Remo Four - Smile (Reissue) (1967-68/1996)

Senor Soul recorded some fair soul music, usually though not always instrumental, in 1967-70 with Latin and funk tinges. That's the kind of music that War took to the top of the charts in the 1970s, and the similarities between the two bands aren't a coincidence. War's Chuck Miller was in Senor Soul, and though for most of their recording career he seems to have been the only future War member involved, it also seems likely that War actually plays on the final Senor Soul single. That single, 1970's "Don't Lay Your Funky Trip on Me"/"I Ain't Got No Soul Today (What It Is, Y'All)," bears a writing credit nearly identical to the original lineup of War: Harold Brown, Howard Scott, B.B. Dickerson, Lonnie Jordan, Lee Oskar, and Chuck Miller. The sound of these vocal numbers, too, is quite similar to early War's material. Most of what Senor Soul did, however, on their sole LP and several 45s was instrumental, and in a funk-soul-jazz vein, heavy on covers of contemporary hits. Many (though not all) of the tracks from their LP and singles, along with a couple of previously unissued cuts, came out on the 2003 CD What It Is, Y'All -- The Best of Senor Soul.