Song of the Day 11/18: Lee Moses, “Bad Girl”
People who love soul music have to deal with the fact that artists stopped making it about the time that disco gobbled up R&B and funk in its Hustle-dancing wake. The obsessives deal with it by finding and sharing rare recordings of obscure groups, and some of those nuggets make you wonder why the artists were so obscure.
That’s certainly the case for Lee Moses, an Atlanta singer and self-taught multi-instrumentalist whose recording career ran from the mid-’60s to 1973, first as a New York session guitarist where he crossed paths with Jimi Hendrix, and later as a solo artist who opened for some big-name acts. Afterwards he continued performing in Atlanta but made no records, and it wasn’t until several years after his death in 1998 that his old soul sides were rediscovered by the broader public.
His best-known song is “Bad Girl,” released in 1967. Moses’ combination of gritty, impassioned vocals and funky, psychedelic-rock influenced guitar sound raw and powerful to our ears, but the record made no impact in its day.
Moses released his only solo LP, “Time and Place,” in 1971. It included this updated riff on Arthur Conley’s “Sweet Soul Music” by name- and style-checking top acts of the day.
His last known recording was this remake of “Bad Girl,” produced by Atlanta soul impressario Johnny Brantley, in a style updated for the early ’70s.
