Cameo – Knights Of The Sound Table CD (Soul Brother)

Cameo were one of the great Funk bands to emerge in the mid 1970’s, who released 17 albums between 1977 and 2000. They were formed in New York City by Larry Blackmon, Tomi Jenkins and Nathan Leftenant in 1974 as  13 piece band New York Players.  By the time of their first single ‘Find My Way’ in ’75 released on Chocolate City Records , they had changed to The Players and then again to Cameo to avoid a legal dispute with the Ohio Players.

Blackmon and keyboardist Gregory Johnson had previously appeared with Gwen Guthrie in a band named East Coast who had released an album on the independent label Encounter in 1973. Cameo released their debut album ‘Cardiac Arrest’ in 1977 which was a hard core Funk album and included ‘Rigor Mortis’ ‘Funk Funk’ and ‘Post Mortem’. They followed this the same year with ‘We All Know Who We Are’ which includes their classic ‘It’s Serious’. Four further albums followed between 1978 and 1980, and they reached their pinnacle with this 1981 record ‘Knights of The Sound Table’ their most consistently good album. ‘Freaky Dancin’, ‘I Like it’ and ‘Don’t Be So Cool’ were big Funky club tracks at the time.

‘Sound Table’ is a horn fronted Percussive instrumental with background scat vocals ala Earth Wind And Fire. ‘I Never Knew’ and ‘I’ll Always Stay’ are popular 2 –step ballads, and ‘Use it Lose it’ a really nice mid tempo track with good hooks and harmonies. After ‘Sound Table’ Cameo striped down to a 5 piece band for their next album ‘Alligator Woman’ in ’82 and then after Blackmon relocated to Atlanta in ’83 into a 4 piece for ‘Style’. Cameo’s commercially most successful period began here with a string of mid 80’s hits ‘She’s Strange’, ‘Single Life’  ‘Word Up’ , ‘Candy’ , ‘Back and Forth’. Whilst these may have sold millions in many Soul fans views (including myself ) their best material was when they were a full band with that great horn section, and ‘Knights Of the Sound table’ was their best album.

We are delighted to present ‘Knights Of  The Sound Table’ on CD in our classic albums series,Re-mastered from the Original Masters  it sounds fresher than ever  – Soul Brother