Jimmy Smith : I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little More Babe

"Well, I got ...
More bounce to the fuckin' bump
And if you want to know why,
It's 'cause I'm motherfuckin' truckin' ..."

I gotta admit, what first excited me about this tune was the opening bars which are sampled pretty plainly by the Beastie Boys on "Professor Booty" from their Check Your Head album. Very few things get me more excited (musically) than catching a sample reference I've never heard before, even one so gratuitous. After that second tom fill, my brain immediately jumps to the Beastie's ingenious lyrics.

From there though, the song opens up into those gorgeous ringing female vocals. With only a hint of lyrics around the the chorus, they carry that sparkly 70's vibe that makes you feel like you've just been swept aboard the Mothership on its way to Studio 54 for some seriously laid back funking. You can just imagine the afro-sporting, rhinestone-jumpsuit-clad backup singers "oooh-ing" and "ahhh-ing" their way through the sessions with the sweeping hand gestures and slow camera pans.

You know what else those vocals remind me of? That Eastern Airlines ride at Disney World back in the 70's, where they showed movies of folks singing and celebrating all around the world over a super-groovy soundtrack. There's something about some of the music from that era that for some reason really brings me back to that ride, ostensibly one of the more boring rides for kids, but I just lo-o-o-oved it. Now we know why.

The track itself is a relaxed, sexy groove, and who would expect anything less from a Barry White cover? The song really belongs to the vocals and the rhythm section, who lay down a nice sustained rolling funk shuffle throughout. Jimmy Smith jazzes around the organ pretty well, though he's buried down in the mix a bit, so you have to really listen carefully to catch his far-out solos.

This tune was featured as a rip from a 45 back in November 2009 at the always great Funky16corners blog, in case you missed it. It's also available on Jimmy Smith's 1974 LP, Black Smith.

[You can listen to Jimmy Smith's "I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little More Babe" by navigating to the post "Song008" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

---