Unlimited

Performer: Barry White
Artist: El DeBarge; James Ingram; Al B. Sure!; Isaac Hayes
Producer: Barry White
Distributor: Universal Distribution

Notes: Tributee: Barry White. Liner Note Authors: Ed Greene; Quincy Jones; Barry White. Photographer: Bobby Holland. UNLIMITED is more substantial than it appears. Looking like a five-dollar box of chocolates, with its contents printed on a large black sticker slapped onto the back, it improves upon 1992's JUST FOR YOU box in breadth and (once you open the thing) presentation. The only potential problem for some listeners is that 20 of the songs appear in "alternate versions" -- a gentle way of saying "2009 remixes." The mixes were done by Jack Perry, Barry White's musical director and engineer, and they do retain the integrity of the originals. One would have to be fairly familiar with the material to discern major differences. (Did the songs need to be remixed, though? No.) UNLIMITED, like most boxes, does not cater specifically to casual fans or collectors. Discs One and Two cover the Barry White albums, from 1973's I'VE GOT SO MUCH TO GIVE through 1999's STAYING POWER. Disc Three is devoted to the Love Unlimited Orchestra and female trio Love Unlimited, the groups he directed and nurtured, while the fourth disc compiles other production work for the mostly obscure likes of Gloria Scott, Jay Dee, White Heat, Black Satin, and Jimmie & Vella Cameron (whose "Be Fair to Me," released in 1981, indicates that White probably dug Electric Light Orchestra). That's the stuff that only hardcore soul freaks know about. With few exceptions, all the charting singles are represented, and disco mavens get some pleasant surprises with extended disco and previously-promo-only mixes of "Theme from King Kong," "My Sweet Summer Suite," and "It Ain't Love Babe (Until You Give It)." The fifth disc is a DVD containing 14 video clips -- gold for fans. Regardless of whatever reservations one may have about it, ULIMITED is a generous and representative overview of one of the 1970s' most gifted and prolific do-it-all musicians.

A giant both artistically and physically, Barry White had a basso profundo voice and lusty, soulful songs that are probably responsible for more procreation than a thousand fertility clinics. Songs like "Never Never Gonna Give You Up" and "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe" brought an epic, orchestral sensibility to R&B, and White was one of the musical bridges between soul and disco in the 1970s. While he had considerable chart success, White was not much of a critics' favorite. In subsequent decades, however, he came to be taken more seriously, and respected as a soul music giant. He even managed a comeback in the '90s before his death in 2003.

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