The Jones Girls - Keep It Comin' (1984/2015)

By the time Philadelphia International released Keep It Comin' in 1984, the Jones Girls had switched to RCA; this LP consists of material they recorded before their departure from Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff's label. So Keep It Comin' was an LP of leftovers, but they're enjoyable leftovers.

Most of the material sounds like it was recorded around 1982, when R&B was becoming more keyboards-minded but wasn't as high tech as it would become in 1983 and 1984. Produced and written by Gamble & Huff, "Better Things to Do" is pure Philly soul. But the songs that were produced by Kenneth M. Burke or McKinley Jackson tend to be closer to the sort of things that Kashif and his associates were providing for Evelyn "Champagne" King in the early '80s; soul music was evolving into urban contemporary, and tunes like "Won't Let You Take It Back" and "You Can't Have My Love" find the Jones Girls changing with the times. Keep It Comin' isn't essential and isn't in a class with 1979's The Jones Girls or 1980's At Peace With Woman, but it's a solid, pleasing collection that the group's hardcore fans will appreciate.