As with past UARB the Sons of Fred, I learned about this month’s Under-Appreciated Rock Band, the Soul Agents through the albums in the English Freakbeat Series. The English Freakbeat, Volume 2 CD includes a song made famous by Muddy Waters, “I Just Wanna Make Love to You” plus the flip side of a later single, the organ-driven instrumental “Gospel Train”. The English Freakbeat, Volume 4 CD has three more songs, “Don’t Break it Up”, “Mean Woman Blues” and “I Just Wanna Make Love to You” again. Apparently the intention was to include “Let’s Make it Pretty Baby” on the earlier CD (it was included on the English Freakbeat, Volume 2 LP); Greg Shaw says that it was his favorite among their songs in the liner notes for the English Freakbeat, Volume 2 CD.
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On June 2, 1964, the Soul Agents released their first single on Pye Records, “I Just Wanna Make Love to You” b/w “Mean Woman Blues”. The band made a few lyric changes to the Willie Dixon song (and in the title as well – the actual title is “I Just Want To Make Love To You”), and they inserted some nice instrumental fills into their rendition of this blues standard.
(May 2014)
