Hot Soul From Elijah & The Ebonites

Elijah & The Ebonites “Pure Soul” (Loren, 1970)
  • Listen to this song on youtube: Pure Soul
  • Listen to these 45s in a Spotify playlist here with other 45s from the blog (though note, spotify doesn’t have all / many of the songs featured on the site so some playlists may be incomplete or feature slightly different versions than the original 45s I’m referring to here.
  • Listen to this song on the Musical Episode #016 : Singles Mixer v.5 Podcast

Today’s 45 comes from Elijah Hawthorne and The Ebonites hailing from Greenville, SC but released on Bill Moss’ Capsoul empire, in this case his Loren subsidiary based out of Columbus, Ohio.

This disc of unrelenting, feel good funk stands on its own as a fine piece of music, with soulful musicianship weaving together guitars that would keep a dance-floor hopping for hours on end but its release history is also a bit interesting.  The “Pure Soul” side featured here today was originally released by the Superior label before it was picked up by Moss who tacked on the also-killer instrumental version of his anthem “Sock it to em Soul Brother” (which was featured here a while back).  The temptation would be to think Elijah and the Ebonites were the Capsoul house band but you can tell clear as day the Soul Brother side is the same track that Bill Moss song on (with the punched in guitar lead and the triumphant horns), sans vocals a year before. 

Now that wouldn’t be note-worthy in most instances but the feature side here today, Pure Soul, was released again in 1974 on the Capsoul label proper with vocals added by none other than Mr. Moss under the title “Hot Grits!!!”  A little instrumental tit for tat.  There’s not a lot of historiography here, all the versions of these songs are winners and we’re all lucky to have had them tossed around a little bit, ending up with MORE to enjoy rather than a one-off group, with a one-off single and no info to be found.

Hope you enjoy today’s 45 and just a note, I’ll be taking down the older singles on here and combining them into the next volume of Singles Mixer, so if you like the tracks separated like me, grab em soon.

Until our next musical episode,

-George / Snack Attack

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