally done by Jeff Beck as an instrumental on his Wired album, the follow-up to Blow-By-Blow, the home of his landmark hit, "Freeway Jam"... So here, in addition to carrying on its roots in Fusion, is a nice, hard-edged vocal...

An apotheosis of this newfound experimentation with breaking new ground comes almost immediately with "Spirit", augmented with the female vocal talents of Julia Tillman, Maxine Willard & Venetta Fields...

While equally groundbreaking is "Cryin' For Love", actually a Country song, and again more female vocal talents are called upon, this time by Lisa Freeman Roberts, Paulette McWilliams and Stephanie Spurill... Merry Clayton, a longtime A&M recording artist on A&M's Ode label would give us a good version of this, too, in a few years...

An auspicious offering then comes in the form of "She Is My Lady", which has been passed around from singer-to-singer, group-to-group... (An early-'70's L.A. group, Southern Fried, comes to mind...) Drummer, Grady Tate had also covered it, earlier in this decade, too; so it's dusted off and belted out again...

Appropriately included is "You Can't Hide Love", actually the Earth, Wind & Fire song... It could've been done as an instrumental (as New York session guitarist, John Tropea, did his take on this, while retaining background vocals, and though inspired by the original E, F & W, the chorus that normally goes "Feelin' inside" just becomes the title of the song...) but, is instead done quite similar, yet differently than by its original group... The new dimension, or real difference, is just the vocals being done in a more introspective, yet outreaching fashion, as opposed to the more sly and upbeat approach, you heard beforehand, and the inclusion of the trio of females on the vocal back-up... And it appropriately closes Side 1...

Side 2, opening with a beelzebub of percussion work, courtesy of Airto Moriera, and has never been so more mercurially done, since backing Paul Simon and being briefly included temporarily in a Santana line-up, not to mention working with his wife, Flora Purim, among other session work... Though Pancho Morales equally deserves credit, too; Hall & Oates Abandoned Luncheonette is where he notably made his mark, among also backing many other different artists...

Also meticulously presented is the id of "Anacoda", which features some flashy string & brass arrangements (as some of the other tunes here; a first...) and at least straightforward, without needing any background singers... (Though would be nice with either trio...)

"Madatcha" returns to the instrumental/female backing vocal format, and it looks like in this case all SIX female singers contribute to the carnival of excitement in this lively tune...

"Losing You (Ain't No Doubt About You)" retains the attitude of the group's prior album, We Can't Go On Meeting Like This and even chips off the S/T debut album... Good vocal and instrumental contributions round out this almost-centerpiece of this album side, if not the whole album...

"Spread Your Wings" becomes a denouement, in the mold of the other songs... Interestingly done and, literally, in the spirit of an actual hummingbird... (Of which the one on the cover, is of the genus Spathura Solstitialis, unlike the many species of hummingbirds shown on the cover of the group's first album...)

In which case, a denouement of the proceedings wraps up this masterpiece on "Anna's Song", done instrumentally and not since Carpenters' "Sing" has there been a children's choir featured on an A&M album... (Nice of some of the musicians' kids to provide some "La, la-la, la's", this time...)

Yes, an obesquious piece of work, and one along with Carpenters Passage and Perry Botkin Jr.'s Ports and even some of Rita Coolidge's Anytime...Anyplace took up the A&M lot and like those records in a very constructive and convincing way... A hot blend of Jazz, Pop and Hard Rock, and unique merger of mechanical and spiritual, while exhibiting all-around good and hard-working musicianship...

Edges out the band's first two albums, by merely extending themselves and retaining their a lot of their artistic worth, no matter how much their ambitions here would grow... (Although the first two LP's, aside from being similar nowhere nearly out-of-the-box as this is, are, too, interesting works unto themselves...) And the gust artists featured are no slouches, either... "...It don't take too much to love me baby, don't take too much to try...", borrowed from We Can't Go On...'s "Troublemaker" sums up how it doesn't take much to equally like this third, and unfortunately final album, by this Jeff Beck sidemen aggregation-turned solo group...



Dave

 

[LPJim]

I have this AOTW listed as SP 4661 also; will post notes for 4662 next.
JB