The Ovations - Hooked On A Feeling & Having A Party: The Complete Sounds Of Memphis Albums (2009)

Two Ovations albums from the early 1970s, 1972's Hooked on a Feeling and 1973's Having a Party, are combined onto one CD with historical liner notes on this U.K. reissue. After moving from the Goldwax label to Sounds of Memphis around the beginning of the 1970s, Hooked on a Feeling was the first of the group's LPs in the new decade. Featuring their Top 20 R&B single "Touching Me," it also included all five of their other songs to have seen release on Sounds of Memphis 45s, as well as four other tracks to fill out the program. Sometimes it felt as though the Ovations were being fronted by a Sam Cooke who'd been resurrected to sing lead for a '70s sweet soul group, so strong was Louis Williams' resemblance to Cooke in the vocal department. That's not to say that Williams was in Cooke's league, or for that matter, that the material was up to the level of Cooke's classics, only that the similarity is unmistakable even to casual listeners who don't collect soul records. The record featured fair period soul with backing by the Hi Rhythm Section on the tracks that had been released on singles (though not on the ones done specifically for the LP), with a slicker production than what was usually associated with Memphis soul records of the period. Certainly the Williams-Cooke connection was emphasized in the offbeat gospel medley of "Were You There?" with Cooke's "Touch the Hem of His Garment." An additional offbeat selection was a cover of B.J. Thomas' "Hooked on a Feeling," another of the cuts that had already been released as a single.

Having Ovations lead singer and Sam Cooke-soundalike Louis Williams sing an actual Sam Cooke hit when it came time for their first post-Hooked on a Feeling single seemed like a strategy that was not only obvious, but borderline exploitative. As blunt as it was, however, it was successful, with the Ovations' "Having a Party" (which also wove in snippets of other Cooke songs) becoming the group's biggest hit, reaching the Top Ten of the R&B charts. Though not universally known at the time, it was actually a Williams' solo recording, making it unsurprising that the LP that followed, also called Having a Party, was billed to "the Ovations featuring Louis Williams." Unsurprisingly, it's a little different in tone than both its predecessor and the group's 1960s output, and not only because it spotlights Williams. While Hooked on a Feeling's sweet soul still bore traces of the group's Memphis origins, Having a Party was a little more diverse, a little more polished, and a little more anonymous at the same time, and certainly less earthy. There were even pseudo-Caribbean sounds in "Under the Banana Tree," as well as some strange party-like effects on a few cuts, a cover of the Temptations' "Don't Look Back," and more attempts to riff on the Cooke-Williams connection with covers of Cooke's "You Send Me" and "A Change Is Gonna Come." It still didn't add up to such a good album, as Williams wasn't a notable interpreter, the non-Cooke songs weren't so good, and the production was a little crass.