The Intentions – Dig It (Shovel)

This is an interesting soul/funk 45 out of Chicago that would appear to date from about 1969/70. Not much is known about the group & I have been told by different people that they were & weren't the same group that recorded for Blue Light as the Intensions, so that just really confuses things. It has also been mentioned that the group may be related in some way to the Pharaohs that have the Scarab & Capitol 45s? The A side is "Dig It (Shovel)" & it is a great piece of group funk while the flip "Blowing In The Wind" is a sublime piece of sweet soul. Recommended if you like records that sound like East of Underground.

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Update (July 28th 2008): It appears that The Intentions are essentially The Pharaohs under a different name. This 45 is likely to be from around 1971 and their guise of The Intentions doesn't appear to have been used for anything other than this 45. Thanks to Rob Sevier for this extra info.

Update 2 (January 22nd 2009): The Intentions was actually a 5 man vocal group consisting of: Anthony Thomas, Maceo Thomas, Corneilus President, Richard Weddington and Reggie Cotton. They did all of the vocals on Dig it and Blowing With The Wind. The Pharaohs were the backing band in the studio. Members of The Pharaohs wrote the songs & musical arrangements while The Intentions did the vocal arrangements. The 45 was released in the winter of 1970. The song "Dig It" was actually co-written by D. Myrick who actually was Don Myrick of Earth,Wind & Fire, who was most famous not only for being a member of EWF but played the sax solo on the EWF hit song "Reasons" and Fred Walker (Derf Reklaw). Charles Handy composed the flip. The bassist of the Pharaohs also ended up as a member of EWF, as a trombone player in their horn section, his name was Louis Satterfield. Most of their horn section wound up becoming members of EWF. Both songs "Dig it" and "Blowing with the Wind" were done in one day, in one take. It was recorded at Les Tuckers Studio which was then located on the north side of Chicago. This is the same studio where the famous children's Christmas classic Hardrock, CoCo & Joe was recorded and is still aired every Christmas in Chicago.
Thanks & much respect to Reggie Cotton for this new information & Rob Sevier for tracking people down & allowing information to become available.

Filed under: 45's and 7's, Soul / Funk