Back in 1990, Homer Simpson, fresh off an unsuccessful stint as the assistant mascot for the Capital City Capitals, wondered aloud why people enjoy hearing tales of failure and woe. It's a good question. Is it that we all, on some level, can relate? Does it just make us feel better about our own failures? Whatever the reason, there's no denying that the most compelling stories are often the sad ones, where chances are missed, success is dangled just out of reach, and circumstances conspire to create disappointment. The primary appeal of the Numero Group imprint is the great music it unearths, but there's an underlying draw in the label's focuses on the near- and not-so-near-misses to tell us stories we love to hear and repeat.
The tale of the Final Solution and the would-be soundtrack to Brotherman is a classic story of people suffering failure they didn't deserve, either on a personal level or in terms of the quality of their art. The Final Solution were a Chicago vocal quartet that began life in the early 1960s as the Kaldirons, by all accounts a superb live act but remembered on wax only by a single 45 for Twinight (included on Numero's own Twinight's Lunar Rotation comp). The single was even mis-credited to the Kaldirons. Needing a fresh start in the early 70s, they changed the name to the Final Solution, completely oblivious to the phrase's Nazi implications. The quartet re-united with a friend from high school, guitarist and songwriter Carl Wolfolk, who had penned a few hits, including Tyrone Davis' ephocal Chicago soul classic "Can I Change My Mind".
Their first opportunity to record came from an unexpected source: a group of Chicago advertising men attempting to make their first feature film, a cash-in on the Blaxploitation genre that was popular at the time. The soundtrack had proven an immensely important piece of the Blaxploitation puzzle-- indeed, with only a few exceptions, they are far better remembered and loved today than the films themselves. Fellow Chicagoans the Impressions had just scored with the OST for Three the Hard Way, and the producers of Brotherman figured they'd get the soundtrack out of the way first, bringing in Wolfolk to write and arrange while the Solution sang. The sessions lasted all of 24 hours, and only two instrumentals ever received the intended orchestration, and then, of course, the film itself failed to materialize, leaving the score in limbo until now.
Truthfully, the fact that none of the vocal tunes ever got the string and horn parts intended for them is a blessing. Instead, what we get to hear now are raw, funky soul tracks with a rougher sound than most other products of 1974 recording studios. The harmonies are right up front, with only guitar, bass, and drums to back them. And what guitar parts! Wolfolk played far more elaborately than he might normally have to simulate the anticipated orchestration, and the result is wild. It's somewhat like having a fifth voice in the mix at times, and it lends a very distinctive sound to the album. The title track (not intended to be the main theme) is just thrilling, with Wolfolk's guitar jumping and diving through a chicken-scratch symphony while his cohorts gather round the mic and take his lyrics about the pusher who became a preacher in close harmony. The song has a nervous energy to it, and if the film had ever been made, we might be talking about it in the same breath as "Bucktown" and "Superfly", if not quite "Theme From Shaft" and "Across 110th Street".
Wolfolk was given no lyrical direction, an implicit acknowledgement by the producers that the songs hardly needed a connection to the film, and listening, it really doesn't matter what the movie might have looked like. I'll use myself as an example: I own around 20 soundtracks for films that could be considered part of the Blaxploitation genre, and I've seen only two of the films (Shaft and Black Belt Jones, if you were wondering). This album, now that it's finally out, just skips the hard work of making a forgettable movie and gives you the tunes you would've come for in the first place. Wolfolk and co. cover a lot of ground, leaping from gritty funk tracks to suave balladry, and it's clear from the easy melodicism of the songs, the seamless meld of the voices, and Wolfolk's distinctive guitar, which sometimes sounds almost Spanish or Arabian, that these guys could have been contenders if given a fair shot.
That fair shot never came though, and the story is irresistible today for that fact. The Final Solution didn't last long after the recording sessions, with one member tragically blowing his life away via syringe. Wolfolk spent two years trying to wrangle the tapes back from the failed filmmakers, who never so much as completed a final script. Then those tapes spent 30 years in a closet with little prospect for a public airing. Thanks to a series of serendipitous meetings on the streets of Chicago, though, we can finally hear them, a long-delayed happy ending for a long story of tribulation.
