Leroy Hutson Featuring The Free Spirit Symphony
Let's Be Lonely Together
LeRoy Hutson Featuring The Free Spirit Symphony – Feel The Spirit
Label: Curtom – CU 5010
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Stereo, Pitman Press
Country: US
Released: Feb 1976
Genre: Funk / Soul
Style: Soul, Funk, Disco
This piece was written by Jay Balfour and originally featured in issue five of DIG – copies of DIG Mag can be purchased here.
Leroy Hutson is a case study in scratching below the surface, even if just a little. All of his music is deeply soulful, much of it is funky, and very little of it is well known. For me, part of the allure of Hutson's music was that his story shed light on artists I already loved. He went to college to become a dentist and ended up rooming with Donny Hathaway. He wrote songs for Roberta Flack. He replaced Curtis Mayfield as the lead singer in The Impressions. And then he went solo. You can dig this up and connect the dots yourself through his records. You can go crazy collecting everything he ever touched.
Hutson released his masterpieces in 1976. Feel the Spirit might be the lesser of the two, but it's the easier one to find and so it’s also the first Hutson record I ever bought. It’s the one that sent me and my wife spiraling into the rest of his discography, including the records he wrote and produced for others on Mayfield’s Curtom record label. At a natural intersection it hits an elusive sweet spot of soul, funk, disco, and boogie. As if hoarding the Spirit could pronounce its effect, I bought this record every time I saw it over several years. Now I leave it alone and hope it drives someone else crazy.