The Equatics - Doin It !!!!

Lost dark soul/funk masterpiece from Hampton, Virginia high school champions of
Pepsi’s “New Sounds Of 1972” challenge. The stories of great high school funk bands are, thanks to an abundance of reissues,
commonplace. The tales of great high school soul-bands are still rare. A ballad or two on the random Douglass High School Stage
Band album or Timeless Legend’s mesmerizing entry on Columbus’s 1972 1st Annual Inner City Talent Expo notwithstanding, high
school bands rarely struck into the realm of “grown folks” music. Enter The Equatics and their brooding masterpiece Doin’ It!!!! If this is
categorized as a “funk” album – and it was for the last ten years, by those few lucky enough to own an original copy – it holds its own.
But it was as a soul band, one as inspired by the melancholic musings of Bill Withers as the psychedelic-pop of the self-proclaimed
“Black Moses,” Issac Hayes – that the Equatics shone. These young souls offered world-weary, beat-heavy ballads that stand on par
with any of the great independent organizations of the early 1970s. That a group of teenagers could offer such an angst-ridden plea as
that of Leo Davis’s “Merry Go Round” not only transcends the limitations that came from the band’s average age (seventeen, at the
time of the album’s recording), but also the barriers the stood in front of this group of small-city hopefuls This official reissue was
licensed by the Equatics’ bandleader, bass player Benjamin Crawford. Tracks: A1. What They Doin? A2. Walk On By A3. Merry Go
Round A4. Santana Pt. I A5. The Touch Of You B1. Santana Pt. II B2. Ain’t No Sunshine B3. Cisco Fare B4. Where Is Love?