Tami Lynn: Love Is Here And Now You're Gone (1972) ... plus

New Orleanian soul singer Tami Lynn had already been in the business for the better part of a decade when her full-length debut Love Is Here And Now You’re Gone appeared toward the end of 1971. In addition to backing up sessions for Dr. John, Sonny & Cher, the Rolling Stones, and Wilson Pickett, she’d made a pair of incredible 45s, one of which became a belated hit on the dance floors of England. A bona fide classic Northern Soul single, the ebullient 'I’m Gonna Run Away From You' had been recorded for ATCO in 1965 after A&R man Jerry Wexler had discovered the young singer at a talent showcase. After the song finally found an audience, it was included – probably unwisely – on an album of songs with which it had very little in common. Predictably, the Northern Soul crowd didn’t care much for the other tracks on the album and refrained from purchasing it, sadly relegating it to three long decades of obscurity. The album was produced by John Abbey, a consultant for Polydor’s Mojo soul subsidiary who, being a big fan of country music, brought Tami to Malaco Studios in Jackson, Mississippi, to record and chose Loretta Lynn’s 'Wings Upon Your Horn' as the opening cut. The first three tracks on Love Is Here and Now You're Gone have a lot in common with the country-influenced soul of Candi Staton and Bettye Swann. Lynn’s version of 'Can't Last Much Longer' by New Orleans legend Allen Toussaint is particularly wonderful. With the exception of the string-drenched 'Ain’t No Soul (Left in These Old Shoes),' the rest of the album is a whole lot funkier. The best of the later tracks is a rousing cover of the Patterson Sisters’ 'That’s Understanding', a song that has more than a passing resemblance to Jean Knight’s 'Mr. Big Stuff,' which had been recorded by a house band at the same studio. 'Never No More,' the only Tami Lynn original on the album, is also pretty great. I have augmented the LP by adding 7 bonus tracks: the B-side of 'Run Away', 'The Boy Next Door' (written by Lynn as Gloria Brown and Melvin Lastie of the Executives); a few earlier cuts, including 'Baby' (penned by jazz saxophonist 'Red' Tyler), 'World of Dreams', 'At the Party' (available for years only on a hideously rare French EP), the impromptu Cotillion single 'Mo Jo Hanna' (which Jerry Wexler produced after he ran into his former protégé at one of her sessions with Dr. John) and 'You My Love' (take this one as a mere sample, for the sound quality is more than poor), plus a super-cool version of 'Light My Fire'. http://www.dustedmagazine.com/
aa

aa

Tami Lynn singing live her Northern Soul classic 'I'm Gonna Run Away from You', (1971):