Baby Huey's only album, released after his untimely death, is titled
The Living Legend with good reason. He was legendary in his appearance, a 400-pound man with a penchant for flamboyant clothing and crowned by a woolly Afro, a look that is best illustrated by one of several rare photos included in the Water Records edition that shows our man in a wide-lapeled polka-dot shirt with a lime-green jacket. Beyond his unusual appearance, though, he was graced with a stunning, fierce voice on par with
Otis Redding and
Howard Tate, wailing and howling one moment and oddly tender and sentimental the next. Nowhere on
Living Legend is his range more apparent than the opening track, "Listen to Me," where listeners are introduced to both the enigma of
Baby Huey and his diamond-tough psychedelic funk backing band, the Baby Sitters. The high-energy instrumental workout "Mama Get Yourself Together" is worthy of
the J.B.'s and a hazy, spiraling ten-minute rendition of
Sam Cooke's chestnut "A Change Is Going to Come" confirms that the Baby Sitters could hold their own with
Blood, Sweat & Tears. Further lore that catapults
The Living Legend from good to great: the production was helmed by
Curtis Mayfield, reason enough to make it near essential, and is highlighted by three of his compositions, "Mighty Mighty," which
Mayfield and
the Impressions recorded a few years earlier; "Running," a classic
Mayfield cut that can only be heard here ripped to glorious bits by a band that is trying to let every member solo; and "Hard Times," which
Mayfield himself would revisit on his 1975 album
There's No Place Like America Today, although
Baby Huey's razor-edged reading remains the definitive version -- no small caveat considering
Mayfield not only wrote the tune, but could rightfully be considered one of the architects of soul to boot. [The CD was also released by Unidisc in 1994.] ~ Wade Kergan