Doing it to Death (Part 6)

The countdown of R&B #1s continues through 1971.

“Don’t Knock My Love (Part 1),” Wilson Pickett (6/26/71)
An argument can be made for this as one of the earliest proto-disco singles, if only for the way the cymbal is played just behind the four-on-the-floor beat, something which would become very familiar on R&B singles as the decade progressed. Pickett’s gutbucket soul vocal contrasts perfectly with the slickness of the arrangement (check out those horn charts and cooing backing vocals). The future was here. A

“Mr. Big Stuff,” Jean Knight (7/3/71)
The year’s #1 R&B single, in the midst of all of the classics (Marvin! Aretha! Gladys!) surrounding it. This made New Orleanian Knight a pop one-hit wonder (hitting #2); on the Soul chart, its follow-up went top 20 — and that was it. “Big” is a silly trifle, and that’s it. C-

“Hot Pants Part 1 (She Got To Use What She Got, To Get What She Want),” James Brown (8/7/71)
Hot pants! Smokin’!
Fun fact: I may have first encountered this song in a brief scene of 1988’s film of Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy, in a 1972-set scene in which Arnold and Murray are walking to a strip of gay bars in New York City. One of Brown’s most killer singles; he had the JB’s on the one and this doesn’t let up for one second. A

“Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology),” Marvin Gaye (8/14/71)
Elegant, environment-focused soul. What’s Going On isn’t my favorite Gaye album — I tend towards his sexier stuff — but its craft is impeccable. And he got the line “fish full of mercury” to the top of the R&B chart! A

“Spanish Harlem,” Aretha Franklin (8/28/71)
The Queen puts her own funky spin on Ben E. King’s song; this is one of her funkiest records ever, in fact. And she makes it sound so effortless! A-