Baby I'm Yours

Linda Clifford's final outing on the Curtom label found her teamed up with fellow soul artist Isaac Hayes as her producer. The pairing fit like a glove and resulted in I'm Yours, Clifford's strongest and most consistent album since If My Friends Could See Me Now. It also produced two notable hits for Clifford. The first was "Shoot Your Best Shot," a string-laden disco epic that benefited from one of Hayes' trademark dramatic arrangements. It perfectly captured the combination of gloss and groove that typified Clifford's best songs and she rose to the occasion with a sassy yet carefully controlled performance that helped make the song a disco favorite. The album's other big hit was "Red Light," a song also featured on the soundtrack of Fame. This bouncy mid-tempo groover features Clifford convincingly laying down the law for a woman who is trying to steal her man and it skillfully creates a danceable groove through a tasty combination of slap-bass and an energetic horn arrangement. The non-hits don't jump out as strongly as these two, but they are easy on the ears: a great example is "I Want to Get Away With You," a sleek ballad that finds Clifford dipping into the low end of her vocal range to create a convincing imitation of Isaac Hayes' vocal style. The one real downside of the album is that some of songs drag on a little too long, but this shortcoming is made up for by Hayes' hook-laden arrangements (listen closely for the electric guitar riff that snakes its way in and out of "It Don't Hurt No More") and the fact that Clifford sings these songs with the kind of soulful emotion that was lacking on Here's My Love. These two factors make I'm Yours a necessity for Linda Clifford fans and a solid listen for fans of the disco sound. ~ Donald A. Guarisco, Rovi