With
Cleveland Eaton II (bass) and
Maurice White (drums) replacing
Eldee Young and
Red Holt in the trio,
Ramsey Lewis alters course just a bit from his handclapping soul-jazz idiom that was so popular at the time. The two new sidemen are relegated more to the background, and some punchy big band charts by Chicago's
Richard Evans share the spotlight with
Lewis' gospel-blues-drenched piano. Nevertheless, the old swinging fervor is left intact this time, as
Lewis and company purvey a set of ten pop hits, with a few others worked in. They even got a large-scale hit (number 19 on the pop charts) out of the old gospel tune "Wade in the Water" (the photo of the tall, pretty model doing so on the cover might have struck some as being sacrilegious). The best cut of the bunch is the hard-swinging, down-home treatment of the
Stevie Wonder hit "Up Tight," that got almost as much airplay as the title track. Like
The In Crowd, this record evokes its era indelibly. ~ Richard S. Ginell