The Boys Are Back

A cynic could argue that in the early '80s, Rick James saved his best songs for himself and gave his second-rate material to the Stone City Band. But second-rate doesn't mean bad; while the SCB releases James produced in the early '80s aren't in a class with Street Songs, Fire It Up, or Come Get It!, they aren't bad albums either. The second SCB project that James produced was 1981's uneven The Boys Are Back, which finds Levi Ruffin Jr. handling the lead vocals and James writing or co-writing three of the eight songs. This LP gets off to a weak start with a lackluster, new wave-ish version of the Kinks' "All Day and All of the Night," but the other selections are at least competent; and that includes the soul ballad "Keep Love Happy" as well as up-tempo funk items like James' "Freaky" and Ruffin's "Feel Good 'Bout Yourself." Although James doesn't do any lead singing on The Boys Are Back, his stamp is all over most of the material. The exception is "Tin Soldier," an instrumental that SCB guitarist Tom McDermott contributed. While the rest of the LP is very James-sounding, "Tin Soldier" is pure jazz fusion and sounds like something you would expect from Return to Forever, Larry Coryell, or the Mahavishnu Orchestra. It should be noted that The Boys Are Back came out around the same time as Street Songs; while that classic went multi-platinum and is widely regarded as James most essential album, The Boys Are Back received little attention and died a quick death.