Picked this up just yesterday at the Rappcats/Ubiquity Pop-Up record Shop in Highland Park. I might have bought this 45 just for the amazing label design, but I brought along my portable record player just so I didn’t get swayed by a pretty face. Sometimes you can just tell what a song is going to sound like just by looking at the title and the band’s name. As far as I can tell, The End Results were a group from Benton Harbor, Michigan and this may have been not only their own recording, but the only recording to have this lovely label. With a band name like “The End Results” and a song title like “Reminiscing” you just know it’s not going to be a dancefloor number. The date of 1972 seemed right about perfect in terms of the sounds that I like and dropping the needle confirmed it…this is what Matthew Africa used to call a “Soul Boulder,” slow, soulful and heavy, with a bit of an edge that makes it not quite smooth enough to be called “Sweet Soul.” As the song begins, a group of friends notices that one of their own is sitting alone at neighborhood party. Asking him, “what’s the deal?” prompts him to say, “I’ll tell you about it,” and then we get the beginning of the actual song, as the singer lays down a soulful version of his own tale of heartbreak where he is “reminiscing” of happier times.
For me today, which happens to be my birthday, I’m reminiscing on the end of Summer. Now, I know Summer doesn’t officially end until Labor Day here in the States, and doesn’t technically end until Sept 22nd, but for those of us who teach in the CSU system, today is our last day before the beginning of the semester. We collectively get to this point and wonder, “where did the Summer go?” even though it’s a massive privilege to even have a Summer where we can rest and recharge. Most of my life I always hated having my birthday so close to the start of school, now I’m actually thankful for it, because it forces me to sit down and reflect on things. Because I tend to get reflective around this time, it affects the kind of music I listen to, and I’m more likely to turn to these kind of sounds. Songs like this tap into memories of the past in a number of ways, from growing up in the South, to time spent in the Bay, to even Summers down here in LA. Though some times the memories are painful, I’m thankful for all that’s happened, since I wouldn’t be here any other way.