Birth Day

by Craig Lytle Under the banner The New Birth, from which they would later drop "the", this was the first album from the self-contained band; they came charging out of the starting gate with the gritty track "I Can Understand It." With vocals comparable to Bobby Womack, who also penned the number for himself, Leslie Wilson stepped into the lyric with total conviction. His vibrancy is augmented by a funky backing track, primarily a rumbling bass and soulful backing vocals. The single peaked at number four on the Billboard R&B charts after 12 weeks. The follow-up release was "Until It's Time for You to Go." Far from its predecessor, its arrangement is geared more toward a crossover audience, as it was previously a #40 hit for Elvis Presley in 1972. It peaked at #21 inside of ten weeks on the R&B charts for the New Birth. Nothing else made any chart noise from this album, but that does not represent the quality of this project. "Got to Get a Knutt" has a rather racy title, and rightly so. But the song takes on different themes within its mostly musical journey, including animated remarks taken from commercial jingles, riddles and the like. In addition to the urban-flavored "Theme from Buck & the Preacher" included on this album, the group gives its own rendition of the classic "Stop, Look, Listen (To Your Heart)," which does not live up to the original by the Stylistics and is the only marginal track.