Had he not had a life-changing epiphany during a four-month stint in a Los Angeles jail for stealing $30,000 of Cadillac tyres, Barry White's life might have ended up in a downward and destructive spiral of crime and punishment. He was 17 at the time and a member of a notorious LA ghetto gang but after hearing an Elvis Presley record, he elected to walk away from a life of crime and try to make it in the music business. Miraculously, he succeeded, though it took years of hard graft – and considerable help from Lady Luck – to realise his dream.
White's first claim to fame was arranging Bob & Earl's classic soul hit, 'Harlem Shuffle,' in 1963. Stints as a writer and producer followed at small labels before White hit the big time in the early '70s, initially as the writer/producer behind the female vocal trio, Love Unlimited. As a result of the group's success – he later married one of its members, Glodean James – White signed a deal with the 20th Century label and from 1973 onwards experienced a flurry of big hits that made him a household name around the globe.
A fabulous new five disc box set called 'Unlimited' on Hip-O Select (comprising 4 CDs and a DVD) chronicles the big man's most fertile period, spanning the years 1972-1999. What makes it more engaging than the previous box set devoted to White is that is packed with rarities – there are a raft of alternate mixes of some of the deep-voiced love god's best loved songs: from his debut smash 'I'm Gonna Love You Just A Little Bit More Baby,' to 'Never, Never Gonna Give Ya Up,' 'You're The First, The Last, My Everything,' and his biggest US chart topper, 1977's 'It's Ecstasy When You Lay Down Next To Me.'
The set emphasises just how much of a musical pioneer the man born Barrington Eugene Carter was: although he wasn't the first deep-voiced soul man to write extended grooves with lush orchestral arrangements – that honour belonged to the late Isaac Hayes with his epochal 'Hot Buttered Soul' album in 1969 – Galveston-born White developed the symphonic soul aesthetic even further, marrying opulent Hollywood-style orchestral scores (arranged by Gene Page) with propulsive, hi-hat slurping funk and dance music rhythms that helped usher in the disco age.
Love, sex, and romance were at the core of White's philosophy and he delivered his amorous messages with a seductive power that proved irresistible to many record buyers in the 1970s. He also worked his production magic on several other acts – not only Love Unlimited and the Love Unlimited Orchestra (who are featured on CD3) but also more obscure soul acts like Tom Brock, Gloria Scott, Smoke, Black Satin, Jay Dee and White Heat (music by all these acts is featured on CD4, which includes a previously unissued side by cult singer Gloria Scott called 'I've Got To Have All Of You,' as well as her rare non-album 45 for Casablanca, 'Just As Long As We're Together'). As for the DVD in this package, it includes all of White's videos during his tenure at A&M in the late '80s and 1990s.
Everything about Barry White was excessive – from that ultra-deep basso profundo voice (maintained by years of chain smoking) and lavish string arrangements, to his bad suits, big bouffant hair and ridiculously long song titles....and yet somehow, all those elements worked. He was huge presence – not only physically but also musically and culturally. Some people, of course, found White's excesses to be a tad tacky, but as this superb package reaffirms, Barry White was indisputably one of soul music's greatest artists - and soul music has undoubtedly been poorer since his death in 2003.
