BROTHERMAN: SAVED AT LAST
The Final Solution: I Don't Care
The Final Solution: Brotherman
From Brotherman OST (Numero Group, 2008)
High school friends John Banks, Allen Brown, Darrow and Ronnie Kenney were one of many aspiring artists from Chicago hoping to become the city's next Impressions or Five Stairsteps but like "many aspiring artists," their history is largely one of reaching but never quite achieving. When they formed their first band in the 1960s, the Kaldirons, they had a opportunity when Twinight Records, the storied Chicago label that was home to blues/soul singer Syl Johnson, gave them a shot to record. The resulting single, "To Love Somebody" is one of the greatest sides off of Twinight that, alas, few ever heard; the song was not a hit.
However, by the early 1970s, the group was still trying to make a go of it, changing their name (and some personnel) to become, first, The Solution and then, The Final Solution. Let's just say: not the best name they could have gone with though I assume they simply had no historical awareness of the term's connotation. Regardless, bad name was followed by bad luck: the group was asked to record a soundtrack for an upcoming blaxploitation film called Brotherman (think a drug dealer turned preacher and crime fighter). The film never seemed to have made it past the idea stage - whether a script was ever written is in contention - but the Final Solution forged ahead and recorded the album for a movie that would never get made...and not surprisingly, the album was never released.
This is a shame on any number of levels, not the least of which is that, had it come out, Brotherman would easily have been one of the best blaxploitation soundtracks ever recorded. I'm not talking about something on the level of Shaft or Superfly, both of which were cultural/musical events in their respective way but definitely a step above the cookie-cut, wakka wakka funk songs that became so associated with blaxploitation.
"I Don't Care" is infused the kind of sweet, harmonized soul that made the Kalidirons earlier work stand out. Especially when paired with that melancholy but heavy guitar melody by newcomer Carl Wolfolk, there's something sublime about how their falsetto voices come coasting in on top of it.
Much of the album is like that - strong on melody in a way that other blaxploitation albums, with their monster rhythm sections, sometimes were lacking in. The closest Brotherman comes to something more conventional is on the theme song which sounds like, well, what you'd expect a theme song to sound like. But even then, for all its slow-building drama, there's still that angelic set of voices behind it, lending a gospel-like quality to the dark undertones of the music.
The fact that this album was recovered is a miracle in and of itself. The Kaldirons/Final Solution never got their due back in the day but sometimes redemption takes a while. It's a gift to them but also the listener. Seriously, get this album.
Tags: blaxploitation, chicago
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