Freddie North – 1974 – Cuss The Wind

Rare Beautiful deep soul lp by this great singer. Listen to Freddie North and you will realize he has been magnificently blessed.”Love to Hate”,”sun comes up” and the definitive redition of “Rainy night in Georgia”.

This is a 320@ vinyl rip of the original Mankind Records LP

Tracks
A1 Cuss the Wind 3:26
A2 My Whole World Ended 5:22
A3 Love to Hate 3:39
A4 Sun Comes Up 2:31
B1 Gotta Go Get Your Mommy 3:26
B2 I Loved Another Woman 3:00
B3 Oh Lord What Are You Doing 3:10
B4 Rainy Night in Georgia 4:37

Review by Soulmakossa

Although known to most for his smash hit “She’s All I Got”, Freddie North is – or should be – a household name for those into authentic Southern Soul.
After the majestic ‘Friend‘ LP (1971), North recorded this follow-up in 1975, again with Jerry ‘Swamp Dogg‘ Williams manning the board. And, as with the output of contemporaries such as Z.Z. Hill and Jimmy Lewis, ‘Cuss the Wind’ proved to be another one of those very last true Southern Soul albums, steeped in the gospelfied tradition of gutbucket testifyin’ that, commercially, was rapidly going ‘out of style’ come ’75.
The greasy, plodding title track opens this now rare and acclaimed album, and as soon as North opens his mouth, hearing his rich baritone is like catching up with a long lost but very dear friend.
Freddie then gets right down to business with the album’s centrepiece, the devastating “My Whole World Ended“; a soul staple, but to me, this blazing, horn heavy work out – complete with funk-rock freak out bridge – is the defitinive version. Count your goosebumps when North sinks his teeth into the last chorus…
The menacing, funky vehicle “Love to Hate“, a North original, features some snappy wah wah guitars and soft, shimmering strings. Folksy wisdom set to the traditional Blues pattern, funked up to the extent that it could well have come from a blaxpo-movie.

Sweet, country-tinged soul is up next with the smouldering, teasing “Sun Comes Up“; more downhome philosophy put to a shakin’, earthy groove. Dig the hapsichord here!
There’s an excruciating fraility to the beautiful, low-key ballad “Gotta Go Get Your Mommy“, a sparsely arranged soulful lament featuring Freddie as the archetypical deserted, mourning lover.
And believe it or not, there’s an actual red beans ‘n’ rice old time Blues shakedown here! The to-the-point “I Loved Another Woman” is dirty, dirty delta wailin’, somewhat reminiscent of B.B. King’s “You Upset Me Baby”.
“Lord, What Are You Doing” is sweetly orchestrated, mid-tempo soul at its finest; a remarkable, dreamy tune that fully demonstrates the range of pain, anguish and passion Freddie put in his vocal delivery.
Finally, there’s “Rainy Night in Georgia“… What’s to say about this one? A forgotten masterpiece… a soothing, harrowingly beautiful rendition of the Brook Benton original. I can’t say which version I like better… I do know that this is one masterful way of ending a splendid, deep, SOUL-ful album.
Freddie North should have been huge… The man was brilliant, and his two records for Swamp Dogg are all the evidence you need of that notion.