Album: Psychedelic Shack
Year: 1969
. . .
Released just three days before the 1960s well and finally ended, “Psychedelic Shack” shows Norman Whitfield and the Temptations making the subtext full text in their embrace of psychedelic soul, and once again used the past to help make the future.
In the case of “Psychedelic Shack,” there was a very specific use of the past: after the sound of somebody knocking on the door of the shack — which is clearly bigger on the inside than on the outside — and when the doors open, we hear the whooping it up that opened “I Can’t Get Next to You” right down to Dennis Edwards saying “Hold it, hold it listen,”
after which we hear a couple of hit-hat bars from crazed genius producer Norman Whitfield’s intro to his 1967 production of Gladys Knight and the Pips “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” before the Funk Brothers take over the song proper.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2684: The Temptations – “Psychedelic Shack”