Lonely Man

Lonely Man

Other male soul groups could step off the macho tip, but even the Temptations had to pray for rain before letting their feelings flow. Eugene Record's Chi-Lites, on the other hand, didn't even allow themselves the face-saver of a loudly pained lead vocal. When Record wandered through the city looking for the most basic succor of a glimpse of his lost lover's face on "Have You Seen Her," his bewilderment and fear were fully on display. And rather than offer a full-throated paean to her replacement on "Oh Girl," issued a few months later in the summer of '72, the group instead focused on how wrecked the guy would be were <I>she</I> to leave, too. The Chi-Lites' records were so perfectly conceived and performed, however, that even their occasional brazen leap into the tough-guy ("Are You My Woman") or social-comment slot ("Give More Power to the People") remained credible in light of the devastation that marked most of their work. <I>--Rickey Wright</I>