The Emotions “Show Me How”
Single originally released August 1971
#13 R&B, #52 Pop single

“I’m just a young girl, dying to learn the ways of love, just to please you…so the things I don’t know, show me how…”

“Show Me How” was originally written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter for another Stax group (The Goodees, apparently an all-Caucasian ensemble long since departed and forgotten). Hayes and Porter resurrected and gently orchestrated it with soft drums and bass and even softer keyboards and strings for this ’71 single version by The Emotions.

I don’t know about you, but I suspect that most red-blooded males find an invitation like the above, an odd yet exquisite combination of actual innocence and potential eroticism, quite inviting. Especially when delivered by Sheila Hutchinson’s more girlish than womanly vocal, which moves into her upper registers for a closing that’s climactic in more ways than one. “Show Me How” is also available on The Complete Stax-Volt Soul Singles Volume 2 and Sheila fondly recalls in that set’s booklet: “They actually had to ask my father to leave the session so that I could complete the end part. On the part where I go up, Isaac was likening the way for me to sing that to me having a climax, and I was a virgin…I said to Isaac, ‘Now you’re just too much.’”

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