Ignored Obscured Restored
Today’s SotW is squarely in the category of “restored” songs.
I recently picked up a very large box of 45’s of rock and soul music from the ‘60s, gifted to me by my second cousin Donna. I had as blast looking through them, organizing them, and playing a few as I went along.
I picked up a 7 incher on the Wand label called “My Pledge of Love” by The Joe Jeffrey Group. What is this, I thought to myself. I dropped the needle and recognized it immediately. I have to admit, I don’t think I ever knew who the artist was, but the song I couldn’t forget!
So I did some research for you and here’s what I found:
The Joe Jeffrey (born Joseph Stafford Jr.) Group was an R&B outfit based in Cleveland, Ohio and took “My Pledge of Love” to #14 in the Billboard Hot 100 in 1969.
The song is driven by a relentless rhythm guitar and, of course, Jeffrey’s powerful vocal performance.
Partway through (at about 1:35) Jeffrey starts to riff on the Four Tops’ “Baby I Need Your Loving,” a song that had hit the charts 5 years earlier, in 1964. But making a musical reference to a Motown hit could never hurt.
Despite that reference, this song strikes me as more of a rock song than soul number. The buying public in 1969 must have felt the same way. “My Pledge of Love” failed place on the Billboard soul chart!
Enjoy… until next week.
Really? It failed to chart R&B? I had to check that and Tom is right. It was another great year for soul music but you’d think it would have beaten, oh, “I Could Never Be President” by Johnny Taylor, or “Take a Letter, Maria.” There is, and was it seems, no accounting for taste.