Cliff Nobles – We Got Our Thing Together
Cliff Nobles
Listen/Download Cliff Nobles – We Got Our Thing Together
Greetings all
Welcome to the end of another week here at the Corners du Funk.
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The tune I bring you today is another one of those sleepers that I picked up (many) years ago during my Philadelphia-mania, and never really gave its due.
Cliff Nobles is known to soul fans far and wide as the man behind ‘The Horse’, or at least the very groovy (underrated in my opinion) vocal version thereof, ‘Love Is Alright’.
The Alabama-born Nobles, was singing in and around the Philly area for years before he hit with ‘The Horse’.
He recorded a few 45s for J-V and Atlantic before Cliff Nobles and Co. jumped on the charts with ‘The Horse’ in 1968.
Phil-LA of Soul released a grip of singles and a LP by the group, with most of their material written and produced by Jesse James.
Cliff Nobles and Co his the R&B Top 40 twice in 1968 and 1969, but after that Nobles was largely at loose ends.
It appears that James tried to have him ride out the ‘Horse’ craze a few times, but to no success.
The 45 you see before you today is evidence that Nobles had one last intersection with the charts.
Oddly, it wasn’t with this side of the 45.
The much mellower ‘This Feeling of Loneliness’, with a southern soul feel made it to #42 on the R&B charts in June of 1973.
The flip – which I bring you today – is the much funkier (and cooler) ‘We Got Our Thing Together’ is not only a better song/performance, but also sports a very funky arrangement and some tight drums as well.
I find it odd that ‘We Got Our Thing Together’ didn’t hit, but there are any number of possible reasons it didn’t make it (including the likelihood that it didn’t get promoted at all).
After this one Roulette single, Nobles never recorded again, and was out of the music industry by the mid-70s.
He passed away in 2008.
I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll see you all on Monday.
Keep the faith
Larry
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Themocracy
Wow, what a massive tune!
Great post Larry!