BARRY WHITE — I’VE GOT SO MUCH TO GIVE: The Original Concept Album For The Make-Out Music Set

There’s a great bit in Barry Williams’ mem­oir I Was A Teenage Brady where the erst­while Greg Brady chron­i­cles an attempt to put the moves on costar Maureen McCormick.  He’s got her in his room and he heads over the stereo to choose some make-out music that will set the amorous mood for Marsha.  He flips past his Bread and Blood Sweat & Tears albums to choose the “big gun” of his col­lec­tion, the primo exam­ple of 1970’s boudoir boo­gie… you guessed it, a Barry White album.

And Mr. Williams wasn’t alone in mak­ing this choice.  Barry White was the defacto seduction-sound choice for count­less lothar­ios dur­ing the 1970’s and he con­tin­ues to be a brand name in the genre today, so much so that he was immor­tal­ized on The Simpsons.  The heavy­set White didn’t look like an Adonis but he had game and he could sell it with a honey-dipped basso pro­fundo croon.  Better yet, he stretched his tension-and-release approach to roman­tic music into bedroom-opera realms via a Spectorian sound that fleshed out its funky grooves with what sounded like a dozen orchestras.

I’ve Got So Much To Give was the open­ing salvo of White’s career as the pre­mier “love man” of soul music and it lives up to its title from every angle.  There are no tightly-arranged, three minute pop-soul tunes to be found here.  He stakes out his ter­ri­tory with the open­ing cut, an epic cover of the Holland-Dozier-Holland clas­sic “Standing In The Shadows Of Love.”  It was a risky choice to cover such a dis­tinc­tive and famil­iar tune but White is up for the chal­lenge, build­ing up from a sin­gle key­board line into an orchestra-and-female-chorus-backed jug­ger­naut over a period of eight min­utes.  The backup singers don’t enter until the 2:30 mark and White’s lead vocal doesn’t kick in until around 3:46.  When the main melody kicks in, the release is down­right explo­sive.

The rest of the album con­tin­ues along sim­i­lar lines, with method­i­cal buildups flow­er­ing into lush arrange­ments as White lays down a mix­ture of spo­ken raps, croon­ing and gospel-inspired tes­ti­fy­ing over the top of each plush, instru­men­tal sound-bed.  White’s secret weapon is the amaz­ing Gene Page, an arranger whose skill with strings and horns gave White’s work a Hollywood-style sense of extrav­a­gance and grandiose emo­tion­al­ism.  Page off­sets the funky grit of the rhythm sec­tion with an easy listening-inspired approach to melody that makes the album sound indul­gent and com­fort­ing all at once.  This style lends the album an expres­sive depth that lives up to romance and inten­sity of the songs — and sets the lis­tener up for White’s silky vocals.

The track list­ing of I’ve Got So Much To Give forms a sort of concept-album arrange­ment with White act­ing as our nar­ra­tor as he rages against lone­li­ness (“Standing…”) and pines for a lost love (“Bring Back My Happiness”) before get­ting another chance (“I Found Someone”), pledg­ing his heart to his new love (the title track) and, finally and most impor­tantly, seal­ing the deal (“I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little More, Baby”).

The last two tracks are the album’s big killers.  “I’ve Got So Much To Give” is the pro­to­typ­i­cal White bal­lad, with a lead vocal that moves from ten­der spoken-word intro to velour-smooth croon before reach­ing a torchy, impas­sioned peak at the cho­rus.  The music pro­vides an ele­gant cush­ion for his the­atrics with a gen­tle, swing­ing jazz groove and those glo­ri­ous Gene Page-led strings and horns.  “I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little More, Baby” uses the same grad­ual build with White’s vocal, only this time the plead­ing is replaced with a seduc­tive growl.  The music seals the deal with a taut drum groove, an oddly gothic but effec­tive use of harp­si­chord and a glo­ri­ous, Cinemascope rush of strings at cho­rus time.

The fin­ished prod­uct is bom­bas­tic but mas­ter­fully so, an exam­ple of seduc­tive soul at its finest.  It’s unde­ni­ably inspired by Isaac Hayes’ pio­neer­ing blend of pas­sion­ate soul and orches­tral grandeur but it takes that com­bi­na­tion to the next level to cre­ate a roman­tic fan­tasy that lav­ishes the lis­tener with sonic frills.

Any stu­dent of 1970’s soul should check it out and the recent Hip-O Select reis­sue offers a nice oppor­tu­nity to do so.  The new disc is slim on liner notes but makes up for it with crisp remas­ter­ing and the addi­tion of the rare instru­men­tal b-side ver­sions of the title track and “I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little More, Baby.”  The oppor­tu­nity to study the intri­ca­cies of those Gene Page arrange­ments is most wel­come, plus the instru­men­tal ver­sion of “I’m Gonna” offers an alter­nate track of echoey backing-vocal frills from White that give it a dif­fer­ent edge.

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