Love Peace and Happiness - Here 'Tis (1972)

Powerhouse R&B vocal trio Love Peace and Happiness did not get the love they deserved when their music was released on RCA at the top of the `70s - just as the company began promoting Black Music - but evidence of their greatness lives on as heard in this first time ever on CD release of their second and final album, Here 'Tis (via Reel Music / P&C Records). When Muskegon, Michigan-raised brothers Melvin & Leslie Wilson moved to Detroit in the late `60s, they had no clue they would meet latter-days Marvelettes member Ann Bogan in church and begin a soulful gospel-fueled association - one that eventually led them to The New Birth in which Leslie would blossom into its star lead singer. Working together as Love Peace and Happiness under veteran producer Harvey Fuqua, the threesome waxed two albums of collard greens and cornbread soul including electrifying covers of Gladys Knight's "I Don't Want To Do Wrong" and Wilson Pickett's "Don't Knock My Love." Because Fuqua favored Bogan having known her since the early '60s he featured her heavily and she raises up a mess of sand on unsung R&B nuggets like the rousing funk nugget "You Can't Cheat The Cheater", the yearning "Stay (Just a Little Bit Longer)" (originally recorded by the late, great Yvonne Fair), and the absolutely lovely "If I Owned The World (I'd Give It To You)" (Fuqua's not so subtle attempt at giving them a classic in the vein of Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell's "If This World Were Mine"). Soul scholars...Here 'Tis!