Widely expanding on simple soul music formulas to fashion some amazingly heartfelt Motor City ballads and stompers, Nathaniel “Nay Dog” Mayer will never be stacked alongside such names as Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye or even Edwin Starr, but he deserves to be. Why exactly? As this disc demonstrates, Nathaniel Mayer had some huge talent, and could be every bit as dead-on with his delivery as any number of his peers. The difference seems to me to be one of production and handling. The Mowtown label, which took over Detroit (and the nation) in full force not long after Mayer recorded his most penetrating songs, had the same type of performers, overflowing with raw ability, and polished them with everything from vocal coaching to lessons at finishing school in order to appeal to a mass market listening audience more accepting of smooth pop than unabashed grit. Of course, the famous Motown production process, distribution and tighter than tight backing musicians would have done wonders, but this is all hearsay, and I humbly digress. My point is, all this great music came out of Detroit, and it’s unfortunate Mayer and Motown never came together to bear any tasty musical fruits.
Regardless, the stuff he did record during his 6 years on the Fortune label is awesome. “My Lonely Island,” with its gorgeous flute, horn, bongos, drum slapping and Mayer’s powerful lead is innovative and powerful. The opening “My Last Dance With You,” even with the somewhat distracting maracas taking too much of the volume away from the nice vocal harmonies, is exactly what a ballad should be. The overwhelming emotion in Mayer’s voice causes it to spontaneously break (twice) during his mid-song monologue. I don’t care if they recorded this stuff in a dirt-floored cinderblock studio, “Village of Love,” “Leave Me Alone,” and “Lover Please,” stand the test of time, and still sound great, despite the questionable recording techniques. Hell, these cats used the most basic elements to spin some real audio gold.
The knock-out soul take on Gershwin’s “Summertime,” as well as the title track “(I Want) Love And Affection (Not The House Of Correction),” and the revisited “Going Back To The Village Of Love,” have more of a propulsive edge, displaying the whole ensemble’s obvious versatility for the slow jams and the upbeat grooves. The final cuts “Super Boogie,” and “Raise The Curtain High” were released in 1980, nearly 15 years after anything else on this album. The transition is startling, as the sound is much cleaner and the use of a synthesizer, albeit unexpected, sounds cool, like heavy a P-funk outtake. It’s an interesting bookend to Mayer’s output, and leaves me wanting to hear a bit more of what he was laying down during that period when so much soul sold out for disco, but new wave was knocking on the proverbial door. Vampi Soul, with their uncanny ability to rediscover great musicians most worthy of grand audio unearthing, gets big ups from this record geek yet again. Please, may I have some more?
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