The Love Music Series

The following letter is an edited version of the liner notes from my very first Love Music Tape. There are a total of five tapes  in the series. The cover art is also reproduced above.

August 11, 1993

To whom it may concern:

PLEASE PLAY THE TAPE WHILE READING THIS LETTER

I would like to share with you a collection of music from late 1968 through the seventies decade that defies all conventional classifications. The usual clichéd, pigeon holed and pigeon dropped classifications such as Oldies but Goodies, Old Gold, The Classics, Blasts from the Past, Greatest Hits of the blah, blah, blah are all much too stale, dull and let's just face it; outrageously boring and that is a crime!

            When I was sixteen I simply referred to these beautiful and sensuous love ballads –a la falsetto as “LOVE MUSIC.” I think “Love Music” is still a very fitting name to classify this music since the overwhelming theme in most if not all of this music is love lost and love found. The Delfonics and the Stylistics were two favorites of mine but there were many others some of whom also appear on the enclosed tape.

           There is not one song on this Love Music collection that doesn’t feature me on it. Picture me if you will, as the lead singer for each group and wearing some fine funky threads, singing pretty, moving fluidly to the music, in step, on time and in the groove!!! Have mercy, listen to me now! (I also do the background singing and choreograph all of the dance moves).

            The most important thing about this love music was the voice it gave to the passionate heart beating within the breast of a young brother and to all lovers everywhere. And yes there was that time long ago, when my heart was broken -yet the band played on. Doggone it! I could still hear the band playing and singing even as my love boat sank beneath the ocean waves.  

            Moving on with my life and moving to Houston in 79 was an epic happening for me.  That's when and where I met my wife for the first time and I fell in love with her at first sight. (I Never Knew Love Before Her!) I just knew at once that she was the one I had been singing my love songs to; ALL along! I felt it deep within on a spiritual level, that I had just met my Soul Mate. 

           Director's Cut Notes: This whole tape flows with the emotional Ups and Downs of Love. Marilyn McCoos' 'One Less Bell to Answer,' an incredibly moving heartbreak song; is answered immediately with Eddie Holman's heartfelt song 'Hey There Lonely Girl' and on and on as the love tape goes slowly around in your cassette deck.

              Very sincerely and lovingly yours, 

              Joseph

The Playlist: Love Music 1. (Originally released on cassette tape in 1993)

**Feel free to sample the tunes that are highlighted below by clicking on them.

1. La La Means I love you – The Delfonics
2. Break your promise –The Delfonics
3. Didn’t blow your mind this time – The Delfonics
4. Trying to make a fool of me – The Delfonics
5. Baby, I’m for real –The Originals
6. The Bells –The Originals
7. You’ll never get to heaven –The Stylistics
8. You’re as right as rain –The Stylistics
9. You make me feel brand new –The Stylistics
10. Break up to make up –The Stylistics
11. Always together –The Dells
12. I can sing a rainbow –The Dells
13. Rainy night in Georgia –Brook Benton
14. Going in Circles –The Friends of Distinction
15. One Less Bell to Answer –The Fifth Dimension
16. Hey there lonely girl – Eddie Holman
17. Let’s stay together –Al Green
18. Ooh Baby Baby-The Five Stairsteps
19. O-Oh- Child –The Five Stairsteps