Original Recordings (1970-77)

South Texas funk combo Kool and Together were led by a pair of brothers with a penchant for James Brown's gutbucket grooves and the acid-damaged sounds of psychedelic soul pioneers like Jimi Hendrix, Funkadelic, and the Norman Whitfield–era Temptations. The group released just a handful of privately pressed singles in the early ‘70s but left behind a generous trove of unreleased recordings. These unpolished studio outtakes and rough-and-tumble live recordings lend moments of incandescent inspiration to Original Recordings, a 19-track set that assembles all of Kool and Together’s extant work. “Peace Is at Hand” and “Blow It out Your Mind” are tough-minded counterculture anthems, while the rehearsal-room workout “Escapism Beat” shows the group’s deep indebtedness to James Brown’s early-‘70s work. While most of Kool and Together’s work is amp-frying psychedelia of the highest order, a few of the later tunes edge toward disco and modern soul. The most intriguing of these is undoubtedly the lo-fi disco of “Black Snow,” which reflects the slick disco funk of groups like Cameo and B.T. Express.