Apparently the only album made by Mikki Farrow is simply called Mikki; it has a brightly colored front cover and not much else. There are no songwriter, producer, arranger, or musician credits (only music publishing companies are given); the credits say only that the Dub Mix of “Itching for Love” was remixed by Sergio Munzibai and John Morales. (The 12-inch single shows the songwriters of “Itching for Love” as being Mikki Farrow, Norman Harris, and Eugene “Lambchops” Curry). Zak Master Funk, writing on a French-language blog (zakmasterfunk.blogspot.com) says that this “superb” album was produced by Mikki Farrow and Norman Harris (“The Harris Machine” is how he puts it), who also plays guitar; Jimmy Williams is the bassist.
My guess is that Mikki Farrow wrote or co-wrote all or most of the songs; regardless, Mikki’s singing is top drawer, the arrangements are fantastic, and all of the songs are winners.
The album was released in 1982 on Emerald International Records, a small Philadelphia label whose other artists – Spaze-Ka-Dett and Jamo – are similarly anonymous. (Jamo’s full name is Jamo Thomas; he is a soul singer from the Bahamas).
The blog dustygroove.com has a rave review of Mikki: “Late Philly soul – a batch of smooth modern numbers sung by Mikki and featuring production and arrangements by Norman Harris! The centerpiece of the album is the club track ‘Itching for Love’, which is presented here in both a long vocal and dub version – but there’s actually some great mellow tracks on the record that we like even more – nice tunes that hit a midtempo or slower groove, done with a confident female vocal style that sounds a bit like later Jean Carn. Titles include ‘Itching for Love’, ‘He Is’, ‘Never Enough Time’, ‘Look Before You Leap’, and ‘Right in the Middle’.”
“My Lord, Sweet Lord” is a lovely gospel number that starts Side 2; Mikki ended her music career in gospel music. The full name of the most ambitious song on the album (and one of my favorites) is “He Is (What Every Woman Should Know About Her Man)”.
The label released two 12-inch singles from the Mikki album, “Itching for Love” (as noted earlier, two versions of this song that total over 16 minutes open Side 1 of Mikki) and “Look Before You Leap”. As noted on Rare and Obscure Music, “Itching for Love” was on the Billboard Black Singles charts for 13 weeks, peaking at #67 in November 1982; while “Look Before You Leap” made it to #82 in April 1983. Evidently the album never charted.
(July 2014)
