THE PAINTER
Release Date: 1981
CD Availability: Not available on CD in the United States
Becky Rating: 6 Suns (out of 10)

POP ART

The Painter is KC and the Sunshine Band's first pop album. It's not a R&B album or a dance album, and it's not the train wreck the music press led me to expect. Instead, it's a fairly decent collection of new songs with a decidedly pop sound.

My KC chronology grows a little dim between 1980 and 1982, so there may be a few mistakes here. Sometime in 1980, Henry Stone's TK Records went bankrupt, the Sunshine Band as we know it split up, and Harry Wayne Casey signed a deal with Epic Records, the R&B label which was also home to the Jacksons. In 1981, KC recorded two albums. The Painter, released with the Sunshine Band name, featured Rick Finch, Fermin Goytisolo, and Beverly Champion from the old band as well as Bee Gee sideman Blue Weaver and other studio musicians. Space Cadet/Solo Flight also included Finch, Goytisolo and Champion, but was released under the solo KC name. Methinks a few record executives had a little too much input?

It also helps to examine, or remember, the musical climate in 1981. With disco music off the radio and back in the clubs, the R&B charts were dominated by the harder-edged funk sound of artists like Rick James, Lakeside, the Gap Band, and a revitalized Kool and the Gang. The pop charts were full of crooning cowboys, wimpy Aussies, faceless stadium rockers like Styx, Journey,and REO Speedwagon, and the Hall and Oates hit juggernaut that at one point had me seriously wondering if they owned stock in the local radio station.

Into this environment, someone at Epic apparently decided that KC should release an album geared more toward the pop than the R&B charts, and that's exactly what The Painter is. The heavy bass, high trumpets, and percussion mix we heard in the earlier KC albums is gone, replaced by slicker electronic keyboards and a very prominent saxophone. Maybe they were trying to get KC away from the "disco" label; well, there's very little danceable music here.

The album's songs are good, and sound like 1981. There's a greater mix of songs by outside writers, and KC contributes a few tunes as well. The title track and "Sway" are throwbacks to the old sound, with repeating hooks and horn lines - but they're much more subdued than a similar release from 1978 would have been. (The title song also sounds unfinished.) "Go Now (Before There's Trouble)" has a Bruce Springsteen feel to it - it sounds very much like his "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out." Don't believe me? Listen to the album!

The Painter contains more slow songs than are usual for a KC release, but they are well handled also. "It Happens Every Night" is a surprisingly effective mid-tempo ballad, sung very well by KC. I usually cry when I hear it - it happens every time. He also turns in a passable cover of the 1965 Barbara Lewis hit "Baby I'm Yours." Both songs, it should be said, are sung in KC's normal voice.

Another notable song is "All Through The Night," co-written with Donna Summer. KC doubles his own voice over two octaves in this tear-jerker (particularly at the time I wrote this review.) I'd love to hear an alternate take with just the low voice.

The Painter also includes the most unintentionally funny song KC ever recorded. "Love Me" begins with a keyboard line that recalls the horn hook from "Boogie Shoes," but then KC comes in, screaming the lyrics as if someone has just dumped a pot of boiling lobsters down the front of his pants. The Mick Jagger falsetto voice distracts from the fun arrangement in the background.

You have to wonder, what would have happened if the Epic folks had pointed KC in more of a funk direction? What songs would have been kept, what other ones might he have contributed? Would the album have charted? Would there have been a hit song?

I'm giving The Painter a solid six suns, for effort, a decent set of pop songs, mostly good vocal performances from KC, for the painting on the back, for not being as terrible as its reputation (it's not at all terrible), and for the times when you can hear Rick Finch on bass and Fermin Goytisolo on percussion. Unfortunately, The Painter is not now available on CD in the United States, so you'll have to pop down to your local used record store to find it.

(c) 2002 Becky Banfield for Dos Gardenias Productions