BARBARA MASON –GIVE ME YOUR LOVE

Barbara Mason was born in 1947 in Philadelphia, and by the age of 12 was already starting her musical legacy. In 1965 she had a major R&B and Pop chart hit with her self written ‘Yes I’m Ready’ on the Artic label which is generally acknowledged as one of the first Philly-Soul classics. She recorded two albums for Artic in the 60’s and another for National General in 1971 before signing to Buddah in 1972.

Barbara released a string of singles starting with the non album track ‘Pow Pow Song’ then the hit ‘Bed And Board’ which had a more adult feel to it and was to set the tone for a lot of her material on Buddah, and at the time was considered a little risky for a female singer. The album mainly comprises of Philly soul ballads which was to be Barbara’s trademark sound. Most of the songs on the album were recorded at Sigma Studios Philadelphia featuring many of the Philly great’s Leon Huff, Norman Harris, Earl Young, and Vince Montana (who did all the arrangements).etc. Barbara re-cut her 60’s hit ‘Yes I’m Ready’ and extended it to 9 minutes with more sophisticated arrangements, with ad lib vocals making for many people the definitive version of this track which she was to record many times during her career. We also feature here the shorter non album 7” version.

Barbara was sent to Chicago to work with Curtis Mayfield on his ‘Give Me your Love’ which he had written for his Superfly soundtrack. Barbara’s version became the hit reaching the R&B top ten. Curtis also produced the flip side ‘You Can Be With The One You Don’t Love’. The album cover featuring Barbara wearing only a man’s shirt was put on a giant Billboard on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles and caused a lot of interest, a smaller version was put inside the sleeve as a pop up picture, not surprisingly most second hand copies are missing this picture.

The album has been a collectors item for many years and we are proud to be able to present it for the first time on CD re-mastered from the original masters, as part of our classic albums series.

Laurence Prangell
Soul Brother Records
April 2009.

Track list (click to hear tracks - one minute clips)
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