THE PRESS RELEASE: “From Shrine to Stax, Isaac Hayes to Gloria Ann Taylor, The Mad Lads to The Staples Singers, Detroit to Atlanta, Kendrick to Pusha-T, Dale Warren’s singular voice is the lone constant. Beneath the ethereal beauty of his productions was a genius crippled by his unbridled id. His ever-evolving 24-Carat Black project spanned the ’70s, producing a masterpiece and an unfinished follow up. Discovered in a storage space were Warren’s 1980s demos cut with grown n’ sexy divas Princess Hearn, Vicki Gray, and LaRhonda LeGette right before his untimely death at the age of 50. III is an unfinished symphony that peels away the final layer of Dale Warren’s mysterious oeuvre.”
MY TWO CENTS: Not your daddy’s soul band. Not by a long shot. Ethereal and moody, challenging and idiosyncratic, sophisticated and subtle, wondrous and just plain weird, these long-lost cuts from Dale Warren — a talented composer, producer, arranger who worked with scores of superstars but could never quite grab the brass ring himself — stand apart like some kind of missing link between R&B, soul, jazz and classical. No wonder the beats and melodies of his band 24-Carat Black’s cult-concept album Ghetto: Misfortune’s Wealth have been sampled by everyone from Dre to Jay. If you’re starting here, it’s worth taking the trip back to the beginning. With or without your daddy.
