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.