The Relatives: More Time (To Explain) (Archway, 1971, 7″)
I learned about this Bay Area 7″ from the late Matthew Africa; I not only have a soft spot for Bay Area sweet soul and songs that use both male and female singers, but throw in some background harmonizing and I’m positively weak in the knees.
Best that I can piece together, the Relatives were a one-off group put together by Archie Reynolds III (producer) and Larry Coney (singer/writer/co-arranger). There’s a remarkable musical biography of Reynolds available here; he grew up in New Orleans but moved to San Francisco in the war years and became a fixture in the local gospel scene there, particularly via his involvement with The Paramounts. He created Archway in the early 1960s, alongside a variety of entrepreneurial endeavors, the most successful being Archie’s Hickory Pit down in Bayview.
It doesn’t sound like Archway ever released much besides a comedy album and this 7″ which included Reynolds’s long-time friend Coney. Unfortunately, I can’t find any info on who the female background singers were but I presume they were likely recruited out of the various gospel camps that Reynolds was affiliated with.
chatter