Lamont Dozier – Going Back To My Roots (Covered By Odyssey)

Roots photo from flickr

It’s Thursday and that means that it’s Popbitch time (hooray!) And amongst the usual scurrilous gossip and terrible jokes (It seems Suggs is marching against racism and homophobia. I mean, it’s just Madness gone politically correct.) there is this soul-gem: the original version of Going Back To My Roots (made famous by disco-funk act Odyssey in the early 80s) by Lamont Dozier.

Lamont Dozier was, of course, one part of the legendary song-writing team Holland-Dozier-Holland who were responsible for much of the best work to come out of Motown. And in this, the year of the 50th anniversary of Motown’s birth, it only seems right to celebrate the incredible men & women who made it what it was. And in the ten minutes of Going Back To My Roots there is truly much to be celebrated: an addictive rhythm, soaring strings, ridiculous breaks, a manic bit where it all goes very African and just about anything else any soul/funk/disco fan could ask for.

If anyone has any other lesser known, but amazing, works from people who helped build Motown let me know and I’ll post them here throughout 2009. In the meantime, why not check out the (equally) brilliant versions by Richie Havens &, of course, Odyssey:

Roots image by noahg on flickr

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