Swamp Dogg Presents Doris Duke & Patti Labell and the Bluebells

Under the name Swamp Dogg, the Virginia-born Jerry Williams wrote and recorded some of the most politically charged soul music of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Though it rarely shows in his solo recordings, Williams took an equally radical stance on sexual politics, and the records he wrote and produced for female artists like Irma Thomas, Bette Williams, and Doris Duke advocate a brand of organic feminism that often characterizes marriage as an oppressive contract and presents adulterous relationships as oases of honesty in a hypocritical society. This album, which compiles the entirety of Doris Duke’s phenomenal LP I’m A Loser as well as a handful of sides that Williams produced for Patti Labelle early in her career, contains many of Williams’ most insightful reflections on sexual politics. Songs like “Ghost of Myself,” “I Don’t Care Anymore,” and “Feet Start Walking” offer unflinching accounts of women damaged by, or trying to free themselves from, oppressive and abusive relationships, and are some of the finest songs that Williams would pen over the course of his long and distinguished career.