'Baby Now That I've Found You' was the immediate beneficiary, along with the group - by November, the single held the number one spot on the British charts. The group's timing was as perfect as the song - there had been a soul boom in England since late 1965, and the subsequent Motown and Stax/Volt tours by American R&B stars only heightened the public's interest. The Foundations were hailed for being the first British band to come up with an authentic soul sound, and the fact that they were first multiracial band to top the British charts only made their success that much more impressive (at a time when England was beginning to come to grips with its own racial attitudes). What's more, the group had the goods to back up the press' accolades. Their performances revealed a seasoned, well-rehearsed, exciting stage presence and a bold, hard soul sound that most British bands managed to imitate only in the palest manner, if at all. In retrospect, it may have been too similar to 'Baby Now That I've Found You,' which had sold in enormous numbers. Its relative failure led to the beginnings of a split between the group and Macaulay, as both songwriter and producer, exacerbated by the latter's decision - as their producer - not to permit the group to record any of their own songs, even as B-sides. Additionally, they felt that Macaulay reined in their 'real' sound, making them seem more pop-oriented than they were. These disagreements occurred at just about the same time that the group itself began experiencing internal fractures. Album DescriptionIt seemed to Curtis, in particular, that some of the other members, having topped the charts and chalked up an international hit, weren't putting out the same effort they'd been giving to the group when they were still struggling. See More Your browser does not support the audio element. © Richie Unterberger & Bruce Eder /TiVo More info The absence of original release date information (except for the year of issue) for each track is unfortunate, however, and the annotation is a bit disappointing - on most of these Castle/Sanctuary vault raids of the Pye vaults, there's almost too much information, but here there's too little. Most admirers of the group will be content with a single-disc greatest-hits collection, but for more serious fans this roundup is a valuable service, and the live album - promised for reissue on CD in the late '90s - comes off better here and more credible than most of us remember it. For those inclined to dig this deep, there are indications of unusual and interestingly different dimensions to the group on some of the relatively infrequent original compositions, like the ominous psychedelic-influenced "New Direction," Curtis' Sam Cooke-like "Tomorrow," Colin Young's funky "Give Me Love," and the mighty progressive funk of the instrumental workouts "In the Beginning" and "Where the Fire Burns." Pat Burke's "A Walk Through the Trees," moving the latter's tenor sax into a rare center-stage spot, is also worth hearing, and this group's version of "That Same Old Feeling" (later a hit for their Pye labelmates Pickettywitch) is also worth hearing, if only for the relative prominence of Alan Warner's chiming rhythm guitar. Too many of the other songs have lesser echoes of those two hits, which may be unsurprising given that so many of their recordings were written by the Tony Macaulay-John MacLeod team who wrote "Baby Now That I've Found You" (Macaulay co-wrote "Build Me Up Buttercup" too, though with Mike d'Abo, not MacLeod). But it's those one or two big hits - in their case, "Baby Now That I've Found You" and "Build Me Up Buttercup" - that are easily the best items here. At their best, the Foundations credibly emulated horn-backed American vocal group soul, often mixed with mainstream British pop influences, flecked with a hint of ska/bluebeat and Georgie Fame here and there. That means there's not only everything from their singles and albums (including the whole of the late-'60s live LP Rockin' the Foundations), but also five solo tracks (most or all of them from the early '70s) recorded by original Foundations lead singer Clem Curtis the mid-'70s single by the New Foundations, led by Curtis and an unnecessary 12" 1989 remix of "Baby Now That I've Found You." Like many such vault-cleaning anthologies of bands with one or two big hits, though, it's musically erratic. Whoever thought the day would come when the Foundations would be honored with a three-CD set? Now that it's found us, though, the job's certainly been done with admirable completeness, the 60 songs including everything they did for Pye - a period that covers virtually everything of interest the band recorded, mostly dating from 1967-1970. Purchase and download this album in a wide variety of formats depending on your needs.
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