The Other Best Intergalactic Soul Song Ever Made: Gabor Szabo – Keep Smilin’

Gabor Szabo – Keep Smilin’. This song is crazy good. So soulful. More proof the 70s were the best era ever in music. Amazing blend of drums, percussion, analog synths, bass, horns, jazz guitar, etc. When people made music with full bands. Reminiscent to me of some Arthur Verocai like his song Bis.

Review from AMG via discomusic.com:

“Philadelphia soul meets European-born jazz guitarist Gabor Szabo, who plays with so much sensitivity it makes you cry. The break offers Szabo‘s surprise vocal of the chorus from William Devaughn‘s “Be Thankful for What You Got” — “rabbit in the back, sunroof top, digging the scene in (with?) a Philly lean.” The tune is an unlikely collaboration of Szabo with Philly songwriter/producer “Bunny” Sigler and was written by Sigler and Alan Felder; the rhythm players are the regular Philly session guys. The LP that spawned this song is panned by critics but was the Hungarian-born guitarist’s most significant album on soul radio and remains a favorite of many soul/ jazz fans. Instead of judging this song and the album from which it came to classic jazz pieces, both should be judged for what the producer and artist were trying to do, which was to make a European jazz guitarist palatable to urban/ soul audiences, which they succeeded in doing. “