David Porter, “Gritty, Groovin’ & Getting It”
July 27th, 2007 byDavid Porter is pretty well known as Isaac Hayes’ partner in one of Stax Records’ most accomplished writing and production teams, the Porter-Hayes combination that wrote and produced “Soul Man,” “I Thank You” and “Hold On, I’m Coming” for Sam and Dave, Mable John’s exquisite “Your Good Thing is About to End,” plus Stax hits for Johnnie Taylor, Carla Thomas and others.
But David Porter also stood as a standalone, if not quite as widely known, Stax artist, and one of these rare Porter solo albums (unavailable since its original 1970 release) comprises the fifth digital title released exclusively to iTunes as part of Stax Records’ 50th anniversary celebration.
Gritty, Groovin’ & Getting It is not very gritty, but “groovy & getting it” describes the sound of his music. It certainly sounds constructed in a time when Stax and Motown shared supremacy of the soul / R&B charts, as Porter’s vocal style recalls Otis Redding and Marvin Gaye with an occasional splash of Jackie Wilson. Porter even goes so far as to reprise Stevie Wonder’s take on “I Don’t Know Why I Love You,” and “The Way You Do the Things You Do,” two songs with strong ties to Motown. He also slips and slides through the soul vocal classic “I Only Have Eyes for You.”
The single “Can’t See You When I Want To” seems built with all the components of Hayes’ (in)famous ballad style: Heavily orchestrated with cooing female singers, strings and horns, MORE strings and horns, even a spoken interlude where Porter pours out his heart, sounding completely unscripted but still purposeful. It broke into the R&B Top 30 (#29) but not the Pop 100 (#105) singles charts.
Retrospect is always easier, but “One Part - Two Parts” might have been a better single instead: Its uptempo rhythm is easy to grab and hold onto and its simple melody and rhyming (“Your love for me crumbled and died/ One part truth, two part lies”) creates a catchy, (kind of a Sly Stone “Everyday People”-like) sing-song-y kind of tune.
