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Leonard Pitts: Down memory lane with Stevie, Aretha and Gladys

Related Topics: Lady, The O'Jays, Big Apple, Regina Jones, Funk

That’s what I kept thinking the other night as I paged through a new coffee table book, “Soul R&B Funk: Photographs 1972-1982” by my friend and former colleague Bruce W. Talamon. Another friend had sent it for my birthday — thanks, Herschel — and I opened it up, intending to spend a couple minutes with it. Next thing I knew, a couple hours had passed.

I had spent them in the company of Marvin and Stevie, Gladys and Aretha, the O’Jays, the Spinners, the Tempts and all the other lords and ladies of ’70s R&B. Page by page, Bruce brought back the singers and songs that were playing when I kissed a girl for the first time, when I learned to drive, when I was young and still knew everything.