Rhetta Hughes - Relight My Fire

Chicago’s Rhetta Hughes "Relight My Fire" LP sounds like it was released on the wrong label, as it bares most of the hallmarks of a Mowtown release, and indeed a version of Mowtown standard ‘Baby I Need Your Loving’ is on here, the album however, released way back in 1969, is actually on Tetragrammaton Records….no never heard of ‘em before either. Still what it came out on doesn’t really matter, just the fact that it did is good enough.
The lightly funky, and ice cool ‘Light My Fire’ is the stand out track for me, though the arrangement does resemble a slowed down version of the Jackie Wilson rendition, but that can be forgiven, also I don’t actually know whose came first! Running it a close second are both the silkily-smooth produced ‘Walk On By’ and the heartfelt “You're Doing It With Her”. There is nothing special it has to be said about Rhetta’s voice that makes her stand out from the crowd, but that in no way demeans it either, maybe she just didn’t get the breaks that others did in era that was full of strong female vocalists. Of the original songs on here “Cry Myself To Sleep” and “Giving Up My Heartaches” are good enough to grace any Northern Soul dance floor, while “Sooky” sees a more bluesy side to miss Hughes and “Gimme Some Of Yours (I’ll Give You Some Of Mine)” finds her back on the funky tip. Maybe not quite a 100% boneified classic, but definitely a lost treasure that is well worth getting sore fingers for hunting in specialist music stores.

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