While the rock music was danceable and inspiring to begin with and was reinvented both structurally and emotionally by Upchurch's playing, it's when he digs into classic R&B material that things really start to happen. Conversley, his readings of James Brown's "Cold Sweat," Percy Mayfield's "Please Send Me Someone to Love," and Marvin Gaye's "Inner City Blues" are turned toward pop and reveal an accessibility that not readly apparent to that audience. And while these tunes signify his capablility for turning even the most melancholy folk-pop tunes into funk-driven boogaloos, it's on the soul tunes where he shines brightest. He increases the tempo and transforms it into a funky soul tune, with a haunting melodic invention that restores the poignant melody. Forced to respond, he chunks it up with large Wes Montgomery-styled chords and knotty fills at the piano and horns, cascading like water in the background. On "Fire and Rain"- the James Taylor evergreen that was a hit when he covered it-Upchurch begins tenderly, wringing its melody slowly and purposefully, before the keyboards and strings reach in and grab it. Hathaway's spare, tasty muted horn arrangements follow in counterpoint to the melody, creating an extended harmony that acts almost as another voice. He gets the dirty grooves through the notes, not the effects, bringing out the funky side of Jesse Colin Young's original. Upchurch leaves all the fuzz tone and distortion of his early work behind him for the shimmering cleanliness of the West Coast sound. The title track is a cover of the Youngbloods hit. Upchurch effortlessly walks the line where jazz, blues, rock, soul, and funk fold into one another, yet he never gives quarter in the process.
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Produced by Tommy LiPuma, Upchurch's Darkness, Darkness is his quintessential (double) album, full of laid-back funky grooves, elegant, mind-blowing guitar work, elegant string and horn arrangements, and fine Fender Rhodes work from Donny Hathaway with legendary session bassist Chuck Rainey and smooth jazz piano great Joe Sample in the house. Recorded in 1971, shortly after he departed Cadet where he served as a house sideman-playing on dozens of records and a prefferred guitarist for Curtis Mayfield and Jerry Butler, Phil Upchurch headed for the West Coast and Blue Thumb Records.
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