The Soul Searchers - Salt Of The Earth (1974)

"Salt Of The Earth" is the second album by the Washington, D.C. group The Soul Searchers.
Released in 1974, this album has become one of the most sampled albums in Hip Hop music with the drum break from Ashley's Roachclip being the basis of many popular songs of the past twenty years.
This album expands the band's music into deep and dark new dimensions. While boasting an even funkier street-smart approach than the previous We the People, Salt of the Earth achieves new levels of jazz-inspired sophistication as well. The much-sampled "Ashley's Roachclip" and "I Rolled It, You Hold It" are brilliant evocations of mind-warping psychedelia, but the group also slows down and gets straight with a shimmering reading of the classic Bacharach/David love song "Close to You." Between those two extremes lurk angular yet soulful grooves with all the widescreen power of contemporaries like Earth, Wind & Fire and Kool & the Gang, but with a structural complexity all their own.
This is extremely well rounded funk. Here, the Soul Searchers blend jazz funk with soft soul.
Though not quite as musically complex as Amnesty of LA Sound Carnival, this music does have interesting progressions that make the songs uniuqe, but these could still work on 1970s AM radio.
"Ain't It Heavy" could be a Spinners track, except that the chords twist and turn far more than on Gamble and Huff work, and the singers work around these changes, almost like jazz cats. Like a lot of this, it's very chromatic, working up and down all the sharps and flats of the scale rather than just the tonics.

Track listing

1.  I Rolled It You Hold It  (John Buchanan)   - 4:38
2.  Blow Your Whistle  (Maxx Kidd, Chuck Brown)   - 3:01
3.  Close To You  (Burt Bacharach, Hal David)   - 4:23
4.  Funk To The Folks  (John Buchanan)   - 4:14
5.  Ain't It Heavy  (John Buchanan)   - 5:58
6.  Windsong  (John Buchanan)   - 5:00
7.  Ashley's Roachclip  (Lloyd Pinchback)   - 5:36
8.  We Share  (Donald Tillery, John Buchanan)   - 2:49
9.  If It Ain't Funky  (Chuck Brown)   - 3:39

Released:  1974
Recorded at:  American Star Recording Studio, Falls Church, Virgina
Genre:  Soul, Funk
Label:  Sussex Records
Length:  40:34
Producer:  Carroll Hynson, Joe Tate

Personnel
Chuck Brown - Guitar, Lead Vocals
John Buchanan - Trombone, Piano, Synthesizer, Percussion, Vocals
Donald Tillery - Trumpet, Percussion, Vocals
John Euwell - Bass
Kenneth Scoggins - Drums, Percussion
Lino Druitt - Congos, Bongos, Percussion
Lloyd Pinchback - Flute, Saxophone, Percussion
Bennie Braxton - Organ, Vocals