The Emotions “So I Can Love You” So I Can Love You Stax 1970

At long last, spring has arrived in New England. As I sit here typing this the windows are open for the first time in months, allowing for a barely-detectable breeze to creep into the room and invite my attention to the 66-degree weather outside. There are hundreds of songs and records that I’ve filed away for occasions like this, those few times a year when a drastic change in the weather signals an entirely new batch of music in regular rotation. Yet out of all the choices I have to celebrate with, there’s only one song that I want to hear, a three-minute chunk of Soul perfection that can be enjoyed best on a day like today. I’m referring, of course, to the title track from The Emotions‘ first long-player on Stax, titled So I Can Love You (1970).

Long before Maurice White took them under his wing and “Best of My Love” was pumping out of the disco clubs across the country, the Hutchinson sisters released a pair of gospel-inflected LPs on the Stax/Volt label at the dawn of the ’70s. Lead vocalist Shelia penned the album opener “So I Can Love You,” which was produced by Isaac Hayes and David Porter – in fact, all evidence suggests that Hayes is the one providing those gleeful organ leaps found here. It’s the strange little idiosyncrasies that allow me to listen to this track a dozen times in a row without tiring of it: the quirky horn arrangement, the double-timed drums during the pre-chorus, the questionable harmonies in Jeannette and Wanda’s backing vocals. The song is also one of the finest examples of how to of place instruments across the stereo field that I’ve ever heard. Treat yourself to “So I Can Love You” on a warm spring morning and observe your surrounding evironment change in a matter of seconds: the headache from the hangover subsides, the energy levels increase after a restless night’s sleep, that pain-in-the-ass commute becomes a little more tolerable. It’s that good, I assure you.

“So I Can Love You” – The Emotions 2:50 (So I Can Love You, Stax 1970)