Bloodstone: Tell It To My Face and Ran It In The Ground
From: Natural High [London, 1973]
Time to visit the world of Soul groups today with the strangely ignored Bloodstone. Apart from an unexpected appearance on Jackie Brown’s soundtrack with the title song of this album, Natural High, the band seem to be well and truly sitting in the lost and forgotten pile of artists that drift round thrift stores waiting to be rediscovered.
From first appearances you may be fooled into thinking that Bloodstone were just another ex gospel group offering honey dripped ballads but stop your assumptions in their tracks! The band actually had a lot more bows to their strings, playing their own instruments and mixing up the soul with the occasional guitar riff and psychedelic overtones to great effect. While their sophomore effort, Natural High, was undoubtedly their most successful album the band had a career spanning 20 years and it’s definitely worth picking up any of their albums if you spy one.
Oh yeah, forgot to mention that Bloodstone went one further than most groups by not only scoring a blaxploitation film but starring in it as well. Personal recommendation would be to check out the album before the film though, one’s dated a bit better than the other if you know what I mean.
Having said all that I’m going to offer up two tracks from the album that fit the funk soul mode perfectly. My excuse? They’re both crackers. The second side of the original album medleys the group’s songs so I’m afraid both tracks end abruptly.
Tell It To My Face is a classic slice of the kind of insulted funk that the Temptations set the bar for, the singer chastising his woman for her gossiping attitude. With a bit of guitar, rolling drums, a mix of tenor and bass vocals, an organ stab and screaming harmonies for the conclusion it’ll put a smile on the face of the most miserable broken heart.
Ran It In The Ground is all about the vocals, mixing tenor and bass to exquisite measure over that kind of blissed out wandering groove that seventies soul groups caught to perfection. I love the slow build of the backing singers vocals as the momentum builds for the suitably epic finale, orchestra in full flow as the song reaches it’s climax. The band even manage to segue in a spoken word summary. I could listen to tracks like this till the cows came home.
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Damn! Bloodstone has continued to be in the forefront of my mind when thinking about growing up in 'smalltown' mass. and compiling a soundtrack. A must-have in any collection of those who are squatters in the field of soul music, I always thought they were 'my little secret'. Thanks for bring them out!
Kevin
I'd like to know where these thrift stores are where you can buy old Bloodstone albums.
Love the Bloodstone. And, yeah, where are these thrift stores?!?
I remember their movie and it was way too 'sweet' to be called 'blaxploitation'…. it was more like a disney or 'the monkees' comedy for brats.
It wasn't great, but the tunes had soul.
Ha ha! Well, you know I could tell you guys but then I'd obviously have to kill you
I must confess it's been more than a minute since I've seen a copy, so I'll hold up my hands and admit you got me on this one. Blame it on over zealous use of poetic license.
Ran It In The Ground seems to finish early. Is it just me?
Well you're half right – most of the songs on the second side of the album slide into one another so there's not really a proper cut off point for each track. That's about as close to an end of the song as you'll get.