Marva Whitney: Ball of Fire
From 7″ (King, 1969). Also on
I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve slept on this for years. It’s on the b-side to “It’s My Thing” and though I’ve had the 7″ for probably 10+ years, I guess I never bothered to flip it over. It wasn’t until my dude Hua Hsu was talking about it that I went and took a listen and realized how badly I had been snoozing.
“Ball of Fire” comes from the pen of Charles Spurling and Louis Innis 1 It’s one of those mid-tempo, power ballads where Whitney lets loose with her incredible vocals without taking things into a straight up funky-funk mode. Seriously, if Sharon Jones ever needed fodder for a cover song, I’d suggest her and the Daptones start right here. So fantastic.
- Spurling also co-wrote Whitney’s “Unwind Yourself.” ↩
chatter