What's not to love about Eric Gale? Every student guitarist should disappear into a deep dark hole with his releases and not be allowed out until they've extracted every soulful drop from his sound. These last two of his Columbia recordings give a little insight into why he was the first call for all the soul greats, from Aretha to Roberta, let alone Michael Jackson. Part Of You has some of the slickness and synth drum accoutrements of the era, but even so there's more expression in one bent note of Gale's (only BB King's vibrato compares) than in a bucket load of his high velocity, high volume contemporaries. Part Of You is at its core Gales's funk outfit, Stuff, (Gadd and Mason together, whoa... light the blue touch paper and get the hell out of there!) but Touch Of Silk is even better. It's rootsier in feel thanks to five cuts produced by Allen Toussaint who brings what Quincy Jones calls a ‘swamp funk’ vibe to the project. And for good measure, the cuts not covered by Toussaint are recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's and include a roogalating, organ-driven take on Bird's ‘Au Privave’ (which iTunes, bless 'em, re-translate as ‘Au Private’). It features Arthur Blythe (no less) and Harold Vick given space to go do-lally. Bop-tastic. And there's still space to romance your lady by candlelight with ‘Live To Love’. Oh, Eric, where's your likeness now?