Eugene McDaniels - Outlaw [Japanese Remastered] (1970/2013)

At the start of the 1960s Gene McDaniels was flying high. Smartly-dressed and clean-cut, the smooth crooner from Kansas City scored two Top 10 US pop hits for the Liberty label, 'A Hundred Pounds Of Clay' and 'Tower Of Strength.' But as the '60s progressed, McDaniels' career took a commercial nose-dive as musical tastes changed and in 1970, after several fallow years, he re-launched his career as Eugene McDaniels and signed to Atlantic Records (aided by the fact that his song, 'Compared To What,' was a big hit for the label by Les McCann and Eddie Harris).

Those who were familiar with McDaniels' previous oeuvre would have been shocked by his Atlantic debut, 'Outlaw,' released in 1970, which has now been remastered and reissued alongside a clutch of classic soul and jazz titles by Warner Japan (the good news is that they're available over here at mid-price). The provocative cover of 'Outlaw' depicted a hirsute, scruffy McDaniels - who dubbed himself 'the left rev. mc d' - holding a revolver and clutching a bible alongside two armed women. The music (produced by Joel Dorn) was even more provocative, though perhaps not as revolutionary as McDaniels had hoped - songs like 'Welfare City,' 'The Silent Majority' and the ironically-titled 'Love Letter To America' are Bob Dylan-esque folk-rock songs with trenchantly polemic lyrics focusing on America's domestic problems. There's a jazz-meets-funk tinge to 'Unspoken Dreams Of Light' and the excellent 'Cherrystones,' a cleverly-wrought jazz-style paean to wilful ignorance. McDaniels' also serves up his own version of 'Reverend Lee,' a song about a preacher beset by carnal temptations that Roberta Flack brilliantly covered on her 'Chapter Two' album.