[SACD-R][OF](R&B, Philly Soul, Pop-Soul)The O’Jays – Ship Ahoy - 1973/2003

The “other” O’Jays album masterpiece, Ship Ahoy combined shattering message tracks and stunning love songs in a fashion matched only by Curtis Mayfield’s finest material. From the album cover showing a slave ship to the memorable title song and incredible “For the Love of Money,” Gamble and Huff addressed every social ill from envy to racism and greed. Eddie Levert’s leads were consistently magnificent, as were the harmonies, production and arrangements. “Put Your Hands Together” and “You Got Your Hooks In Me” would be good album cuts, but on Ship Ahoy they were merely icing on the cake.
Ship Ahoy is a rhythm & blues album by Philadelphia soul group The O’Jays, released on November 10, 1973 on Philadelphia International Records. The album was a critical & commercial success, reaching #1 on Billboard’s “Black Albums” chart & #11 on the “Pop Albums” chart & launching 2 hit singles, “For the Love of Money” & “Put Your Hands Together.” Conceived as a theme album built around the title track, Ship Ahoy includes socially relevant tracks & love songs under a cover that is itself notable for its serious subject matter. The album, which achieved RIAA platinum certification for over 1 million copies sold in 1992, has been reissued multiple times, including in a 2003 edition with a bonus track. Ship Ahoy was the highest selling R&B album on the Billboard Year-End chart for 1974.
The cover of the album depicted the band in a slave hold with illustrations of slaves. In its review, PopMatters commented that the use by producers Gamble & Huff of this imagery demonstrated not only their freedom as the heads of Philadelphia International Records, but also “how seriously the duo viewed popular music as a vehicle to ‘teach & preach’.” According to The Greatest Album Covers of All Time, the production of such politically conscious imagery from a band known for its popular music “was enough to make even the most myopic of white music fans take note that something was changing.” Illustrator James Barkley was otherwise better known for illustrating children’s books & a postage stamp—a 1972 image of Mount McKinley, Alaska—along with commercial design & other nature paintings.
Songs & music:
The songs on Ship Ahoy balance the romantic with the politically & socially conscious. In its review of the 2003 re-issue, Rolling Stone noted that the album’s “main achievement was proving that it was indeed possible to be thoughtful & articulate without losing your funk.” The album’s lead single was “Put Your Hands Together,” a song urging cooperation & optimistic prayer for “a better day to come.” Rickey Vincent, author of Funk: The Music, the People, & the Rhythm of the One, describes the song as “fairly standard musically”, “with a strong gospel feel.”
The 2nd single, “For the Love of Money,” is a protest against materialism with a groove that Rolling Stone described as “downright orgiastic”. The song was written around a bass line composed by Anthony Jackson, which in 2005 Bass Player Magazine described as “landmark.” Bass Player went on to note that the song has “become one of the most recycled singles ever, sampled continually by rappers, & appearing on over 75 compilation CDs, numerous movie soundtracks, & most recently, the theme for TV’s The Apprentice.”
The album’s title song, “Ship Ahoy,” was built around the theme of African captives being transported in a slave ship as part of the Middle Passage of the Atlantic slave trade. It had originally been penned by Gamble & Huff for inclusion in the soundtrack to Shaft in Africa, but the producers decided instead to give it to the O’Jays as part of a concept album centered around slavery. The song brought in the sounds of waves & cracking whips to add immediacy to lyrics which, according to PopMatters, personalized “the ‘voyage’ in ways that few black popular artifacts had previously done so—some 3 years before the publication of Alex Haley’s Roots. The book A Change is Gonna Come: Music, Race & the Soul of America notes that unlike the seminal work by Haley, “Ship Ahoy” is a hopeless, ominous song that offers “no sense that things are going to work out fine.” In its 1974 review of the album, The New York Times characterized the song as “dark & occasionally spine-chilling.” In 1993, The Miami Herald called it “a dark, atmospheric, frightening masterpiece that’ll send a shiver up your spine.”
In 1995, The Los Angeles Times dubbed “Ship Ahoy”, along with the song “Don’t Call Me Brother” as among “the cream of the vocal trio’s angry music.” “Don’t Call Me Brother” is a nearly 9-minute long album track that protests hypocritical claims of racial unity from backstabbers.

Lenny Pakula – arranger
Leon Huff – keyboards
Anthony Jackson – bass
Eddie Levert – vocals
MFSB – orchestra
William Powell – vocals
Walter Williams – vocals
Rocco Bene – trumpet solos

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