Willie Hutch - The Mack Soundtrack / 1973 Motown / Cover photo: Jim Britt

Motown's own late and great Willie Hutch wrote remarkable blaxploitation history in 1973 by composing and recording the soundtrack for the all time classic flick, The Mack. It's pure and distinctive Hutch from the beginning to the end, which kickstarts with the horn-driven intro Vampin', then mellows out to the more smooth Theme Of The Mack and the often sampled I Choose You. Every instrument is on point and Hutch's voice is pure gold on wax. Mack's Stroll/The Getaway has to be one of the best chase-themes ever recorded.

Extra smoothly driven Slick happens to be my personal favourite of the album, employing a dope bassline paired up with horns and moody percussion. Mack Man's Got To Get Over is possibly the lowest point of the record, coming across as somewhat overgeneric and bluntly boring. That particular direction is soon turned around with Mother's Theme (Mama) and particularly Now That It's All Over. One of the real blaxploitation diamonds is hidden in the end, Brother's Gonna Work It Out is an absolute highlight of the said genre's shiny yet brief history.

"Coffy" starring Pam Grier, Brooker Bradshaw & Robert Doqui
1973 / 91 minutes
Theme written by Roy Ayers

Being a memorable portrayer of female vigilante, Pam Gier established Coffy as an character to be imitated later on frequently and also paved the way for another classic, Foxy Brown. The real thing is, female characters were seldom as powerful as in Coffy in that era, and alot this particular character's strenght seem to generate where the movie get's it's momentum from, a strong will to avenge. In this case, to avenger her 11 year old sister having to get herself together after a brief involvement with drugs. This is where the staple violence comes in yet it doesn't go over the top.



The doublecross man-I've-should've-known plot is semitypical yet it works like it should. Mobsters are made just enough sleazy to make them believable, most of them anyhow. Some of the real gold is in the soundtrack with Coffy Baby being one of the highlights. Lovely But Deadly, a remake made in '81, which I've not seen, features an all-white cast and apparently didn't receive much closure. I suggest to enjoy Coffy with a sixpack of corona and a few cigarettes if you mind for. Personally I'm having troubles comparing this one and Foxy Brown, as in which one is better, but I really recommend both.

Mandrill - Just Outside of Town
1973 Polydor
Cover photo: Don Anderson




Brooklyn's Bed-Stuy's own Mandrill originally formed by three brothers Ric Wilson, Carlos Wilson and Lou Wilson offered their fourth record in 1973 right after their most successful album Composite Truth which came out earlier that year. Skillfully crafted funk-jams employ nice little touches of latin influence that sometimes wander off into smooth soul and blues. Creatively titled Love Song is a good example of the latter. Fat City Strut is an absolute highlight of deep funk with groovy wah and brass and the latin influences are yet again present. Mandrill had a good sense of using distorted instruments that you might not like too much at first, yet yours truly grew on them rather quickly. Two Sisters of Mystery even gives away glimpses of late 60's - early 70's psychrock. The closing track Aspiration Flame is an deep and somewhat melancholic instrumental song full of blues/jazz and latin influences mixed together smoothly. To all you loop-heads out there, Just Outside of Town also has a few nice breaks to chop up.

Willie Hutch - Foxy Brown Soundtrack
1974 Motown
Cover photo: Jim Britt





My personal favourite of all soundtracks I've heard so far, Foxy
Brown delivers extrasmooth soul & funk with an trademark-ish
touch by Willie Hutch (December 6, 1944 — September 19, 2005).
The moment you hear the opening track Chase
you know that its an classic record and the following song
Theme of Foxy Brown only makes the forementioned acknowledgement stronger. The late Hutch delivers extremely
smooth songs, smooth enough to make babies by, and they also accompany the iconic Pam Grier excellently on the screen. Foxy Brown, a subject to be touched more closely in near future, is truly an blaxploitation icon which packs an awesome soundtrack loaded with classic soul tracks such as Out There, Foxy Lady and Ain't That Mellow Mellow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSP3_nKX6qg

"Slaughter" starring Jim Brown, Stella Stevens & Rip Torn.
1972 / 94 minutes
Theme written and performed by Billy Preston

As violence is closely tied to the exploitation genre, this
particular film lives up to it at least on 1970's standards.
Yes, alot of more graphic cuts were made in that era, but
blaxploitation always had it's own way. Look past the title
and the tagline, Slaughter offers some awesome
70's B-special effects to comply the cliche. The main aim
of this blog is not to break down movies scene by scene, but to
expose this excellent genre to a broader audience
by revealing blaxploitation classics and the not-so-classics.
Everyone loves classics.




The plot in this one is nothing special yet it manages to get
a grip on you film after film. Ex-pro footballer Slaughter receives news
of his family getting killed by a car-bomb assassination
and manages to dig up a few names on possible suspects, who he
proceeds to go after. As you might've guessed, The Man is also
after these men for their mafia business.
Slaughter makes a deal, add a sidekick and a white vixen, a few
chases and a conspiracist-falls-in-love plotline, corrupt cops
and you've got yourself genuine blaxploitation, which makes
the whole genre extremely engaging. To some.




The soundtrack offers nothing special apart from the theme
by Billy Preston yet the chase-themes are not out of place
by any means. The wah is there so yours truly is
somewhat content. "Slaughter" also employs some rather
unconventional yet fresh camera-angles, lenses and ratio
which is somewhat unfamiliar to its time and genre.
It's really enjoyable but not one of the most entertaining
films to check out. Check back next week for the
sequel, "Slaughters big rip-off" loaded with a James Brown
soundtrack. No rating, rate it out yourself.