LP Review: Benny and Us
Released: 1977
LP Charts: #14 R&B, #33 Pop
The team up you never knew you needed? Well, maybe. The combined forces of Average White Band and Ben E. King certainly has some magic, but they’re undermined by a lack of original compositions. Only one, maybe two, songs on here were composed for this particular album.
Everything else is covers, which leads me to believe this was kind of a rush job. Guess I should consider everything here nice bonus material to the AWB catalog.
The opening track, “Get It Up For Love”, is probably the best song here; definitely the best uptempo song. AWB associate and friend Ned Doheny wrote the track for his awesome album Hard Candy in 1976. Doheny’s original is extremely broody and atmospheric.
AWB and King keep some of that brooding atmosphere, but theirs is more demanding and funkier than Doheny’s slinky approach. Both versions rock and you should listen to each.
Next up is a cover of “Fool For You Anyway” by Atlantic labelmates Foreigner. Perhaps a surprise, but I like Foreigner, so I approve of taking this slow rock rong and making it a heavy R&B ballad. This is definitely a song where King’s vocals shine through.
“A Star in the Ghetto” was written by Phillip Mitchell, another labelmate on Atlantic Records. Mitchell released his version on a 1978 album, so I guess AWB’s version isn’t a cover since it technically came out first. Anyhoo, this is the contender for best song on the album, non-dance division. It’s certainly not downbeat, though. The lively song is about a man who knows he may never get him to “the music hall of fame”, it ain’t cuz of ability. It’ll be because the mainstream ain’t hip to his game.
But he knows the streets will remember him.
The musical mood is superb with instruments and production giving an almost cinematic scope to the song. Absolutely a song that King, and not Alan Gorrie or Hamish Stuart, could credibly carry.
Okay, finally the one undeniably original song: “The Message”. But its originality is a technicality. It’s a typical Average White Band funk jam. That still means it’s good and you’ll hear no complaints from me about that.
Next the gang goes deeeep into Ben E. King’s bag to re-record “What Is Soul”, a minor hit for King in the late 1960s. I like this polished, but still funky, version more than the original which is raw to a fault.
This album was doing fairly well until the back-to-back saccharine covers of “Someday We’ll All Be” and “Imagine”. I don’t hate the originals from Donny Hathaway and John Lennon, but they’re not my favorite songs either. They have a sentimentality that can easily veer into schmaltz, which is sadly what happens when AWB and Benny get their hands on them.
Closing things is a remake of AWB’s “Keepin' It to Myself”. I prefer the original.
ALBUM GRADE: C+
The first side is pretty dang good and the second half runs out of steam. Simple as that. If only they took more time to compose some original tunes.
Song Scores
Get It Up For Love: 8/10
Fool For You Anyway: 7.5/10
A Star in the Ghetto: 8.5/10
The Message: 7/10
What Is Soul: 7/10
Someday We’ll All Be: 5/10
Imagine: 5/10
Keepin' It to Myself: 6.5/10