Another digital reissue by Numero Group. This one is from
Wilson Williams "I Got A Whole Lot To Be Thankful For" b/w "Honey Rock".
It has actually been posted previously in a
Wilson Williams Discography
in Dec 2020 as it was his first single released on Noah Biggs' Norfolk,
VA, Shiptown subsidiary label How Big, on which only a handful of singles
were released. In fact it isn't even listed on 45Cat and isn't dated on
Discogs but would probably be 1969 or early 70s, no later than 1971, going
by the other catalogue. numbers.
Williams became a member of The Platters in 1994 and passed in Sep 2019 aged 74 but not without leaving us with some fine tunes, especially on his first album "Up The Downstairs" from 1978.
Referring back to the notes in the discography, it was released on ABC
and featured Motown's Funk Brothers and was allegedly the last time the
Funk Brothers played together on an album.
Williams did release another album many years later in 2001, "Cheating Ain't Eating", which was a mainly a blues album produced by Swamp Dogg (Jerry Williams Jr.).
Back to the release here and the top side "I Got A Whole Lot To Be Thankful For" is a killer, mournful, self-written, deep soul tune which tugs at the heartstrings
from the outset. As they say, 'they don't make em like they used to'! Watch out for this one on DJ Kool Keith's podcasts as a SoulStrutter Selection!
His
follow up single on How Big, "I Can't Get Used To Losing You", is also a fine deep soul tune, which I believe is the same song, that
also came out on Tri-Us the following year but with a modified title "(Can't Get Over) Losing You" and a different B side. The How Big B side is a good little Northern
Soul number "Ain't That Loving You".
The flip here, "Honey Rock", is a horn laden, southern style beater which I don't recall ever
hearing before as it wasn't available anywhere, other than original vinyl
and no one had posted it on You Tube, when the Discography was
posted.
As a footnote, something missed on the discography is an early Soul4Real release from 2018 with two previously unreleased sides from 1970 written by Jerry "Swamp Dogg' Williams Jr. (no relation as far as I'm aware although, according to Soul4Real release notes, they were childhood friends) "Ghost Of Myself" / "Don´t Let My Foolish Words Keep Us".
