Johnnie Taylor - Eargasm (1976) [Reissue 1999]

When Johnnie Taylor recorded Eargasm, he was coming off a distinguished soul career at Stax, and disco seemed like alien territory to his rough, gospel-trained voice. But aided by longtime producer Don Davis (who gets most of the writing credits here) and the nuanced ka-bump of backing musicians borrowed from Funkadelic, he scored the first platinum-certified single, "Disco Lady." The rest of the disc is basically a full-on Southern-soul record--Taylor smoldering and preaching on the subject of how to treat a woman and the rhythm section doing an Al Green pitty-pat, gently bumping blues about devotion and jealousy--with kitschy disco strings grafted on and the occasional keyboard squiggle livening things up. --Douglas Wolk