The Chi-Lites: (For God's Sake) Give More Power To The People/Greatest Hits/A Lonely Man/A Letter To Myself/Toby

I'D BETTER DECLARE myself: I like Philly Sound, the Stylistics, Barry White even (or, rather, sometimes); I don't think Norman Whitfield mangled Motown: I do believe in black magic. These days I don't listen to anything much but soul and all I've been wary of is writing about it — there's no agreed critical stance to lean on and it doesn't take much hyperbole to get the charges of racism and critical cowardice flying around (cf.Richard Williams vs NME in recent Let It Rock's). But Brunswick have just reissued two old Chi-Lites albums and issued Toby, the new one, and I can't keep quiet any longer — Eugene Record is ace and it's time non-soul people realised it.