Some of you may remember me talking about listening to albums at a place I babysat as a teenager. There was one album I remembered the baby face on the cover but couldn’t remember the artist or album. While writing up my Song Lyric Sunday post today, I came across Rare Earth’s cover of (I Know) I’m Losing You. That triggered my looking through Rare Earth’s discography and finding what I’ve been searching for for over fifty years.
Rare Earth is an American band from Detroit, Michigan. According to Louder, “Rare Earth’s music straddles genres and defies categorization, slipping seamlessly between the two seemingly disparate worlds of classic rock and R&B.” The band was signed to Motown’s subsidiary label Rare Earth. Although not the first white band signed to Motown, Rare Earth was the first successful act signed by Motown that consisted only of white members.The original band lasted from 1968 to December 2021. The band continues but most of the original members have passed on.
Willie Remembers is Rare Earth’s fifth album, released October 1972. This is the band’s first attempt at producing their own original work for a whole album, instead of utilizing some cover versions and a hired producer. As a result, it did not fare as well as their past albums. “Good Time Sally” was a #67 hit.
Gil Bridges – woodwinds, backing vocals, percussion
Ray Monette– guitars
Mark Olson – keyboards, backing vocals
Mike Urso – bass, backing vocals
Pete Hoorelbeke – drums, lead vocals, percussion
Ed Guzman –congas, percussion
I found this time capsule poster at wikipedia.
Listening through this on Spotify I definitely remember this one. I’m trying to put myself back in those days and everything that was going on in my world and the world at large and I understand why this one stuck with me.
You can probably find the whole album out on YouTube if you want to. I’ve also linked to it at Spotify. Thank you to the powers that be for bringing it back to me.
Tao-Talk 
Fantastic choice Li. Such a great band and such a completely immersive sound. Love this band
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Steve so happy you dig it. White men CAN sing Motown. Yeah, baby!
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Yeah they can. R Dean Taylor was white too and he kicked arses!
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Ah! I see I heard it before and commented. A couple others that come to mind are Tony Joe White and Eric Burdon.
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I’d forgotten about Rare Earth. I have their album ‘One World'(1971) in my record collection. I was looking at the line up on the poster, that would have been a great festival!
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Heather, so cool you have one of their albums. I looked for Willie Remembers at Discogs and it is only available in LP. Heck yes on the poster. A concert to add to my TMBL (time machine bucket list.)
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How fun, Lisa! That is a familiar sound from the 60s and 70s!
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Dwight, it took a long for this album to find its way back to me. Call me a happy camper :)
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:>)
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I do remember “I just Want to Celebrate” but I’m not sure I could identify any of their other songs. This is a good one; I can see why it stuck in your mind all these years.
That’s a great memory capsule music line-up for that concert too. (K)
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Looking at their wiki hitlist I was surprised at how many songs made the charts. I’ve listened to the children song a couple more times today. It’s lifting my spirits, taking me back to that place in a safe way.
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The name Rare Earth rang a bell, but I couldn’t name any song of theirs until you mentioned “I just want to celebrate”.
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It’s funny…we did the same thing….I ran across this album today (didn’t listen to it all) because I was listening to them after I read your write up lol. Love this song!
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“Knowing how way leads on to way” I’m glad you did, and that you do.
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I had a friend who was really into them, so I do remember this song. It’s weird, I think I would have more of this in my collection now than back in the 70s.
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Good to hear on your friend. He has good taste ;)
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Lovely song. How great to finally discover something you have been seeking to find for so so long. I knew of this band but probably didn’t know of the Motown connection back in the day, and don’t recall this song. Like Kerfe, I remember “I Just Want to Celebrate.”
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Glad you like this and that’s it’s new to you. I was kind of surprised the band changed its name to the label’s name. It worked for them.
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According to their bio on AllMusic, it was the other way around: “Motown founder Berry Gordy decided to create a subsidiary label devoted to rock bands, and was looking for a band to launch the new venture. Rare Earth’s sound, which straddled rock and R&B styles, appealed to him and he signed them; when he asked the group to help brainstorm a name for the new label, they jokingly suggested calling it Rare Earth, and Gordy took them up on the suggestion.”
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Lisa, I had forgotten about Rare Earth also, but when I read the name here it clicked with their signing by Motown. I recall it was a big deal at the time as Motown was firing on all cylinders then. Thanks for bringing them up here – gonna revisit some of those songs!
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Happy to bring them back to you as well, Bruce. I hope you do. Between YouTube and Spotify, pretty much all music is available now. It’s a golden age for streaming music.
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