Formed in Tulsa, Oklahoma by siblings Charlie, Ronnie and Robert Wilson, The Gap Band emerged in the ’70s as one of scores of multi-membered, brass-heavy funk ensembles operating within the enormous musical shadows of Earth Wind & Fire and Parliament-Funkadelic. But by the turn of the decade, the group had well grown into its own identity – streamlining down to the Wilsons as a trio with a leaner sound to match. Produced by longtime collaborator Lonnie Simmons, the Gap Band’s biggest early ’80s hits were typically fueled by a post-disco funk stomp abundant with the catchiest synth licks outside of Prince and his Minneapolis minions, set against minor key melodies that conjured a distinct urgency.
Listen to The Gap Band IV now.
Crucial to that emotional resonance was lead singer Charlie Wilson. Possessed with a vocal elasticity across registers and a touch of Tulsa twang, he could command simple hooks and church-honed melisma alike as beautifully captured on Gap Band IV. The group’s sixth album overall – but more significantly as indicated by the title, its fourth since rebooting with Simmons – it presents the Gap Band at its creative and commercial peak. The first of two love-scorned uptempo classics, “Early in the Morning” commences with gurgling synth bass and thunderous claps revving up the track like some Funkenstein creature coming to life. Truly monstrous, however, is Charlie’s performance at the song’s climax, repeating “Early in the morning / In the middle of the day, baby / Late at night, baby / Everything will be alright,” unlocking layers of pathos with each invocation. IV’s other heartbreak party anthem, “You Dropped a Bomb On Me,” is even more memorable, merging haunted house Farfisa, plummeting bomb whistles, and impeccably timed tympani rolls into one of the great singles of the era.
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Where Gap Band IV exhibits additional breadth is in its non-dance numbers, fusing and blurring sensibilities true to the Wilsons’ Southwestern soul roots. (Gap is in fact an acronym for Greenwood, Archer, and Pine Streets in the historically African-American business district of Tulsa.) The lovely “Lonely Like Me” could be a country/pop tune sans steel guitar, or a lost Stevie Wonder song – or more likely, a stylistic cousin to Stevie’s own Charlie and Ronnie Wilson-assisted countrified 1980 hit “I Ain’t Gonna Stand For It.” The beautifully somber “Season’s No Reason to Change,” a long-beloved album cut with R&B listeners, boasts enough encoded C&W appeal to claim Tim McGraw as a fan.
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And if the trio’s previous quiet storm gem “Yearning For Your Love” set the precedent for how well their skills translated to mid-tempo material, “Outstanding” outdoes all expectations. Based around an irresistible syncopated piano phrase and delivered vocally by Charlie with all the charisma of his composite gifts, it’s the rare tune that can convey romance, nostalgia, innocence, and allure alternately or all at once depending on the context or one’s mood. It also features one of the greatest deployments of negative space in modern music history: the three-beat pause that separates the line “Girl you knock me out” and the echoey handclap that answers it. To which one can only conclude that one sublime Gap deserves another.
Listen to The Gap Band IV now.
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