1.What Would The World Be Like Without Music/Let The Music Take Your Mind Medley - 4:23 (Gene Redd-Kool & The Gang)
2.Walk On By - 5:15 (Burt Bacharach-Hal David)
3.Chocolate Buttermilk - 2:02 (Gene Redd-Kool & The Gang)
4.Trying To Make A Fool Of Me - 4:27 (Thomas Bell-William Hart)
5.Who's Gonna Take The Weight? (parts 1 and 2) - 6:22 (Gene Redd-Kool & The Gang)
6.Pneumonia - 5:03 (Gene Redd-Kool & The Gang)
7.Wichita Lineman - 5:22 (Jim Webb)
8.I Want To Take You Higher - 4:09 (Sylvester Stewart)
9.Funky Man - 3:22 (Gene Redd-Kool & The Gang)
10.The Touch Of You - 4:10 (Jerry Jones-Eddie Jackson)
11.Kool It (Here Comes The Fuzz) - 2:58 (Kool & The Gang-Gene Redd)
The Second LP and first live one and what an LP it is. This and it's successor are critically acclaimed as the band's best albums from this stage in their career and once again their is a definite uniqueness about it.
This album (recorded May, 1970 released February, 1971(presumably)) - unlike the next one - has tracks that follow each other so well It's hard for me to decide whether or not I am to listening to the actual show or it was just well compiled. The former may in fact be the truth but I have a noted few things that lead me to believe that it is just an impressive editing job and the later is correct.
The first of these is the length of the album (but perhaps they have used only the early or later part of the show) another is the lack of the performance of the debut single (again that could be in the non included part) and finally the fact that the audience seem to fade out with the track (the fact that some tracks do fade out is suspicious enough as live fades are not easy and live bands tend not to as far as I am aware). If any one wishes to discuss/argue this with me send an e-mail to the address on the first page (oh since writing this I have read the credits of the album that says it's edited by Gene Redd Sr. and arranged by Gene Redd Jr. so the former looks even less likely now).
The tracks released from this LP were "Funky Man" (#16 R&B #87 Pop) a single I have seen listed as both "Funky Man"/"1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8" with the latter as the second side presumably) and "Funky Man"/"Kool & The Gang/"Let The Music Take Your Mind" (the latter is more likely to be a live based single with the latter two being the B-side it could also be the 12" or the British alternative) the other releases were "Who's Gonna Take The Weight?" (#28 R&B #113 Pop) with parts 1 and 2 making up both sides, "Pneumonia" (I don't know the B-side or chart info and I may have misinterpreted my information.) and the "Sly And The Family Stone" cover "I Want To Take You Higher" with the B- side being "Pneumonia" (#35 R&B #105 Pop).
One final point is that this is Kool & The Gang's longest album prior to the invention of CD's and would have been even longer if they could have made "Kool It (Here Comes The Fuzz)" fit (maybe it could have been on the tape) so it had was added to the 1996 reissue when CD's where available).
Robert "Kool" Bell - Bass
Ronald "Captain" Bell - Tenor Saxophone[/Keyboards/Vocals]
Dennis "Dee Tee" Thomas - Alto Saxophone[/Keyboards/Vocals]
Robert "Spike" Mickens - Trumpet[/Vocals]
Claydes "X-Man" Smith - Guitar[/vocals]
Richard Westfield (Ricky "Hollywood Rick" West") - Piano/Organ
George "Funky" Brown - Drums[/Keyboards/Vocals]
Now continue to The Best Of ... Featuring The Penguin or (...) Live At P.J.'s(, Hollywood(,California)).