Baby Huey
The Baby Huey Story

LA RECENSIONE

Baby Huey was not just any black singer, both for his enormous size (over 150 kilos) and for his interpretative abilities.

Leading a band composed of ten to twelve members, The Babysitters, capable of competing with more famous bands like Blood Sweat & Tears, he ignited the entire Chicago rhythm & blues scene, venturing into a sort of psychedelic soul. Who knows how it would have ended if he hadn't been struck down in October 1970 by a heart attack caused by his overweight (or probably by an overdose). A real shame, because the vocal style very close to that of Otis Redding is exactly what we rockers devoted to Hendrix (who was his friend) prefer. Just listen to the long cover of "A Change Is Gonna Come" by Sam Cooke that begins with the usual soul blues atmosphere but then excels in hard rocker screams that even Robert Plant... enough to give you goosebumps and blue chills! I'm not saying it surpasses the original, which I always found weighed down by excessive orchestration, but find me another one, out of the hundred thousand available, that can match it. This track is part, along with seven others, of the only album under Baby Huey's name, released the year after the singer's death by his manager using the available material with the supervision of Curtis Mayfield.

Take "Running" and you'll feel like you're flying on the rollercoaster of modern r&b with arrangements like Primal Scream! Or "Listen to me", which is an explosive funky à la James Brown but strangely imbued with psychedelia, incredible! And the vocal performance in "Hard Times" that seems executed by multiple singers with different pitches, superb! "Mighty Mighty Children" is a composition written for him by Curtis Mayfield (who would later record it himself) and the live rendition is unfortunately short (two and a half minutes) to do justice to the compelling funky.

The album is then completed by three instrumental tracks, including "California Dreamin" (and yes, that one) with a somewhat Latin vibe and a magnificent "Mama Get Yourself Together" delivered by the Babysitters with energy and class that rivals the style of a famous band like Chicago, which had made its debut with an extraordinary double album just the year before. And indeed, after the death of Baby Huey, his fantastic group attempted to survive for a short time by recruiting a very young and already talented Chaka Khan, but that's another story.